Prince Avalanche at the Tribeca Film Festival

Striking a balance between his elliptical independent films and his gag-loaded mainstream comedies, David Gordon Green's Prince Avalanche features Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch as a mismatched two-man road crew painting lines through a fire-ravaged patch of Texas. It's funny, yes ("If you were in beauty pageants, what would your special talent be?" "Triple jump." "What's that?" "It's three jumps."), but also moving: the bond between Rudd and Hirsch feels genuine and warmhearted, and the scene between Rudd and Joyce Payne (an actual victim of a fire whom the producers wandered across during the shoot) is as dazzling and inventive as anything in George Washington. Given the sharp divides among Green's fan bases, he might have just done the impossible --- made a movie that pleases everyone.