Tree of Life (2011) – A second look

On my first viewing of “Tree of Life,” Terrence Malick’s epic drama of God’s creation of the universe, one Texas family during the 1950s, and such small potatoes as life and death, it took me more than a week to even form words to describe a reaction.

And, now, on my second viewing, I realize those first thoughts and impressions were wrong. Fully and wildly dumbass wrong. I will not re-edit my first review. I still stand by it. As with a diary entry, it must remain, as this film – the most mind-blowing movie of 2011 – is something all new to me. Twelve days later. To understand my second-take reactions, one must read my first (naïve) impressions.

Malick, director of “Badlands” and “The New World,” here has made nothing short of a biblical love poem on film -- a psalm -- to not just the glory and passion of his own family, but God Himself, and all the meanings of His passion. In passion, there is great pain. And there is great pain on screen in this film. Death. (Sorry to get all religion, which I normally approach gingerly and awkwardly, always and forever.)

I realize now, that there is no Rapture or end of world drama in “Tree of Life,” I think, but only an adult man’s dream-like, memory-fueled acceptance of his beloved younger brother’s death by suicide and his re-finding of faith in God and life, the light if you will. That leap, that bridge, inspired by the planting of a tree at a glass-encased office tower.

It recalls the tree, the God-like tree, in front of his childhood home. The one associated with his own mother. Sean Penn is that man, Jack, an architect who was raised in a small Texas town by a strict and over-bearing, but loving and passionate, father (Brad Pitt) and free-spirited mother (Jessica Chastain).

I also now understand Malick’s use of creation and the very start of all life, for the miracle and darkness found in every childhood -- growing up, laughing, playing, maturing, rebelling -- is as majestic and beautiful as the very start of our and God’s universe and as dark as the cataclysmic death by meteor of all dinosaurs. It is beauty. Infinite.

I’m already well past a preset 200 word limit, and ready to spill another 1,000 words on this epic film – ready to spill on the dark traces of father and son relations that I experienced growing up, every boy did I surmise, and am re-living after seeing this work of beauty, and the way Jack’s younger self (Hunter McCracken) has his entire since-birth-driven belief in God and goodness ripped apart after watching a child drown.

An act, an event, I also saw as a child, as I spoke of in my first take.

And I did not realize until hours after my second viewing that the building that is central to Penn’s character, I have not only visited, but stayed at and photographed: The Hyatt Regency Hotel and Reunion Tower. I slept many nights, for several years running on an annual business trip. (It is within eye line of Dealy Plaza.)

I imagine my take will be fully different on a third viewing. How often does that happen in movies, to create such a personal reaction? Me, I loved it. But I respect the haters of this film, too. It is art. Made to provoke. If you think this film is shit, God bless, standby your reaction. Scream it. But know this: Does any human being actually give two farts about "Cowboys & Aliens"? I do not. I cannot even recall it. I bet fans of the film cannot either.

Few other films in 2011, or 2010, or 2009, and on and on, can make that claim. This is art. Mind-blowing, core of the soul, church in a cinema, art. New grade: A+

The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” is the perfect romantic comedy-drama. The set-up: Jack Lemmon – never better, even in “Some Like it Hot” -- is C.C. Baxter, a cog in a massive insurance company machine. He’s a low-level drone, but a wicked tool to the big guys upstairs. The tool’s tool: His apartment is a fuck pad for the big bosses to bring their on-the-side girls. One of the girls is elevator operator Fran, played by the mesmerizing Shirley MacLaine, and poor sad sack C.C., well, he digs her. But Fred McMurray – Mr. Clean Cut Disney Film Man – is the prick cheating on his wife with Fran, and any another gal who comes his way. When Fran attempts suicide, it’s C.C. who saves her. The rest of the story is manna. Lemmon’s C.C. is a treat of a man, a nice guy who wants to move ahead, willing to cut corners, but still goofy enough to use a tennis racquet as spaghetti strainer. MacLaine is divine as a woman who can’t see herself ever truly falling in love, her smarts ignored by piggish men. Acting, script, every gag set-up, every line delivery is perfect. I love this film. A+

Tree of Life (2011)

Terrence Malick’s latest ruminating avant-garde cinematic riff is “Tree of Life,” a 2 hour 20 minute drama about the creation of the universe and life itself, a 1950s small-town Texas family and the tragedy that befalls them, and a man seemingly lost or aloof in a city seemingly made of glass, steel, concrete and little of anything organic. That is, of life.

It ends on a beach in a wondrous scene that makes the finale of “Lost” seem as straightforward as a Hallmark card. Without the plane and dog, naturally.

It’s taken me more than a week – almost two to be exact – to even collect my thoughts on this voyage through Malick’s view of God, the universe, life, birth, family and death. Words failed me. Still do.

The movie is that good. Maddeningly so.

Then I realized the answer was in front of me, staring at me in the face. It is in the film’s poster, which I luckily snagged from the local artsy movie theater. (I got connections, don’t hate.) The poster contains 70-some images from the film, stills that represent memories of the film like snapshots from a family album, memories, a group of postcards from the universe’s beginnings to the film’s end.

Finally, I got it.

“Tree of Life” is about memories, the aloof man (the family is his, from childhood) and maybe God’s memories. Or Malick’s version of God, looking back at the universe He created out of nothing and then brought to an end. (That’s my theory on the end, it is the rapture.)

In its editing, “Tree” eschews linear design, dialogue, action and time. We witness dinosaurs hunting in a river that we later will see the Texas children traipse through as they play. This is pure Malick -- a polarizing, perplexing, maddening (that word again) and utterly fascinating filmmaker, maybe the best one of our day. (David Lynch being the top. In my book.)

“Badlands” and “Days of Heaven” are among my favorite films, and I’m still mesmerized by “The Thin Red line,” Malick’s World War II drama. The man would rather show forest animals and birds fleeing a South Pacific gun battle than show the men fighting and bullets whizzing by. It is that view that fascinates me, not just outside the box, but outside the world the box is in.

Here in “Tree,” more than any other film, he is saying we humans with all our dramas are part of something much larger than ourselves. As a friend wrote on Facebook the other day, referring to a Rick Warren book, “It ain’t about you.” Or something to that affect.

This is not a film for everyone. Its legion of fans may be rivaled if not well outnumbered by its detractors, many fine and decent (and some stupid ones I’m sure) folks who have walked out lost or outright angry at the inscrutable images of God’s first light breaking the darkness of space, giant fish, cells, blades of grass, waterfalls, cars, bi-planes, and fields of sunflowers. And then much of 2 hours of children playing.

Yes, God figures into this film in a major way, as the Creator of our world and the seemingly absentee Father that he now appears to be. (Go on, debate away. I debate myself on it.)

Sean Penn is Jack, the aloof man/architect in the city, looking back on his childhood, with his overly strict father (Brad Pitt) and his luminous, angelic mother (Jessica Chastain), and two brothers, the most innocent of who will die years later. For reasons never shared.

(News interruption: Malick grew up in 1950s Texas, and had a younger brother who committed suicide at 19. The brother dies at 19.)

Adult Jack lives with a woman, maybe his wife, who he does not look at. Jack’s childhood scenes take up the majority of the film, and they are among the best of Malick’s work: Snippets, chunks and wide-swaths of Jack’s memories and barely recalled dreams are all innocent, terrible and scary. Rebellious, too. As is childhood, no?

Young Jack (Hunter McCracken) climbs trees – the title tree is in the family’s front yard – and swims, and talks his little brother into sticking a metal wire in lamp (it’s not plugged in) and putting his little finger over a barrel of a bb-gun (oops, it’s loaded).

I’ve never seen a film the better captures interaction of a family. The beautiful simpleness. To Jack, the mother is the perfect loving God(dess), and in one scene she floats in the air above the family tree. Like God would.

Dad is not that by far. He will toss the dinner table over to hit one of the children who dares disobey him. He is wrathful. In one scene young Jack sees an opportunity to kill his father. He leaves it be. We can take this as a troubled child reacting to his parents, or as one friend (go Dana!) suggested, mother is the New Testament God, father the Old Testament. My father wasn't Dick van Dyke for sure, and, man, that scene hit close to home. Been there. Dreamed that.

Indeed, church is a major part of the family’s life, and when a child friend drowns (it is shown from afar, but still packs a stomach punch) or a polio-stricken man walks by, the children are confused, befuddled, and ask their parents why God would let such things happen. As do all or most children. As did I, as many of the themes and actions in this film I directly experienced. I at age 9 watched a child drown. It still haunts me. When the youngest boy later dies as a young man, the mother asks God the same question, why?

Malick reaches far. The dinosaurs are too damn much. I only think the ending is the Rapture, some Christ-like figure appears. But the man is reaching. Who does that nowadays? To make a film that will divide audiences and get a group of adults talking about a film for more than a week, as has happened in my circle of friends?

No one is making films like this right now, going for such high themes as God, daring to freely mix the theories of creation and evolution, the universe and our place in it. Children playing, pranking and smashing windows.

This is what filmmaking is supposed to be out, right, the art form of our time? Abstracts welcomed. Love it or hate it, just see it. And see it on the big screen where it belongs. A

13 Assassins (2011)

I saw “13 Assassins” smack dab in the middle of this summer, and suddenly every rote dish of super heroes and fighting robots fell away. This is what an action/thriller is supposed to be – a sense of living in the moment, where anything can happen, and yet the filmmaker ups the ante. Director Takashi Miike’s kick-ass film is a bloody violent and smart return to the samurai genre, worthy of Kurosawa’s “Ran” and “Throne of Blood.” The plot is a classic staple: An aging warrior (Kōji Yakusho) is given a suicidal task he welcomes for he will die in battle. His target: Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), a sadistic Shogun who zealously enjoys murder and rape. The massive end battle is a brilliant game of chess: Every grisly move and horrifying trap is a planned strategy to dismantle the enemy. The title’s 13 warriors give as good as they take, and in a wild card act, Naritsugu enjoys the chaos. There’s wit abounding, and the supernatural acts of gods and spirits if you’re looking. In a summer of mostly underwhelming calculated hits, Miike stands tall, sword in hand, splattered with the blood of lesser films, ready for more challengers. I doubt there will be any this year. A

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) and Rubber (2010)

“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” and “Rubber” are two miniscule-budgeted films about serial killers that couldn’t be more different, or more outside the mainstream Hollywood horror genre of overly hip and witty masked killers. The former is a disturbing minor masterpiece that’s unshakable; the latter, a pop blast of avant-garde cinema that made me think Andy Warhol and David Lynch.

Made in 1986, unreleased until 1990, the $100,000 “Henry” stars a young Michael Rooker as a soulless serial killer roaming Chicago. His housemate is a seedy bisexual redneck (Tom Towles) with a much younger sister (Tracy Arnold) with a checkered, troubled past. The trio all go horribly, terribly wrong, and director/writer John McNoughton not only doesn’t flinch from some of the most gruesome violence ever put to film, he dives in head first. The shock of the slide toward the bloody end is purposeful. Should not all horror films hit this way? How does this compare to, say, “Saw” or “Friday the 13th” where slaughter is treated as a joke. The acting is rough, bad rough, and the dialogue unnaturally natural, but, damn, it’s a difficult sight to shake. B+

“Rubber” is all satire. It opens with an actor cracking the fourth wall and telling us, the audience, what we are about to watch is fully ridiculous. But, he asks, what movie isn’t? From there we follow two stories: A mass-murdering tire rises from the ground and stalks the American West, crushing bottles and cans before moving onto birds and rabbits, and then … people; the second track is an onscreen audience watching the tire kill, each member of this chorus a stereotypical movie fan. Director/writer Quentin Dupieux takes a stab at the horror genre, even his own film as his audience yawns and dubs it “boring.” Crazy thing: The guy makes you care about this tire. Not care, but take an avid crazed interest in its every roll. “Rubber” is fascinating, perplexing, weird and damn funny. At 85 minutes it’s too long, but it opens a sequel that would terrify a preschooler. B

Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Yes, there are cowboys and aliens in “Cowboys & Aliens,” and also Native Americans, too, but that would have been one awkward title, right? “Cowboys & Indians & Aliens”? Movie posters and trailers for this western sci-fi mash-up have teased filmgoers for more than a year, luring us in with the wild idea of James Bond and Indiana Jones/Han Solo on horses blasting six-shooters at alien aircraft that would make Will Smith gawk and run back to Bel-Air.

Having now seen the film, I realize that’s all director John Favreau, his army (five! seven! more? I lost count) of screenwriters, and exec producers Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg had. An idea. Not much else. The movie is fun … kind of, a darkly serious and violent western that begins no different than, say, “High Plains Drifter” or “Rio Bravo.” We have the lone silent hero (Daniel Craig) who stumbles into town, gets himself knee deep in horse poop and ends up in jail. Then the bad guys attack and, oh my spoiler, Mr. Silent turns out to be Mr. Savior. You have seen this before, no? Harrison Ford plays a cattle boss named Dolarhyde, and with a name like that, you know he’s not passing out flowers.

So, yes, the aliens cause shit, lasso people up in the air with metallic wires, and fly off. And Craig’s Man with No Name and Ford’s Dolarhyde must pony up and save the day. The Native Americans come in later. I didn’t get any of their names as the characters are played almost painfully stereotypical. See, decades back, Native Americans were portrayed as savages. Ever since “Dances with Wolves,” Native Americans have been made so damn painfully proud and peaceful, one almost forgets they had a right to be pissed and violent – they were being slaughtered left and right by Europeans after all. That whole historic America was founded as a Christian nation thing that Republicans sell. If Jesus were a land-grabbing genocidal maniac.

Favreau dishes out some cool battles as alien aircraft blitzkrieg men on horses, with the latter being blown into bits in the air, and it all ends in an attack the (alien) fort climax, but none of it sticks. I’m 90 minutes past film’s end as I write this and it’s drifting from memory. There’s no kick, satire or mind screwy emotional power that made “District 9” one of the great surprise films of the past five years, nor is there a CGI effect that wows from eyes to the brain to the soul as did “Avatar.” Heck, check out the 1986 classic “Aliens.” That is a space western.

Planned and written by Hollywood committee, the movie seems to just think the very plot pitch of men named Craig and Ford on horses fighting bad-ass E.T.s is enough to win us over. Sorry. Craig is all glare and slow burn. He makes a damn good and dangerous cowboy – he lords over the rest of the cast. Alas, Ford’s town Thug King is a wash. Just as the character is getting good and bloody nasty, evil even, director and writers suddenly fold and make the guy all grand pop mushy, misunderstood and, well, boring. I bet Ford enjoyed playing the early portions.

Olivia Wilde (TV’s “House”) plays one of the few women on screen – seriously, there must have been a lot of gay cowboys out in this West – and must carry a character so bizarrely left-field, I never bought it. No one in the audience did, either. Laughs abounded. Not kind ones. She listlessly has to carry lines such as, “Don’t look into the light,” I immediately thought of that lady in “Poltergeist.” You know the one, the short woman with red hair. She’d have kicked this film up a notch. It does not help that Ms. Wilde appears as if she has returned from a spa. Her skin and hair are flawless. In 1890s desert. That’s more farfetched than gooey aliens killing hapless cowpokes.

For the record, the idea of cowboys shooting it out with aliens isn’t new, comic books were doing it when my father was a teen and a 1994 cheap flick called “Oblivion” have been there done that. That film was a hoot, a silly toss-off that cost less than the catering budget on “Cowboys & Aliens.” I giggled and cheered the thing as I watched it on a video rental. It’s set in an alternate American future-past and had a far more clever and outlandish plot. You’ll cry from laughter.

This isn’t a bad flick, not by far. An upside down riverboat casino in the Western desert is a brilliant set and design piece. Sam Rockwell entertains as a saloon owner named “Doc.” But when I and my wife walk out at the end of a film that has cowboys, aliens, Indians, spaceships, horses, the guy who directed “Iron Man,” James Bond and Indiana Jones slash Han Solo, and all we can talk about it is how cute the heroic dog was, then, buddy, the burnt coffee and crispy cows on screen ain’t the only thing stinking. (P.S. This is “The Godfather” compared to “Wild, Wild West,” a movie that almost killed a genre and Will Smith’s career. How’s that for a wrap around to the lede?) B-

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

In what may be the most spectacular use of CGI since Gollum shat on Frodo’s life in “The Lord of the Rings,” the director, Joe Johnston, and producers, Marvel Comics, of “Captain America: The First Avenger” have gone back in time, found footage of my high school/early college self, and transported the images of my 90-pound bony white ass to modern day. The corker: They painted on the face of actor Chris Evans on my head. (I was goofy looking. Evans is not.) Amazing.

This imagery – all kidding aside, how did they do that!?! – makes up the first bit of the best comic book movie adaptation this side of “The Dark Knight” or “Iron Man.” Based on Marvel’s first hero, “Captain America” is the story of a weakling made into a warrior who takes down a power-mad off-shoot of the Nazis, called Hyrda, during World War II. He becomes a national icon. Great concept. Always was.

The movie is shot to look true to 1940s period, is fun as heck, and proudly, but not boastfully, patriotic. Cherry on top: Evans is every bit the superhero (he played the Human Torch in “Fantastic Four” before this) that Ryan Reynolds failed to be in “Green Lantern.” There’s no wink, but it’s loose enough not to be mistaken for the lead in, say, “The Lives of Others.” Pure comic book glory.

I went in mixed, blood full of a lifelong comic book fan’s demands, and yet cynical that a film in 2011 could pull off the comic’s silly costume and flag-waving, “Stars and Stripes Forever” patriotism. I also did not see how they would pull off the Red Skull, the madman Nazi scientist in need of a dermatologist. The comic books have seen their share of tumult during several decades (as has the nation itself) even going as far as killing off Cap several years back. A bad 1990s film exists, as does a 1970s TV short series of movies. Crap. But here he is, in big screen glory. Cap. The Red Skull makeup looks more rubber dog toy than bone, but ... I got past it. Mostly.

Oh, yes, the plot: Young Brooklyn nerd Steve Rogers (Evans) is a Tinker Toy thin kid who wants to serve and fight Hitler in 1942 America. It’s his duty, he says, why wouldn’t he? (How utterly cool is that?) But he gets 4F’d as soon as he takes off his shirt and smiles, like an overeager puppy. Then, as happens in all comic books, he gets drafted to be part of a super-secret U.S. experiment to become a super soldier. Super. With a few hypodermic shots of blue goo liquid, enclosure in a sarcophagus–looking contraption that shoots off blasts of light and yellow sparkles, Rogers is remade unto an Olympian god -- tall, and stacked with ripped muscles and a square jaw. That’s how the real Evans looks like. Hereafter, all the footage of High School Me is cast aside.

Long plot short: The newly dubbed Captain America must fight the Red Skull, who is every bit evil as Rogers is good. Skull, real name Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), thinks Hitler is too cautious, slow. He wants to move the war up a notch or eight. Cue the sci-fi gadgets and secret bases, and Igor-like lab assistant. I know the comics by heart, so I wasn’t surprised by any plot point, although wildly thrilled that comic book sidekick Bucky Barnes has been moved up from Robin rip-off to Rogers’ bigger friend. He’s played by Sebastian Stan, going full Errol Flynn. Brilliant move.

Also on hand: Marvel Comic’s Howling Commandos. And this is the only major grind I have with the film: It’s World War II, and this unit is a group of various races and backgrounds, an English man, a Japanese man, and an African-American. Oh, it plays well now, it feels good and shows the best wishes of America as a melting pot nation, but for the period – it’s an outright lie. The American military during World War II was segregated, with racism rampant from on top all the way down. (Click here for a fantastic “New York Times” column on the matter.) Japanese men and women were incarcerated in camps across the nation. Fact. I know, some folks will say there was no racism then, such accusations are an evil liberal lie. They also say our Founding Fathers ended slavery. These lies are deliberate, as Orwell taught us, he who controls the past, controls the future. The Tea Party is not about patriotism, but absolute control. Fact.

Now I digress again. See, the great idea of Captain America – his 1940s inception, the comic books and this movie – is what’s best about America: We are not sickly wrong, but we will always find our way and do the right thing, whatever the cost. We want to and long to be Captain America, not fragile Steve Rogers.

Joe Johnston, the director, made the similar “Rocketeer” when I was in high school, and the lone hero against Nazis plot abides, as is it does in the brilliant “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” where Indiana Jones first cracked a whip. No, “Captain America’ isn’t that good. Few films are. Rather, this super hero epic conjures up 1960s flicks such as “The Dirty Dozen” or “Where Eagles Dare,“ where the complicated plot dies at the third act, and the “attack the fort” boy’s war dream takes over.

Bonus points for the brains to show Cap clocking Hitler, the perfect moment of comic book history. Perfect movie? Perfect comic book come to life? Yes. I am biased to like this, and admit it, having owned a vertically enhanced Captain America action figure when I was a child. The action figure -- NOT a doll, OK, it was doll. I digress. Again. Whatever. May every film Marvel makes be this good; red, white and blue and clocking evil in the chin. B+