Movie Watch! - Old Joy

Old Joy (2006) - Something like an extended short at just 76 minutes, Kelly Reichardt creates a quiet, tonal portrait of two men who reunite for a camping trip into the Cascades in Oregon. Daniel London and Will Oldham play Mark and Kurt, who appear to be old friends who loved to just sit back in the wild and enjoy life. The former is now a North-Face-carrying, cell-phone -toting, Volvo-driving Oregon guppie (green yuppie, practically ubiquitous in modern Portland), the latter seems lost in the city and mired in the state of unproductive existence that Mark left behind a long time ago. Mark's wife is pregnant, so this trip should be a last hurrah for old time's sake, but the two men get together and realize maybe things aren't exactly the way they used to be. Maybe things just don't stay the same forever and we just don't realize when even the closest of relationships start fading away. Far from cathartic, there is a subtle, wistful charm and a existential, haunting melancholy amongst all the glorious, terrestrial beauty, perfectly accompanied by an original soundtrack by Yo La Tengo. 7.5/10