Elbert Ventura in Slate argues that The Descendants is a great movie, despite its too-pretty-to-be-true Hawaian setting. Don’t let the soothing uke and sun-dappled sadness fool you—The Descendants is no less interested in the cosmic than that exegete’s delight The Tree of Life. He argues that we overlook its soaring depiction of the natural world, with nature'sContinue reading “Is “The Descendants” as grand a movie as “Tree of Life?””
Tag Archives: Tree of Life
Tree of Life: Does God love us in an abusive way?
I provoke, but really, that is the question that burns beneath the beautiful surfaces of Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. I say this as an agnostic, as one who dislikes theology and theologians, but as one who (like many other critics) finds that this movie "touches me so much I can barely stand it." The storyContinue reading “Tree of Life: Does God love us in an abusive way?”
Reconciling religion and evolution: The Tree of life
From an unpretentious and persuasive visual essay on the most debated movie of the year, The Tree of Life, by Matt Zoller Seitz: There is this central notion in all of Malick’s films that every individual person is just one tiny part of nature. Not too much more important in the larger scheme of thingsContinue reading “Reconciling religion and evolution: The Tree of life”
Brad Pitt to win Best Actor
Reviewing Moneyball for The New Yorker, David Denby declares that Brad Pitt should win Best Actor — for The Tree of Life. He's right about that, and he describes Pitt's performance well: …in Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life,” in which he plays a father who takes out his disappointments on his sons, his anger is self-woundingContinue reading “Brad Pitt to win Best Actor”
Kit Stolz 