Saturday, February 7, 2009

We Can't Wait #14 The Tree of Life

Directed by the no longer totally unprolific Terrence Malick
Starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and three child actors (Sean Penn and Fiona Shaw also appear)
Synopsis
is vague --something about a young family in the 1950s and the loss of innocence. But do Malick's plots ever inspire "ooh!"s. No, it's the filmmaking. Bring on the shots of grass, trees and skies!

Brought to you by
Plan B Entertainment (originally founded by Brad Grey, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

Expected Release Date
It's Malick. I won't even try to guess


Nathaniel: Malick has directed only four features in his lifetime (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The New World) and each time we lose several critics to The Rapture when they surface. Since it made other lists besides mine, I assume you're disciples?

JA: I got to see Badlands on a big screen last year, and that pretty much cemented the fact that I will never ever ever miss a Malick movie on a big screen ever again. I'd only seen his films on DVD before that and, while enjoying them all, it's just not the same. So very much pretty.

And Malick's eye (via Lubezki's eye) trained on Pitt amongst that foliage has already got me standing at attention.

Joe: Oy. Not to in any way slight Badlands, because that movie was the absolute greatest, but The Thin Red Line was absolutely unbearable to me, and I didn't even make it through half of The New World before shutting it off. I'm sorry, I couldn't deal. I know this makes me middlebrow and pedestrian to say this but holy god they were just so boring. So no, this didn't exactly make my list. I love Emmanuel Lubezki, y'all, but I can just watch Children of Men again the week this one opens.

Whitney: Malick has made my top directors list for a long time, so to find out that he's directing a movie this year totally made my day. Really, I was telling everyone I knew that he was making a new movie and that Brad Pitt was starring. Even my mom, whose latest dip into the cinema world was Eagle Eye ("too much swearing") and who didn't care at all.

It will be like The Assassination of Jesse James, but with the real Malick. I wonder what thought-provoking classical music he'll choose this time??!



Fox:
I'm glad to see that The Tree of Life is shaping up to be primarily Pitt's film and that Sean Penn simply "also appears". I really don't wanna see any more of that guy for a looong (three Os!!!) time. Maybe he can vacate with the Winslets for awhile?

But, unlike Joe, I was glued to The New World and casually consider it to be the best film of the 00's. It came on and wrapped around my head for three hours (or however long it was). I get into a trance when watching Malick's films. I think his dedication to the purest form of cinema is something we should celebrate while we still have him around.

Nathaniel: I go all hypnotized, too. But don't get too excited about the absence of Penn, Fox. Malick loves the voiceover as much as I love a good musical number. I ain't exaggerating! (Weird that I love Malick so much since I despise narration as a general rule???). And since Penn is credited as "adult Jack" I assume he's one of the boys all growed up (unless his parents had a really weird sense of humor) and therefore narrating.

I'm totally curious how all the readers feel about Malick, though. Not to be terribly reductive but his visuals tend to either entrance or provide the cure for insomnia. Which is it for you out there?

In case you missed any entries they went like so...
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We Can't Wait:
#1 Inglourious Basterds, #2 Where the Wild Things Are, #3 Fantastic Mr. Fox,
#4 Avatar, #5 Bright Star, #6 Shutter Island, #7 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
#8 Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, #9 Nailed,
#10 Taking Woodstock,
#11 Watchmen, #12 The Hurt Locker, #13 The Road, #14 The Tree of Life
#15 Away We Go, #16 500 Days of Summer, #17 Drag Me To Hell,
#18 Whatever Works, #19 Broken Embraces, #20 Nine (the musical)
intro (orphans -didn't make group list)

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