terrence malick Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Adjust your calenders, and don't hold your breath for Terrence Malick. (If you ever hold your breath for Malick, that is. His latest opus, The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn,was given a tentative release date of December 25, 2009. But it won't be making that date, according to Apparition Films' Bob Berney. Thompson on Hollywood caught up with Berney, who said the date was "wishful" thinking, and that the film will not be released in 2009.

Why the delay? If you know Malick at all, you know the answer to that. The film is not yet finished. The Tree of Life has already been a 30-year journey for Malick, and another year (or two, or three) won't make any difference to the notoriously meticulous director. No one has even seen the film, or knows what form its final cut will take. All that's really known about the movie is that it's a family drama that spans the 1950s and deals with the loss of innocence.

Apparition Films remains optimistic that you'll see the film in 2010. It won't make Sundance, but it's likely to make Cannes. (That is the film festival that belongs to Pitt and Angelina Jolie, so fate would dictate that's where it would premiere!) But even that is up in the air, as Berney admits he has no idea when the film will be finished, or when it will be released.

For whatever reason in the fall of 2005, I had missed out on the initial local press screening of Terrence Malick's latest epic, The New World, and the reactions that followed were decidedly ... less than appreciative. Shortly thereafter, word had come our way that an alternate cut would be opening instead, and so it was this second screening that I did attend.

For the first half of the film, I was fairly fascinated by the tale of John Smith (Colin Farrell) and his conquest of both what is now America and what was then Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher). However, somewhere around when Smith disappeared and John Rolfe (Christian Bale) all but replaced him, I found my interest waning at a considerable rate.

It's difficult to deny that there were those who still thought the film to be one for the ages, even in its 135-minute incarnation. Those who lucked into the earlier screenings or lived in New York or Los Angeles could briefly get a glimpse of the original 150-minute cut, before certain scenes had been abridged, excised, or even replaced. Now, come October 14th, fans will get the chance to devour a DVD release of 172 minutes in length.

Earlier that same year, I'd found myself fairly unimpressed with the theatrical cut of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, only to eat my words once the engrossing three-hour-plus director's cut hit DVD after a similar NY/LA bow. Maybe almost three years after the fact, I can bring myself to give Malick's masterpiece another go. Will you?

[via DVD Active]

After all the comments in reviews about The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford being Terrence Malick-ish, it appears that Brad Pitt wants the real deal. According to Variety, Pitt is in talks to star alongside Sean Penn in Malick's next film, Tree of Life. Already the film has seen cast replacements; first attached were Mel Gibson and Colin Farrell, then Penn and Heath Ledger. Now it's Ledger who is out (perhaps because Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is expected to go long?) with Pitt set to replace him. As Variety points out, Pitt's consideration of the role is interesting after bailing from State of Play, for which he would have made a whole lot more money. The trade also clears up that Penn's part will be fairly minor in comparison to Pitt's.

As I said in my previous post on the film, the plot of Tree of Life is unknown, but it may have something to do with a Minotaur (like in Gilliam's Time Bandits? no probably not like that). And it may be shot in India. Apparently the film has roots in a project Malick began thirty years ago called Q, which originally focused on World War I and eventually became an eon-spanning story. All that is known is that production begins in the Spring. Maybe, just maybe, it can hold on to this cast until then. These actor swaps are making my head spin. Unfortunately, neither Pitt nor Penn are locked into the film yet, so it's very possible we could see more casting coverage of Tree of Life before the cameras are in place.

With a title like Tree of Life, it had sounded like Terrence Malick's next project was to be in line with his last. It even was set to star his lead from The New World, Colin Farrell -- co-starring with Mel Gibson. But Tree of Life doesn't appear to be about Spanish conquistadors and such -- which is good, since The Fountain already covered that territory. Of course, the actual plot of Malick's script is unknown, and despite the fact that it was going to be shot primarily in India two years ago, the same locations might not be used now that the project is up and running once again.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tree of Life could now star Heath Ledger and Sean Penn, who appeared in Malick's The Thin Red Line. The trade states the actors, as well as Malick, are in talks but that shooting is expected to begin in March. River Road Entertainment, which worked with Penn on Into the Wild and with Ledger on Brokeback Mountain is heading the project with the company's founder, William Pohlad, and Sarah Green (The New World) producing.

As I said, little is known about the film. THR mentions the usual "plot is closely guarded" irritant, and to rub in the annoyance tells us an insider could only say that it's a "complex drama." According to a bit of trivia on the IMDb, Tree of Life actually originated in the summer of 1978, when Malick began working on the project, which was then titled Q. Considered his most ambitious project, Q was originally a multi-character story set in the Middle East during World War I, but it also featured a prehistoric prologue with a Minotaur. Then, by the end of the year, the prologue became the whole film. Like The Fountain, it seems like the plot took place over a long, long time. Unfortunately, in 1979 the director and Paramount apparently had a falling out about money; after that Malick disappeared for twenty years.

Anyway, does it really matter what Tree of Life is about? The important thing is that we could get a fifth feature from Malick!

Random Thought of the Day: I wonder if last night's South Park episode will be nominated for an Emmy?

There are two things I really hate in this world: Going to a mall on Christmas Eve to buy presents for people, and coming down with a nasty head cold. A close third would be Michael Vick, but he's on a long list of people I'd like to see thrown out of an airplane at 35,000 feet without a parachute. Like most people, I try to avoid both the last-minute shopping and the awful sickness each year, but they always have a way of tracking me down. That said, I have a head cold right now, it's a bad one, and all I want to do is crawl into bed and await a slow, painful death. But there's news to report, and we don't get very many sick days in this business.

Last night, while speaking to Cinematical's James Rocky IV Rules over instant messenger, he suggested I throw on some Malick and let the director guide me into dreamland. Then came the following from James: "Have we ever done a Cinematical Seven on movies to watch when you're sick?" I don't believe we have, and I told James to whip up something for next month, but in the meantime I'd like to hear from some of you: what movies do you like to watch when you're sick? Do you tend to go for the comedy (watching South Park last night made me feel a whole lot better), do you like action-packed popcorn blockbusters, or are you more interested in a slow, quiet indie film -- the kind that puts you right to sleep? Do chime in with suggestions below; trust me, I desperately need them.

I was poking around blog-diving (digging deep into the blogrolls of film sites I like in search of new blogs to read and perhaps link to from time to time) when I came across this excellently written piece by Adrian Martin on the poetic imagery of Terrence Malick. Whether you're a Malick connoisseur who loves to delve deep into the auteur's work over and over again, or a Malick novice just dipping your toes into the water of his films, you'll likely learn something you didn't know reading this well-researched piece.

While you're over there, check out the rest of Rogue's 10th issue, including a thoughtful review of Bosnian film Grbavica, the Golden Bear winner of the 2006 Berlinale and a transcript of a lecture by Pedro Costa (hey, it's like film school for free!). Costa says in his lecture that, "For me, the primary function of cinema is to make us feel that something isn't right. There is no difference between documentary and fiction here."

If you look at some of the better films of 2006, they fit this mold well: in Little Miss Sunshine, the "something" is the incongruity between Olive's physical features and her dream of being a beauty queen, explored within the microcosm of her bizarrely dysfunctional but loving family. In The Lives of Others, the something that isn't right is the government intruding on the privacy of its citizens, and the abuse of that power. In Pan's Labyrinth, Ofelia is forced to accompany her ailing mother to their new home at a remote military outpost, and a fantasy world that may be even more dangerous than the real one she longs to escape.

Go brew yourself a nice cup of herbal tea, and then go read to your heart's content. There are lots more goodies awaiting you in this issue.

Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye did a bad, bad thing. He showed his movie Summer Palace at Cannes earlier this year, and he did so without permission from the Chinese government. Now the director is not permitted to make another film in his home country for five years. Sure, for some filmmakers (like Terrence Malick and the late Stanley Kubrick, were he alive), this wouldn't be that horrible a punishment, except that the whole consequence part includes the government's confiscation of the film and seizing of any income it has generated. Lou Ye has already been the victim of a filmmaking ban; he made Suzhou River without the authorization to do so in 2000 and then couldn't make another film for two years. The producer of Summer Palace, An Nai, has also been put on a five-year suspension.

Summer Palace is a sexually explicit film set in 1989 amidst that year's pro-democracy demonstrations, which ended with the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre. And, according to Lou, it is somewhat autobiographical. Now, while you may be happy to not be living in a communist country, like Lou Ye, surely there are some directors out there that you wish could be given such a ban. My pick: Shawn Levy.

[via Fark.com]

   • Big Momma's House 2 - In Martin Lawrence's desperate minstrel show, the comedian reprises his role as undercover FBI agent Malcolm Turner, again donning a fat suit to become the sassy, black Southern matron Big Momma. He has to stop a potentially destructive computer hacker, and the movie is broad, shameless and pandering in most every respect. Lawrence appears to assume that we automatically like him and Big Momma, and does little to endear them to us any further. Incessant mugging, weak slapstick and Teflon catchphrases fill in the many cracks of its already shaky foundation, leaving a hammy house of horrors that should have been condemned when it was still a half-baked pitch.
    • Grandma's Boy - Adam Sandler's longtime second-banana, Allen Covert, gets his shot at a lead in this stoner comedy, but despite his appealing, aw-shucks demeanor, the movie, about a 36-year-old video game tester who moves in with his grandmother and her two roommates, is just irredeemably stupid. It is sad to see three lovely ladies like Doris Roberts, Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight stooping for laughs like this, though based on the fact that practically no one saw it in theaters (or will go out of their way to rent the DVD), it is a very minor tragedy.

Theater chains looking to enhance the overall movie-going experience may want to follow in Japan's footsteps and bring back Smell-O-Vision. That's right folks, seven different distinct smells will accompany Terrence Malick's The New World when it's released in Tokyo next month. Since Colin Farrell stars in the film, does this mean audiences will have to endure the stench of cheap sex and cigarettes for a couple of hours?  Actually, no -- that smell is being reserved for Miami Vice.

Created by NTT Communications Corp., this version of Smell-O-Vision will not just match scents up to certain scenes. Instead, it is hoping to tap into the emotion of a scene by releasing a pleasant fragrance throughout the theater. For example: If it's a love scene, then a floral scent will roam about. In a sad scene, the smell of peppermint and rosemary will take over. Oh, and every time Colin Farrell is on screen, the smell of hot will engulf all females present. Guys, start growing a goatee.

The same company is also producing a $680 dollar home version of the scent system that can be synchronized with DVDs. Um, why would I pay that much money for something like that when I can simply spray some air freshener and get the same exact result for, like, three bucks? Do you ever think that Smell-O-Vision would fly here in the States? Better yet, throughout the world? If not, why?

 

Austin film lovers are recuperating this morning from the big Austin Film Society (AFS) 20th anniversary party last night. The party was held in the studio where the Rollergirls TV series was shot, and people kept wondering where in the world the tracks had gone. The place was packed ... no one expected such a large crowd, even though free barbecue was involved.

The Austin American-Statesman has been publishing some nice articles this week about Austin Film Society's 20 successful years. Chris Garcia interviews notable people involved with AFS over the years about the way the group has affected Austin. Also, AFS director Rebecca Campbell lists the group's top contributions in the past 20 years.

The film society is certainly busy this week, co-sponsoring or sponsoring films all week long around Austin, as you can see from the list of upcoming screenings and events.