Brad Pitt/Sean Penn

87% on Rotten Tomatoes

Saw this today. It's not for everybody, but I thought it was really good. Don't give up after the slow start, it progresses very nicely.

6/25/2011 1:51:59 AM

I also really enjoyed it...it's one of those films where you could watch it 10 times and still not pick up on everything. It's also incredibly beautiful, and it has dinosaurs so there's that.

[Edited on June 25, 2011 at 3:17 AM. Reason : Also Malick could have given Sean Penn a bit more to do.]

6/25/2011 3:15:51 AM

it's so far out there compared to his other films

and I guess by that I just mean that it seems very self-indulgent and (presumably) personal

the ending is unsatisfying

beautiful movie, but bleh

6/25/2011 9:59:28 AM

^ Indeed.

Not to mention preachy.

2 hours of cinematography masturbation.

6/25/2011 10:18:23 AM

I love all of Malick's other movies, but I didn't care for this at all.

6/25/2011 10:37:24 AM

Quote :

"Not to mention preachy."

I found the last two movie theater movies I saw (X-Men and Super 8) to be way more preachy

the composition and the music were beautiful

but what I liked most about it was how it conveyed a spirituality akin to a psychedelic experience

Quote :

"it seems very self-indulgent and (presumably) personal"

really? I thought its was (quite literally, at times) universal in scope

I found out after I saw the movie that Malick was from Waco and came of age in the same time period as the kids in the story, but the individuals depicted aren't what the movie was about to me; no more so than a piece of music is about the instruments used to play it

[Edited on June 25, 2011 at 11:46 AM. Reason : ...]

6/25/2011 11:38:40 AM

the trailer reminds me of The Fountain

that is all

6/25/2011 12:13:21 PM

Quote :

"really? I thought its was (quite literally, at times) universal in scope I found out after I saw the movie that Malick was from Waco and came of age in the same time period as the kids in the story, but the individuals depicted aren't what the movie was about to me; no more so than a piece of music is about the instruments used to play it"

I actually liked the Hubble sequence, I just wish I had expected it after the introduction to the story with the family. I was just thrown by the way he was using plot in this film because it was unlike all of his other films: usually there is a cohesive plot with the threads of the natural world throughout it. This film is basically the inverse.

The ending seemed like a cop-out, super sentimental. I think that bothered me the most.

6/25/2011 1:11:22 PM

I'm psyched to see it, but hearing StillFuchsia describe any movie as "so far out there" is kinda

It's at Galaxy now, btw. I didn't work last night but heard we had a couple of walk outs.

6/25/2011 1:48:03 PM

Also Fox Searchlight suggested getting stoned before seeing it on twitter, which was pretty amusing.

[Edited on June 25, 2011 at 2:41 PM. Reason : .]

6/25/2011 2:38:03 PM

^ & ^^
Some old bag in the row in front of me walked out after 30 minutes. (Galaxy) Never understood that, I've never had the slightest inclination to walk out of a movie I paid for, no matter how shitty.

6/25/2011 5:49:42 PM

^

There is an opportunity cost associated with sitting through a whole movie if it's that bad. I have walked out on movies before. There were 5 walk outs at the Rialto when I saw it. I can't believe Midnight in Paris was only there a week.

6/25/2011 5:54:00 PM

Quote :

"I'm psyched to see it, but hearing StillFuchsia describe any movie as "so far out there" is kinda "

Yeah, I know

I mean, my favorite film features chicken feet, a dismembered hand and a flock of sheep

It just wasn't what I expected from a Malick film

6/25/2011 7:30:34 PM

I really want to see both Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris

I'm a pretty open-minded viewer and I could sit through an awful movie so long as it is visually appealing

Tree of Life is very visually appealing from what I've seen in the trailer and I really love Pitt so I think I'd enjoy it.

WAIT UP.... They pulled out Midnight in Paris after just a WEEK at the Rialto? No way.

6/25/2011 11:22:57 PM

^
Just go to the Galaxy, it's a better theater anyway.

6/26/2011 12:31:13 AM

is this like a darker A River Runs Through It meets This Boy's Life

looks interesting

6/26/2011 12:42:44 AM

I want to see it. I feel like I'm about the only one that loves far out there movies that by majority are deemed terrible.

6/26/2011 12:45:33 AM

Quote :

"is this like a darker A River Runs Through It meets This Boy's Life"

add 2001: A Space Odyssey to the mix and that's a much closer approximation

6/26/2011 10:25:20 AM

Quote :

"WAIT UP.... They pulled out Midnight in Paris after just a WEEK at the Rialto? No way."

They had to move it to The Colony to make room for Tree of Life. I've got six screens and damn near pull my hair out because I don't have enough room to play everything I'd like to--I can't imagine the hassle of only having three (spread out over two locations).

6/26/2011 10:57:21 AM

I think I'm going to Galaxy today but I haven't decided yet which to go see. I'll eventually see both anyway, though.

6/26/2011 12:41:32 PM

Midnight in Paris was so much better

and it got about 5 million extra cool points for alluding to Exterminating Angel

6/26/2011 8:17:23 PM

Saw it

loved it.

Will see Midnight in Paris soon.

6/27/2011 12:36:58 AM

Saw it

loved it.

Will see Midnight in Paris soon.

6/27/2011 12:38:54 AM

I was very, very moved by this film. I hadn't emotionally connected to a movie that much in a long time. It's a beautiful, spiritual, profound, touching film.

Honestly couldn't have possibly been more blown away by it; I highly recommend that anyone with a healthy curiosity go see this film, and that you approach it with an open mind and that same curiosity. The film definitely gives you a lot of room to think about a lot of heavy things.

6/27/2011 1:21:25 AM

^x14

The one and only movie I ever walked out of was Saw 2. This was at the $1.50 theater too

6/28/2011 1:26:04 AM

haha I walked out of Nacho Libre and demanded my money back and they gave me free passes for another movie

pathetic fucking movie.

6/28/2011 2:07:28 AM

i thought it was pretentious, but also very ambitious. I don't think anyone will argue its visual achievements. As for the plot, I thought it was coherent, and enjoyable. But it didn't blow me away. I can see why some find it preachy. I found it to be more "direct and consistent" than "preachy" however.

And I guess there is a ton of self-indulgence in the sense that it seems Malick made exactly what he wanted to make/see and then just put it out there for viewers to observe. I'm not sure that's really a negative in the arts -- or even entirely possible for that matter. If he was trying to make a summer blockbuster (a product for some major studio)... sure, there's far too much self-indulgence. But that's not the intent in this instance. This is more akin to a piece of fine art created for the artist himself, and then some gallery chose to put it on display. Again, I'm not sure the concept of self-indulgence truly applies in that scenario.

I'd say if you're remotely interested in this, see it and decide for yourself. Just know what you're going into -- but I imagine most who have any interest at this point have some idea of what to expect.

[Edited on July 5, 2011 at 1:32 AM. Reason : .]

7/5/2011 1:27:26 AM

missed the edit window by just a few minutes

I really enjoyed the voyeuristic feel of certain parts of the film (better accomplished in some spots than others). They did a great job of making it seem like you were really just on observer of any particular moment and that the scene wasn't taking place for a viewer. I know that may sound/seem a little silly since that is an overall goal of most movies. But it's rarely as well done as in this instance imo.

[Edited on July 5, 2011 at 2:08 AM. Reason : .]

7/5/2011 2:06:01 AM

I haven't watched the trailer or anything.

For those of you who have seen it, do you have to be spiritual or religious to appreciate the film?

7/5/2011 2:23:56 AM

I'm definitely not religious. Spiritual... ehh, at times I guess I have made that claim. But no, I don't think you need to be spiritual and definitely not religous to appreciate the film. That's partially assuming that regardless of your own beliefs and ideas, you don't simply ignore the fact that others may have those ideas, beliefs, or simply questions of such. And I thought the overall message was very universal.

It does open with a bible verse. but so do tons of other movies/stories and I imagine you appreciate some of those.

7/5/2011 2:48:36 AM

^^Well, I wouldn't say the movie is religious in any sense of that word. However, a case could easily be made that the movie is spiritual in content--chiefly, the ending is probably viewed by many as exploring spirituality.

That said, I certainly don't think you have to be spiritual to enjoy the film. It'd be pretty easy to just watch the movie for its aesthetic and aural beauty and solely appreciate that aspect of the film. It's a formal beauty that I think anyone could appreciate. For that reason, I'd say see the film regardless. However, I do think that where you are on the spectrum in regard to spirituality will go a long way in determining your reaction to the content of the story, especially the ending.

7/5/2011 11:36:36 AM

Quote :

"I haven't watched the trailer or anything. For those of you who have seen it, do you have to be spiritual or religious to appreciate the film?"

Absolutely not. I'm neither and liked it.

7/5/2011 2:43:42 PM

Great movie, Malick's trademark cinematography is a guilty pleasure of mine

9/29/2011 10:31:13 PM

I thought this was a really interesting article:
The Malick-ing of the mainstream: Is technology making it too easy for cinema and TV to look beautiful?

Quote :

"I’m used to mockery of modern art. I’ve seen plenty of old Hollywood movies and read lots of vintage New Yorker cartoons. And nowadays, even museums and art-friendly websites strive to be in on the joke, with their “Rothko Paint-By-Numbers” kits and “DIY Jackson Pollock.” Whether the intention is to skewer the art world’s pretensions or warmly embrace its quirkiness, the underlying premise is essentially the same: “Anyone could do this.” But I’ve never seen anything like the Forrest Wickman piece that ran in Slate earlier this year, in conjunction with the release of Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life. Wickman constructed a video quiz, asking readers to guess whether a given shot was from a Malick film or a nature documentary. The joke was good-natured (maybe), but still mildly alarming. Malick has a reputation as one of cinema’s premier visual stylists. Even people who find his movies inscrutable will admit that they at least look beautiful, full of images that linger in the mind long after the closing credits. And now here’s Wickman, suggesting that Malick isn’t doing anything you couldn’t see on Discovery HD. So here’s my question: Even if you accept the premise that there’s no significant distinction between The Tree Of Life and, say, Earth (visually speaking, anyway), does this really speak badly of Malick? Or does it just speak well of the advancements in nature-doc cinematography? Because I have to admit, there is something of a beauty-boom afoot. I used to be able to distinguish the kinds of movies I’d see at the Sundance Film Festival from the kind I’d see in Toronto largely by how they looked. Toronto tends to favor world-cinema auteurs more beholden to pictures than words, while Sundance traditionally champions American indie filmmakers who’ll spent three years workshopping a script and three minutes thinking about how to shoot it. I can’t say that dichotomy is so blatant anymore, though. The advent of digital technology hasn’t just made the basic tools of filmmaking easier to obtain, it’s also narrowed the gap between the master cinematographers and the novices with a decent sense of composition. On the whole, it’s easier in 2011 to light and shoot and make a scene look good than it was a decade ago. I’ve even noticed this trend on television. Since the advent of HD, TV has become more “cinematic,” though early on, that mainly meant procedurals and adventure shows had the kinetic style and frenetic editing of a Tony Scott or Michael Bay film. This season, though, I can tell that the producers of network shows have spent a lot of time watching cable—specifically The Shield and Breaking Bad. Even gimmicky case-of-the-week-ers like Unforgettable and Person Of Interest are experimenting with off-kilter camera angles, editing tricks, and mood lighting to enhance the storytelling. The visuals are no longer merely functional, or merely slick and gleaming. Is this a bad trend? Not necessarily. One of the chief pleasure of any visual medium is how attractive it looks, and whenever a film or TV show makes an effort to depict the world in a way that’s eye-catching, that’s a boon. That said, I do find it harder now to hail an independent film solely for its visuals. If the dialogue is clunky, the performances amateurish, and the plotting overdone, then an amazing use of natural light and vivid color is no longer as redemptive as it used to be. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying I could hand a high-end digital camera to anyone on the street and they’d come back with footage to rival Christopher Doyle. It’s still necessary for cinematographers to have “an eye,” and it’s more than helpful if they’ve studied the craft. I’m just saying that realizing a vision doesn’t take as much arcane knowledge as it once did, back in the days when Vilmos Zsigmond was baking film stock. We now live in the age of Instagram. If anything, the reaction against beauty may be behind the enthusiastic reception of the grubby indie romance Bellflower in some critical circles. Or at least it’s partly behind my reception. I think Bellflower is a mess of a movie, which I admire as a bizarrely literal, bloody dramatization of how it feels to live through a bad breakup, even as I acknowledge that pretty much the last third of the film is incoherent. But when I saw Bellflower at Sundance, I enjoyed its can-do spirit and often purposefully ugly look, which is like a ’70s drive-in movie viewed through a bug-spattered windshield. In a festival full of movies that were either flat or tastefully pretty, here was one eager to show off some scars. I dug the contrast. As for The Tree Of Life, I missed it when it was in theaters—the perils of living in a small town—but I watched the Blu-ray, which came out this week. And what can I say? The movie is beautiful. Malick tells the story of life on Earth from the age of the dinosaurs to the afterlife, focusing on how cruelty and grace are interwoven into the natural order, and anchoring the whole enterprise to a possibly autobiographical story about a young mid-20th-century Texan being raised by a demanding-but-loving father and a sweet-but-weak mother. Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki carry forward the “grasslands at magic hour” look that Malick has clung to since Badlands and Days Of Heaven, but The Tree Of Life also gazes up at steel and glass skyscrapers, and tracks through the stone and sand of a metaphysical plane. And Malick plays around with a semi-subjective shooting style that conveys the world as experienced by a child: low to the ground, limited, and constantly in motion. In short: The Tree Of Life ain’t just limbs and leaves swaying gently in the breeze. As clever as it may be to look at a splash of paint on a canvas and grunt, “That’s like something my kid made,” or to sniff that a beautifully shot movie is like a perfume commercial, there’s a context that ought to be considered. The arc of an art form’s history matters. The arc of an artist’s career matters. How an image fits into an exhibition—or a narrative—matters. This doesn’t give every bona fide master a free pass, mind you. The Tree Of Life, for example, tries too hard at times, and strains for profundity. But it achieves profundity frequently too, especially in any scene where Brad Pitt as the hero’s stern father tries to express his affection through his curt commands. (It’s refreshing to see a movie about an overbearing dad that acknowledges the love that’s mixed in with the brusqueness.)The problem with the relative ease with which filmmakers can capture beauty onscreen these days is that it makes beauty seem less hard-won, and thus less special. But the true artists can still imbue beauty with real meaning. With The Tree Of Life, it isn’t just that Malick and Lubezki give a dreamlike feel to a scene of boys running through a cloud of pesticide in a lovely Texas neighborhood, it’s that the shot conveys a sense of wonder amid an atmosphere that’s literally poisonous, and thus reinforces one of the movie’s major themes. A pretty picture is a pretty picture. But throughout his career, Malick has confidently answered the question Pauline Kael once launched at Richard Lester: “It’s a great technique, but what can you do with it?”"

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-malicking-of-the-mainstream-is-technology-maki,63252/

10/12/2011 4:04:57 PM

this was the most stressful movie i've ever seen. i almost had to leave i was so stressed out.

10/12/2011 4:39:25 PM