Sweet, alright, it looks like the 4/20 thing on Amazon — the film going straight to DVD — was a joke. 4/20, ah we should have spotted the jest, but sadly, our pot days are behind us.
But the good news is that Tim Blake Nelson’s Greek tragedy, stoner-dramedy “Leaves Of Grass” (yes, it’s much more complex than it looks) is finally getting a release date of April 2, right after it appears at the SXSW Film Festival in March.
The film stars Edward Norton, Edward Norton (playing his own twin), Keri Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Melanie Lynskey, Susan Sarandon and Blake Nelson himself. We saw it at TIFF and were kind of taken aback by it (you can also read a deeper review here). It’s a multi-layered film, juggles multiple tones, is complex, is often times unexpectedly violent, then funny and then totally tragic. We suspect it’s not for everyone, but we loved the shear scope and ambition. “Leaves” has managed to successfully cram a lot into one picture, and at the very least, it surely evinces that Tim Blake Nelson is erudite, as smart as a whip and can write a mean screenplay. It’s really no wonder that Nelson’s buddy, Ed Norton, first balked at starring in the picture, but after reading the script, felt compelled to take on the role.
Part crime drama, part comedy, part very affecting family drama, “Leaves of Grass” centers on an Ivy League professor (Norton) who is lured back to his Oklahoma hometown, where his twin brother (Norton), a small-time pot grower, has concocted a scheme to take down a local drug lord (Dreyfuss). Sarandon plays the Norton boys’ mother. Russell plays the love interest.
First Look Pictures is releasing the film and they’ve also doled out some new photos, which you can see here. In the past, FLP hasn’t had much reach — they’re known for the almost-straight-to-DVD release of Lindsay Lohan’s “Labor Pains,” — but in the past 10 months, the company has acquired two interesting films, “Leaves of Grass” and Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” so maybe they’re trying to branch out beyond straight-to-DVD B-movies? Either way, ‘Bad Lieutenant’ came out in very small limited release and grew to a total of about 35 screen across the entire U.S., so we wouldn’t expect ‘Grass’ to receive anything wider. If you live in a major city, however, you should be able to catch this one.
It’s not perfect, but it’s just so odd and different from everything we’ve seen out there. If Sam Rockwell saw all kinds of praise for playing two different characters reacting to one another in “Moon” — a tough gig for sure — Norton should equally get the same kind of plaudits.
Either way, if you have a chance, try and see this one when it hits in limited release on April 2 (4/20 would be better, but that’s also a Tuesday). We even included it on our 30 Films of 2010 We’ve Already Seen That You Should Too.
