Author Archives: Frank Mengarelli

Oct 1 2011

Kurt Russell Replaces Kevin Costner as Ace Woody in Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained”

 

 

    The Wrap is reporting (I’m assuming they are legit) that Kurt Russell is replacing Kevin Costner in Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” due out Christmas Day 2012. Kevin Costner apparently signed on the soon to be filmed western; prior to Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson signing onto the film. Jami Foxx will play the lead, while Christoph Waltz will co-star.

    Costner dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. As far as I know he’s done filming his scenes as Jonathan Kent in Zach Snyder’s “Man of Steel”. The only project he has lined up is a History Channel miniseries, “The Hatfield’s & McCoy’s” starring Costner and Bill Paxton as the family patriarchs. I mean, that’s cool and all, but I would have much rather seen Costner in a Tarantino movie!

    I was waiting to see who was going to be recast. I was really hoping for something to get me excited. I was hoping Tarantino was going to announce some prior player who is overdue for an appearance. Harvey Keitel, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, heck – I’d even get excited over Michael Madsen or John Travolta!

    Leave it to Tarantino to cast the perfect heavy, Kurt Russell. Russell has somehow evaded movies over the past decade. He’s popped up in family friendly movies like “Miracle” and some horse movie with Dakota Fanning.

    Ace Woody is the right hand man of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is supposed to be a wickedly sinister villain. I’m really excited about this. How could you not be?

    I really wish that I liked “Death Proof” more. I really like the first quarter, but when the second group of women comes into the film, I’m bored to death (har har). But, “Death Proof” did have Kurt Russell. For as flawed as that film is, Kurt Russell owns every single frame he’s in.

    Here’s to Kurt Russell bringing sexy back.

Sep 29 2011

“Moneyball” – 2011 Dir. Bennett Miller

With Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robin Wright with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Arliss Howard

    When I think about events, moments or people who have changed the game of baseball I think of Ty Cobb, the Mantle/Marris battle over the homerun title, Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose, steroids – I could play this game forever (and I would like to), but to me, moneyball isn’t one of them.

This film is incredibly taut, and it looks great. The film builds momentum and flows incredibly well. This is a good film, but I have a couple of issues with it.

    The first is that I think this film tries too hard to make Billy Beane the ultimate alpha male. As the film progresses, Beane strong-arms whoever he needs to, to ensure that his team is played the way he wants it played, even when the manager Art Howe (Hoffman) doesn’t agree with Beane’s moneyball idea, Beane doesn’t just strong-arm Howe to get his way, he cuts him off at the knees.

I feel like they tried too hard to make Beane a badass, and instead Beane comes across as bitter, tormented man who doesn’t really give a shit about baseball, he just wants to repair his damaged legacy (Billy Beane was a high school stud at baseball, and skipped a full ride to Stanford to play in the majors. He ended up being an incredible bust). Pitt doesn’t do anything he hasn’t done already, and he doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. It feels like he’s doing a Robert Redford impression, which is fine, because Pitt impersonating Redford is better than most actors above average performance. That being said, I still found the character of Billy Beane unlikeable.

The idea of moneyball, in which Billy Beane introduced to baseball, is a hybrid of economic theory applied to stats of athletes. This film tries to make the case that moneyball has changed the game forever in a profound way, but I don’t agree. I think that some teams have adopted certain aspects of the idea, but the idea hasn’t fully been accepted as the film would like to make it out to be.

The season the Oakland Athletics won their division using this whole moneyball idea, there are three glaring omissions the film makes, as for the reason they were so incredible. Those omissions are: Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito who make up one of the best pitching trios in recent baseball memory.

One thing I really enjoyed was how Arliss Howard, who is one of my favorite actors, made a cameo as John Henry the owner of the Boston Red Sox. I felt like Miller added Howard to the cast as a nod to “The Sandlot” since Howard plays the adult Scotty Smalls.

I think Howard is an interesting choice to cameo in the film. When I think of other actors who would have made an effect cameo in baseball movie like Robert Redford and Kevin Costner, I think that would have been a little much, and would have distracted us.

    I’m very perplexed with writing this review. I think this film makes moneyball sound like it’s the most important thing to happen to baseball, which I don’t agree with. But this movie is made very well, and it did relight my passion for baseball that has been almost nonexistent since the steroid scandal.

The Oakland Athletics still haven’t won a World Series, let alone gotten to one. They remained solid after the 2003 season, but have then since slid back down in the standings year after year. Billy Beane is still the general manager.

Rating: 7/10

Sep 19 2011

50 Greatest Movie Villains!

After a weekends worth of thoughts, here it is…

 

50. Wayne Newton, “National Lampoons Vegas Vacation”

“Would you like some pasta? It’s Steve Martin’s recipe.”

    

49. The Great Danton (Hugh Jackman), “The Prestige”


48. Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me”.


47. Bernie Rose, “Drive”


46. Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), “Cliffhanger”


45. Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), “Lone Star”


44. Aaron (Edward Norton), “Primal Fear”


43. Colin (Matt Damon), “The Departed”


42. Drill Sergeant (R. Lee Ermey), “Full Metal Jacket”


41. Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges), “The Jagged Edge”


40. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford), “What Lies Beneath”


39. Noah Cross (John Huston), “Chinatown”


38. Alex Frost (Glenn Close), “Fatal Attraction”


37. Private Detective (M. Emmet Walsh), “Blood Simple”


36. Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), “The Graduate”


35. Barbra Covett (Judi Dench), “Notes on a Scandal”


34. Senator Shelly Runyon, R – IL (Gary Oldman), “The Contender”


33. Richie Cussak (William Hurt), “A History of Violence”


32. Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), “Network”


31. Vic Vega (Michael Madsen), “Reservoir Dogs”


30. The Overlook Hotel, “The Shinning”


29. The Man with No Eyes (Morgan Woodward), “Cool Hand Luke”


28. Max Cady (Robert DeNiro & Robert Mitchum), “Cape Fear”


27. Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), the Star Wars films


26. Beth (Mary Tyler Moore), “Ordinary People”


25. John Doe (Kevin Spacey), “Se7en”


24. Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), “Body Heat”


23. The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), “The Wizard of Oz”


22. Scar (Jeremy Irons), “The Lion King”


21. Sport (Harvey Keitel), “Taxi Driver”


20. Frank Black (Henry Fonda), “Once Upon a Time in the West”


“Is it safe?”

19. Szell (Laurence Olivier), “Marathon Man”


18. Glen Whitehouse (James Coburn), “Affliction”


17. Jack Wilson (Jack Palance), “Shane”


16. Minnie Casavet (Ruth Gordon), “Rosemary’s Baby”


15. Dr. Hannibal Lector (Brian Cox), “Manhunter”


14. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), “Wall Street”


“Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.”

13. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), “Die Hard”


12. Ernst Stavro Blofed (Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Grey) The James Bond films


11. Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), “Gangs of New York”


10. The Joker (Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger), “Batman”, “The Dark Knight”


9. Little Bill Daget (Gene Hackman), “Unforgiven”


8. Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), “Platoon”


7. Keyser Soze (Kevin Spacey), “The Usual Suspects”


6. Anton Chigurn (Javier Bardem), “No Country for Old Men”


5. Captain Dudley Smithe (James Cromwell), “L.A. Confidential”


4. Frank Boothe (Dennis Hopper – RIP), “Blue Velvet”


3. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”


2. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), “Night of the Hunter”


1. Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), “Schindler’s List”

 

 


 

Sep 19 2011

“Drive” – 2011 Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

With Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac with Bryan Cranston and Albert Brooks

“My hands are dirty.”

“So are mine.”

    Imagine an early 1980′s film starring William Petersen as a stunt driver in Hollywood who moonlights as a wheelman, Willie Nelson as his mentor, Stephen Lang as an obnoxious underling for a mob boss played by Jerry Lewis. Now imagine this film with a wonderfully electronic musical sound, and it’s a gritty street film directed by Michael Mann. That’s sounds like a masterpiece doesn’t it? Well that’s exactly what “Drive” is, a Michael Mann masterpiece that isn’t directed by Michael Mann.

Here, our antihero played by Ryan Gosling is the 21st Century Man with No Name esq character who is silent, cool and calm under every circumstance that he comes across. Gosling gets thrown into an arena of carnage by his own doing by helping out damsel in distress, Carey Mulligan, and by his mentor Bryan Cranston.

    The two storylines merge together where we meet the villains of the films, two Jewish mobsters, Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks. Perlman’s over-the-top performance is very well countered and balanced by Albert Brooks incredible turn as the subtle good/creepy/scary mob boss Bernie Rose. Albert Brooks joins the elite tier of joining fellow contemporary, deglamourized mob bosses of Armin Muller-Stahl from “Eastern Promises” and William Hurt from “A History of Violence”.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Albert Brooks, I own all of his films on DVD. He’s always been a toned down Woody Allen or Larry David. He’s not quite a huge piece of shit, but he’s on the verge. Here, in “Drive”, Brooks still holds a great comedic undertone, but it’s overshadowed by his ruthlessness.

Brooks is should, without a doubt, get an Oscar nomination. So should Gosling.

    Gosling and Brooks play off one another so well, it reminds me much of how Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda’s chemistry was perfect for “Once Upon a Time in the West”. Which the more I think about it, the more I feel “Drive” is a contemporary western.

Ever since congress passed the Bryan Cranston Right to Work Act, he’s popping up in a lot of high profile releases. And you know what, he’s great in this as well. I mean, the guy has come a long, long way from “Malcom in the Middle”, and it seems to me that Cranston is destined to win an Oscar.

“Drive” is an incredibly effective and emotional movie. It makes the characters the star, and not the cars that are driven, and to be honest with you, I can probably only name one care he drove in the film. The strong performances of Gosling and Brooks make this film truly awe-some to watch. This film is brutally violent, perfectly acted, brilliant script – okay, I’ll stop gushing. You get the picture.

Rating: 10/10


Sep 17 2011

“Targets” – 1968. Dir. Peter Bogdanovich

With Tim O’Kelly, Boris Karloff, Nancy Hsueh and Peter Bogdanovich

“Is that what I was afraid of?”

  • Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff)

Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) is the All American Boy. He’s blonde, handsome, has a beautiful wife and a wonderful family. He has a sporty mustang convertible that was very much in vogue at the time. Then something happens, something makes this guy snap and buy a bunch of ammunition and begins shooting random people, committing random acts of violence that has a final showdown at a local drive-in movie theater where a retiring actor Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff) is attending the final showing of his latest film.


Byron Orlok is an iconic actor who is extremely well established and wealthy. His final film is going to be his last, though he hasn’t told many anyone but his assistant Jenny (Nancy Hsueh). Something has made this well established legendary actor snap, and decided enough is enough – I’m done.

These two men meet together for a final exchange at a local drive-in movie theater where the term “bitch slap” was conceived and born. This film is masterfully guided by novice director Peter Bogdanovich (who also takes on the roll of Karloff’s young and dream-filled director) who made this film for practically nothing for accidental genius Roger Corman.


Tim O’Kelly is magnificent as Bobby Thompson; who on the outside is the perfect mold of an American, but inside he’s hollow – even empty. He’s a returned Vietnam veteran (although the film does a marvelous job of not even slightly using Vietnam as an excuse) and he breaks, he begins killing people who a long distance rifle, sniping them from their cars on the expressway, and then moves to a crowded drive-in. I’ve not seen O’Kelly in anything else, and I don’t know why.


The film ends with one of the most climactic endings to any film I’ve seen. The sniper is on the run from the police; Byron Orlok has spotted the sniper and begins walking him down, the sniper sees Orlok on the gigantic screen behind him, and the towering actor stomping towards him – he doesn’t know what to do! He begins shooting – this does not stop our hero. He approaches the young killer and – I’m not going to give it away, see the film as soon as you can (it’s on Netflix instant!).

Oh, and Boris Karloff is fucking amazing.

Review: 9/10

Sep 6 2011

“Oldboy” – 2003 Dir. Chan-woon Park

With Min-sik Choi, Hye-jeong Kang, Byeong-ok Kim and Ji-tae Yu

“Even though I’m no more than a monster – don’t I, too, have the right to live?”

    So most other pretentious film snobs that I know have always sworn by “Oldboy”; saying that it’s awesome, or great, or “the ultimate fuck job”. I was a little late to the party on this movie, having flirted with the movie a many a time in my Netflix Instant queue. Needless to say, I manned up and started it one night, and to my dismay it’s dubbed in English. Peace out “Oldboy” on Netflix Instant.

So then, all of a sudden there is a much ado about “Oldboy” being remade. Spike Lee signed on, which I thought was kind of sad. Then Josh Brolin signed on to play the oldboy. And of course Warner Brothers (who are producing the remake) have been seriously courting Christian Bale to play the villain. Seems to me, that this could be one of the greatest remakes of all time. Kiss the baby, “The Departed”.

    ”Oldboy” is one twisted sister of one man’s journey to find the truth. Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi) is locked up for 15 years in a hotel room without any answers, or much human contact. The room has a bed, a bathroom and a television. He’s watched under close video surveillance, so when he breaks a picture frame to use the glass to slit his wrists, he’s able to be saved. That’s right – they keep him alive.

Dae-su is then given freedom after 15 years of solitude and is told that he has five days to figure out why he’s been imprisoned or his daughter will be killed. Dae-su embarks on a long and strange trip with Mido (Hye-jeong Kang) a young chef who crosses paths with Dae-su.

To talk anymore about the plot of this film, would be even more confusing than watching the film and trying to fit all the pieces together. This film is graphic in the full sense of the word. Graphic violence, graphic adult situations, graphic nudity, and most of all, a graphic “fuckjob”.

The direction of this film is extremely taut and incredibly honed. It’s nothing less than a fluid movement that never seems forced, stale or over-the-top. There are very few directors that are truly visionary: Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Stanley Kubrick, David Fincher (okay, I suppose I could keep going – but you get the picture). Chan-wook Park has this visionary direction, granted I’ve only seen one of his films, but isn’t that all it should take?

This film takes us on a path of destruction and torment. It’s an incredible looking glass that we view this story from, only understanding what Dae-su understands, and we become the ultimate voyeurs, watching his most private and intimate moments where we try and put the pieces together with him.

The villain of the film is great. He is the embodiment of everything a great cinematic villain should be; he’s mysterious, evil, commands power and above all, shows a flickering hope of human emotions. To my very warped and skewed views I think that in order to be a great villain, you’re good enough to be a James Bond villain. Which, he most certainly is.

I couldn’t help but notice the villain is direct homage to Christian Bale’s turn as Patrick Bateman, the slickback, the style, being filmed showering and working out like Bateman – it makes me think that Bale might not take on the role because of that or; he could completely make the role his own, and put his own trademark on it, which I’m sure is exactly what will happen.

    I know I have a tendency to “historically overrate” movies, but I tend to write about films that give me an urgency to write about them, unless the movie is so bad, I relish the moment where I can sit down at this machine and spew my bile into it. Anyways, this is a great film, and if I could, I would seriously kick myself in the ass for allowing it to evade me for so long.

Rating: 9.5/10


Sep 4 2011

“Iron Man 2” – 2010. Dir. Jon Favreau.

With Robert Downey, Jr., Mickey Rourke, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Clark Gregg, John Slattery with Samuel L. Jackson and Garry Shandling.

“If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come.”

  • Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke)

Yes I was one of the people who saw this at the 12:01 showing at IMAX (and still went to work the next morning). The much anticipated “Iron Man 2″ starts off pretty damn good. We are in Moscow and seeing an old man watching Tony Stark’s press conference (from the end of “Iron Man”) and he lays there moaning and grunting. He keeps calling for Ivan. We cut to a dark hallway where a man leans up against a wall in the shadows. The name Ivan is repeated by the old man, and the hulking mass turns and faces the camera – it’s Mickey Rourke in all his tooth capped, crazy hair, and tattoo covered glory.

Don’t fuck with Mickey.

Ivan (Rourke) goes into the room and holds the man, the man (Ivan’s father) tells Ivan that he should be building the Iron Man suit – not Tony Stark. The old man dies and Rourke screams. He begins constructing his own Iron Man exoskeleton and the credits roll as Rourke works.

I don’t want to dig any deeper into the plot because I don’t want to leak out any spoilers to those of you who read this and haven’t seen it yet. I’ll essentially break the film down a little bit and tell you what I thought worked and what I thought didn’t.

A problem that arises with “Iron Man 2″ is that we were so, so very spoiled by Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”. “The Dark Knight” forced all these other superhero movies to be better, to be taken more seriously. A big fault of “Iron Man 2″ is that it tries to be too smart and too witty and it sometimes comes across as really contrived and arrogant. The film introduces us to a slew of Stark gadgets that reminds us of how the James Bond franchise used to be.

Mickey Rourke is good in the film, but doesn’t have a chance to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor (which I called after seeing the trailer – I’m eating my words once again. Fuck!). The character of Ivan Vanko/Whiplash is so underdeveloped it makes me upset. Scarlett Johansson really adds nothing more to the film except T & A and some slightly perverted lines of dialogue.

Robert Downey, Jr. is well Robert Downey, Jr. in the film and the character of Tony Stark is almost too witty in the film, in almost every scene with Stark there is a spoken line, or an action taken by him that is supposed to make us laugh. A few of them do, but it becomes so very redundant.

Don Cheadle is a much added bonus to the film, he’s so much better than Terrance Howard and the climactic battle with Iron Man and War Machine is very sexy. Sam Jackson plays Sam Jackson; as the slightly angry black man who gives us his signature Jules Winfield from “Pulp Fiction”.

The two really special treats of the film are Garry Shandling playing a Senator on the Armed Services Committee who is trying to get the Iron Man suit turned over to the United States government so they can mass produce it and use it in their military. It’s really fun to see Shandling in this film, he’s always been so funny and it is way cool of Favreau to cast him in this.

The second is Sam Rockwell playing Justin Hammer (essentially the evil Tony Stark). Rockwell is on fire in the film, and remains to be the biggest highlight. He’s wickedly funny and goofy and delivers the best lines of the film. This film just displays the capability of a wonderful actor. The only problem I have with his character is near the end of the film, it feels like there is unfinished business with him.

I’m sure most of you know to stay until after the credits for a special extra scene. As the credits rolled my friend Peyton and I were excited, talking about what we were going to see. We’re both really hip to the Marvel universe and are familiar with The Avengers and the other Marvel films coming out to work towards the ultimate Avengers movie. I was personally insulted by the clip after the credits. I just expected more.

Another distracting factor in the film was the pushing of AC/DC. Just let it go.

This film is your above average summer blockbuster. It falls out of line with the first Iron Man film by pushing a lot of different story arcs on you. It fails to reach the magnitude of the first film. What the film is really lacking is that of a performance of Jeff Bridges in the first film. Rockwell comes close to Bridges’ performance but his character wasn’t developed as well as Bridges’ was.

But Jeff Bridges is one of a kind isn’t he?

Review: 6/10

Aug 30 2011

“Fire Down Below” – 1997. Dir. Felix Enriquez Alcala.

With Stevan Seagal, Stephen Lang, Levon Helm, Randy Travis, Marg Helgenberger with Harry Dean Stanton and Kris Kristofferson.

“Do you want me to take him out?”

“Son, you couldn’t take out a cheeseburger from a drive-through”

 

    I own a majority of Seagal’s earlier films. I think they are so bad they are good (aside from “Under Siege” which is actually good). In “Fire Down Below” we find Seagal now an EPA Agent who gets sent to some small town in Virginia to investigate a millionaire (Kristofferson) who owns coal mines or something and has been dumping toxic waste into a river or a lake.

    Seagal enters the town undercover as a Missionary through the town’s church to help people fix up their homes. The town’s preacher is Levon Helms (The Band’s front man) who introduces Seagal to the townsfolk. He takes a liking to Sarah (Helgenberger) who lives with her brother Earl (Stephen Lang) who had molested her as a child. Kinda intense for a Seagal film…

    This movie is so fucking bad it’s awesome. The cast alone is sweet. Harry Dean Stanton who is always worthy of a good performance, plays the town “retard” – although he’s sharp as a tack and just plays that so Kristofferson and his goons leave him alone.

    Stephen Lang is enjoyable in the typical cliché bad man role, Randy Travis is cool as a quick drawing dirty FBI Agent and Kristofferson is tough as fucking nails as the heavy. He’s so smooth and cool he rivals Dean Martin. Kristofferson just has the aura around him that just makes him so fucking cool.

    The writing is vintage Seagal film – it’s so fucking campy and filled with slap yourself in the forehead one liners. I don’t know whose idea it was to have Seagal as a leading man in action films but it did work for quite a while. He had a nice little run…until he hired personal assistants as sex toys.

Review: 6/10

Aug 11 2011

Deep Cuts: “Hardcore” – 1979 Dir. Paul Schrader

With George C. Scott, Season Hubley and Peter Boyle

“A lot of strange things happen in this world. Things you don’t know about in Grand Rapids. Things you don’t want to know about. Doors that shouldn’t be opened.”

    The film “Hardcore” came into my life at an odd time. About a week or so ago, my friends and I got into a discussion over pornography. While I defended pornography (with numerous reasons, including the United States Constitution – suck it Michelle Bachman), my one friend asked me the question: “Dude, would you want your daughter to do porn?” First off, I don’t have a daughter, secondly no I would not want my daughter to be in pornography, nor would I want my daughter running for President as a pseudo Angela Lansbury from “The Manchurian Candidate” either.

George C. Scott gives an incredibly bold performance (I mean, come on! The guy played General Patton!) as a Midwestern businessman whose daughter goes missing in LA and ends up doing porn films. Scott embarks on a journey into the gates of Hell. This film was written and directed by Paul Schrader who changed film forever with his screenplay “Taxi Driver”.

During Jake’s (George C. Scott) travels to California, a place that is as foreign to him as Africa, he employees a private detective Andy Mast (the ever so sleazy Peter Boyle) who acts as a liaison between Jake’s world and the world of pornography.

George C. Scott may be a one note actor, but he plays a man who is just filled with anger and rage, and now that his daughter has entered the world of pornography, he’s hit his breaking point, and he kicks ass like he’s Liam Neeson from “Taken”.

Not really. But kind of.

    There is a scene that is very early on in the film where Mast comes to Grand Rapids (where Jake is from) and brings him a pornographic film. Being the noble and religious Midwesterner that Jake is, he’s never seen porn, and he’s extremely out of touch with the counter culture of the times, as he sits in a theater, where Mast screens him the film, Jake realizes that the girl in the film is his daughter. Scott delivers a performance that shows what an amazing dramatic actor that he truly is.

What makes this film so bold and unapologetic is the subject matter. Paul Schrader once again takes us to a world that is filled with darkness that our minds would normally not trek in. He brings us to the darkness, and brings us to the pits of filth but most importantly is that Schrader shows us a world where things aren’t black and white – the world has many, many, many shades of grey.

The music of the film reminds me a lot of the electronic synthesized score that was in “The Long Good Friday”, which really sets the tone for films of the 1980′s, with their use of heavily stylized electronic music. Something like ELO meets Supertramp.

While this film does slightly drag at points, and may even periodically lose its focus, it’s still a very effective and shocking film that isn’t for the average movie goer. This is a film that while you’re watching it, you begin to examine yourself, it makes you take a look at the dark side that is in each and every one of us.

Rating: 8/10

Aug 8 2011

“The Tree of Life” – 2011 Dir. Terrence Malick

With Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken and Sean Penn

“Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.”

    NOTE: During this review/write up on Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” I will be discussing the film and my thoughts about it. Whether or not you consider what I’ll be talking about spoilers; be advised.

Terrence Malick is anything but prolific (I’d consider him the anti Woody Allen). “The Tree of Life” marks his fifth film in forty years. Each one of his films is incredible, and in their own right are all masterpieces. The terms masterpiece and visionary have been so over used they’ve become synonyms with the word awesome.

“The Tree of Life” is in fact awe-some. It inspires a tremendous amount of awe that will wash over you and leave you emotional overwhelmed. The film is set in Texas, and tells the story of the O’Brien family, lead by the patriarch Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt, who gives the performance of his career) and followed by Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain) and their two sons Jack (played as a child by Hunter McCracken who is incredible, and as an adult as an also incredible Sean Penn) and the baby of the family Steve (Tye Sheridan).

    The film cuts between the present, as Jack struggles with the emotional burdens of his alpha male father and his playful enabler of a mother, and he reflects back upon his childhood. The bigger picture of the film is told through the origin of Earth, nature and grace.

There is a segment of this film that shows the birth of the galaxy, from cell formation to protozoa to dinosaurs. I’ve read people’s “reviews” of this film and they bitch about the CGI used in the film. For starters, CGI is not used in the film; it’s all optical images that were created by Douglas Trumbull who is the Terrence Malick of visual effects. His limited credits of visual effects are limited to “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “Blade Runner”. That’s almost as an impressive resume as Malick’s.

    While the film shows the origin of life, the film’s theme is very prevalent: there are two ways through life, the first is nature and the second is grace. Malick paints the world as a very violent and beautiful place. Showing that nature (represented by Brad Pitt) is an uncontrollable storm, that it will lay waste to anything in its path, and if you’re not one of nature, you won’t survive this world.

Jessica Chastain represents grace (and who I believe is an angel in the film), the free spirit that floats through life, adjusting to the changes and countering everything that nature throws in its path. There is much that I don’t understand in the film, and that’s okay – I don’t think we, as the viewers, are supposed to understand everything, and if we chose to believe so; that’s vanity.

    In the present day we follow Jack through one day, he silently navigate through his life as an architect. He may be the most broken character ever filmed. How could he not be, since his father is the ultimate alpha male. To say that Mr. O’Brien is a villain for afflicting Jack’s life to the point of zombification is a little much. Mr. O’Brien raised his two children the only way he knew how, through nature – to make them strong, to be their own men. As he says in the film, “it takes fierce will to get ahead in this world.”

As the film comes to a surreal climax of Jack walking along a beach, (re)connecting with his past family, including himself as a child, the film overwhelmed me so much, that it brought me to tears. This film has anything but a linear narrative. Watching this film, you’re not watching actors in a scene; you’re watching moments in time. And that’s what Terrence Malick does, he captures moments in time.

These moments in time are mostly without dialogue. There isn’t much dialogue in the film. Sean Penn has about 12 audible lines, Brad Pitt makes up most of the spoken word on screen. What we’re left with are these beautiful moments captured on film, with voice over narration by the three main characters, and most of the time the narration is as haunting as haunting gets.

As Jack wanders the beach he approaches a doorway, on the other side he sees himself as a child, and the child is waiting for him. Jack flirts with entering the frame, he’s hesitant and then he finally breaks on through, walks through the door frame and walks to the beach where he meets his father and mother (who look as they did in his flashbacks).

    Here be the spoilers I spoke of.

What the ending of this film, represents to me, is that Jack killed himself, and his soul is now finally at peace. The film ends with Jack exiting the gigantic glass building that he works in. He exits the building into a sea of people and looks up into the sky and smiles, and for the first time, we see him at peace.

End spoilers.

This is the most ambitious and profound film ever made. The only film that I can think of that is as challenging and unique is “2001″, yet the two films are vastly different. A lot of people consider this film to be very “pretentious”, and they don’t like it because of that. Wrong. The way I interpretive those thoughts are that since the person doesn’t understand the film, they automatically don’t like it because they don’t understand it.

Tom Wilkinson has an incredible line in “Batman Begins”, and it goes: “And people always fear what they don’t understand.” I believe that to be true to this film. This film examines life, and examines God. And I think what Terrence Malick is trying to say is that if God exists; God can never be as powerful as nature.

I’d just like to close by saying that my review/thoughts of this film don’t do it any justice what-so-ever, and there is no way anyone’s review possibly could. All I can say is that I feel is that I think this film should be required viewing for everyone. It’s an incredible film that you won’t be able to stop thinking about.

Rating: 11/10