What the photographer THOUGHT he was getting was a simple stop-and-chat with actor Benicio Del Toro. The actor had emerged from a restaurant in Los Angeles and was met with a barrage of questions about topics like Cuba’s statehood. In the background, a nondescript and plainly dressed man walks around awkwardly, clearly avoiding the camera but also clearly compelled to stick near Del Toro. It wasn’t until later that some eagle-eye discovered that the man was none other than Terrence Malick, the director of The Tree of Life (and other masterpieces) who makes it a point to almost never appear in public. Well, at least he didn’t have to answer any annoying questions! (Deadline)

He also had some things to say about Michael Bay and Lars von Trier, important movies about African genocide and the holocaust, and we also mention his latest movie, Bloodrayne: The Third Reich, on DVD and Blu-ray July 5.

Q: You famously fought your critics in a boxing match and proved you were tougher than them. That doesn’t necessarily prove you’re a better filmmaker than they say you are, so how will you prove that?

UB: [Laughs] I think with more movies like Rampage for example or Darfur, other genres I started doing the last few years, more reality based movies also. I think I proved with a few movies already that are better than House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark, yeah? On the other hand, I also always said genre is genre. If you make a Bloodrayne: The Third Reich, you have to deliver what people are expecting, like action, gore, sex. With this movie now we did that, but it’s also clear you’re not getting an Oscar nomination for it.

Q: Would you like to win an Oscar one day.

UB: [Pouts] Absolutely. No, to say I don’t care, A, I would never get it but B, of course it’s good, it helps movies. A lot of movies got maybe no attention. You saw with The Hurt Locker for example, it tanked in the movie theaters but then it got the Oscar and a lot of people watched it on DVD and everything. It’s sometimes a very good thing for a movie.

Q:  When you look at your own films, can you tell what’s different than other films?

UB: Yeah, I can see it. I think I’m not an easy director to write about because it’s a wide variation of movies I did, so you cannot really lock me down to one genre or one way to make movies. I always try not to make the style “an Uwe Boll” movie. The style is what the story is giving me basically. When I do a Darfur movie about the genocide in Sudan or the Auschwitz movie, I have a totally different approach as I would for an action movie. If people watch it they will feel that.

Brad Pitt's Kids Need A Good Belting In 'Tree Of Life' Clip

UB: I hated it.

Q: Why?

UB: I totally hated that movie because I feel as a filmmaker that besides the fact that Terrence Malick did some great visuals on some movies, also on The New World, like the opening of that movie was really good but then he completely lost it. I think Tree of Life is a piece of shit. Totally, and I think Sean Penn is ridiculous in it, like walking around in the elevator. It’s nothing. This is the thing. It’s so overrated because it’s Terrence Malick. Same as Lars von Trier’s movies. I like breaking the Waves. After that was all crap. The thing is he gets all the Hollywood stars, “Oh, I want to work with him” and they don’t know what kind of retard he is. I think the same with Terrence Malick. I think Terrence Malick is one of the overrated directors of all time.

Q: Is that just because it doesn’t have a story and it’s more impressionistic?

UB: Absolutely. You have to tell a story that you get a connection to something. When he starts doing after 25 minutes a National Geographic break where you see volcanoes and planets coming together. Then his dinosaur episode with Jurassic Park. You think well, what’s going on with him? What is wrong with wrong with the guy? I was not engaged to keep watching. If I would have known how this ends, I would have walked out. But I watched the whole movie because I wanted to see how it ends also. The end was I think the most pathetic thing, when they’re all at the beach hugging each other. It was fucking disastrous. It was a complete disaster and it shows also that a lot of stars have no taste. Like Sean Penn, Brad Pitt have no taste what a good movie is. They trusted the director but you have to have your own brain. I’m very mad right now because I want to do a bail out movie about the financial crisis where a guy is losing everything and then he starts killing the investment bankers. I did various offers to stars and they passed on it. So CAA gave it a good reader’s review, so they’re supporting us but William Morris gave it a bad reader review. Like I also watch Matt Damon in The Adjustment Bureau, also a piece of shit movie. It was a disaster. It was a complete disaster and a guy like Matt Damon should feel that, that this story is nothing. It’s like a mini Matrix in the normal world but it makes no sense because that agency who’s changing it all, who is that? What was the plan of these guys? Who pays them? It’s totally absurd because that agency is doing everything but not doing anything basically. Also it’s a very flat movie and I think with The Tree of Life, this was for me an embarrassment and it gets hyped up because of Terrence Malick and I didn’t like it.

Q: Well, I knew from his other movies that he was experimental.

UB: Right, because his other movies you get the feeling he tries to tell a story and cannot do it. But this was poor experimental. You cannot tell me you were not bored to death while you watched The Tree of Life.

1. Project the film in its proper 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
2. The correct fader setting on Dolby and DTS systems is 7. Malick asks that faders be kept at 7.5 or even 7.7, system permitting.
3. The film has no opening credits, and the booth operator is asked to make sure the “lights down cue is well before the opening frame of reel 1.”
4. With all the recent talk of “darkier, lousier” images, operators are asked that lamps are at “proper standard (5400 Kelvin)” and that the “foot Lambert level is at Standard 14.”

6 photosJessica Chastain

6 photosJessica Chastain

However, “experimental” is a pretty vague descriptor. How experimental did it get? Will the film feature Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz throwing oatmeal at one another’s asses? (Please say yes.) Doubtful. What it is likely to show is Ben Affleck staring out over a wheat field for an entire soundless, 11-minute shot. Then again, he has a knack for weaving large, existential questions into his narratives and Tree Of Life does feature dinosaurs so maybe Malick will surprise with something totally out of left field. I’m picturing a mopey downer of a film when suddenly – surprise! – ninjas. (24 Frames)

Terrence Malick‘s arty film The Tree of Life stars Brad Pitt, The Big Bang, Rippling Water, Sean Penn and a large cast of Trees. Since the film is slow-paced, full of nature images and not exactly plot-driven, distributor Fox Searchlight is trying to spark (light up?) the interest of a certain audience via the following tweet:

@foxsearchlight – LA: are you aware Arclight Hollywood showtimes for TREE OF LIFE include a 4:20 screening daily?

Brad Pitt Wants His Son To Hit Him As Hard As He Can

Best Picture, the The Palme d’Or winner: Terrence Malick,’The Tree Of Life‘
The Grand Prix:  (tie): Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, ‘The Kid with a Bike’ and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, ‘Once Upon A Time In Anatolia’
Best Director: Nicolas Winding Refn -’Drive
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, ‘The Artist‘
Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst, ‘Melancholia‘
Best Screenplay Joseph Cedar, ‘Footnote’
The Jury Prize: Maïwenn, ‘Poliss’
Camera d’Or: Pablo Giorgelli, ‘Las Acacias’
Short Film Palme d’Or: Maryna Vroda, ‘Cross-Country’

There you have it. The movie I’m most excited to see is Drive, followed by The Tree of Life and Melancholia – provided all the prints of the latter aren’t thrown into a huge bonfire due to Lars Von Trier’s “Nazi” remarks. See you at Cannes next year, everybody! (The Playlist)

Director: Terrence Malick

Cast: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain

Synopsis: The story centers around a family with three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence.

Release Date: May 27, 2011

It’s a screen saver really. You see lots of water ripples, bird flocks, mountains, light wisps, volcanic smoke and even outer space. At least it’s totally out there. Malick portrays The Big Bang and the formation of the planet. And, of course, more trees. Always with the trees.

The CGI is amusing. A sort of dinosaur-seal on the beach looks like the third part of the Sharktopus trilogy. Dinosaurs have been done on film before. Malick could have asked to borrow Spielberg’s, or at least Peter Jackson’s. But bad CGI in an art film, I think that’s kinda funny. Either way, the more abstract segment was my favorite part of the movie.

Just In Time For Your Nap, ‘The Tree Of Life’ Trailer

It begins with a family receiving terrible news about the death of a young son in the ‘50s. Mom (Jessica Chastain) and dad (Brad Pitt) mope around wallowing in sadness. One of their surviving sons, Jack, grows up to be Sean Penn and mopes through his modern day corporate life. That’s the intro!

After that we get the nature trip. Then, the actual story kicks in and it moves forward more than any other Malick film. It’s about the cycle of abuse as the kids discover their father is abusive and the eldest learns to act out in different violent ways. Sounds obvious, but it’s portrayed in that nonlinear way.

You can do the impressionistic version of the cycle of violence story. I don’t think you get any more out of that than just narrative storytelling, but it’s another form of artistic expression. The scenes look like old family movies, only in HD. The way the camera sways and bobs makes it look more interesting, even when all the actors have their back to you. Sometimes Mom will float in midair for no reason, because it’s art, man.

S the tree of life is planted in violence, and gives way to more violence from our evolutionary origins (the dinosaurs). Even as a civil society, if Dad’s insecure about his failures at work, he’ll lash out and create violent youth. Then it wraps up with a little more screen saver and some inner child/spirit vision whatever. It’s also about letting go. I get that too.

Grown-up Jack is barely in it so Sean Penn fans will get ripped off. I also think it’s funny that Pitt is supposed to be a ‘50s dad. You can put glasses on him and grease up his hair, but he still looks like a movie star. Maybe that’s how all kids see their dads.

All the Malick fans can yell at me for oversimplifying it and missing the point, but I actually like this one. These are all positive endorsements. I know Malick makes movies designed to be interpretive. I went with him on this one, and this is MY tree of life.

As you may have guessed, this clip pertains to step four. It’s a good clip, although it lacks the visual resplendosity (my word) of the trailer – it’s basically just a disturbingly realistic depiction of a borderline-abusive father played by Brad Pitt bullying his son, who presumably grows up to be Sean Penn. Or maybe he grows up to be Terrence Malick? (Huffington Post)

Click the rapscallion to view the clip

This clip from Terrence Malick‘s Tree Of Life shows what happens when the story’s abused children get break from their a-hole dad. Without Brad Pitt around to handsomely abuse them, they have a pretty good time with their mom. They get to run around the house, yell their heads off, jump on the beds, and bring home lizards. They really need a good sock in the jaw, if you ask me and Brad Pitt.

Rules for my future children: Go to your rooms.

This montage is illustrative of Malick’s work. The sun pouring through the windows paints the scene with a serenity you rarely find outside of a lazy Saturday afternoon. Which means, in order to contrast, Brad Pitt is really going to have to lay the smack down something fierce when he gets back from his trip. These poor kids’ eyes are probably going to pop.

]]> http://www.screenjunkies.com/video/brad-pitts-kids-need-a-good-belting-in-tree-of-life-clip/feed/ 0 http://www.screenjunkies.com/movies/movie-photos/get-a-good-look-at-a-dinosaur-from-tree-of-life/ http://www.screenjunkies.com/movies/movie-photos/get-a-good-look-at-a-dinosaur-from-tree-of-life/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:22:58 +0000 Joseph Gibson http://www.screenjunkies.com/?p=208151 Ever since the first trailer for Terrence Malick‘s Tree of Life came out, people have been wondering what it was all about. And ever since a poster for the movie seemed to have a small appearance from, of all things, a dinosaur, people have been wondering how there could possibly be a dinosaur in a movie like this. Now we have an even better glimpse of the great lizard, as he majestically looks off into the horizon while grazing in a mountain stream, presumably after killing Newman from “Seinfeld.”

Tree of Life premiered at Cannes and will enter the exciting world of limited release on May 27th, so expect to know the precise role the dinosaurs play in the story by then. My guess: Sean Penn is actually a dinosaur, and it’s up to his elderly father Brad Pitt to take him down before he rampages through the city, killing millions. It’ll be like The Omen, but with a secret dinosaur instead of the Antichrist. You heard it here first. (Two Ways Through Life)

The official line-up is getting announced on April 14, but it’s now known that the eagerly anticipated Brad Pitt/Sean Penn/dinosaur drama Tree of Life directed by Terrence Malick. He’s joining Lars von Trier and Gus Van Sant (or is it Lars Von Trier and Gus van Sant??), so this looks like it will be a Cannes to remember. I can’t wait to see you there! (via Variety)

Okay. I’m not sure how but Terrence Malick‘s The Tree Of Life will somehow include dinosaurs. VFX Supervisor Dan Glass revealed that the film didn’t have a script per se, rather a set of notes that Malick has been compiling for the past 35 years. In addition, he’s submitted footage he shot back in the 1970′s to be used in the film.

To make the film more dense, the effects shots broke down into categories called realms, the Astrophysical Realm; the Microbial Realm; and the Natural History Realm. Glass comments to that saying, “I can confirm that there are dinosaurs.”

Not sure how this will all mix together with Brad Pitt hitting his kid and languid shots of wheat fields, but we’ll just have to trust Malick. He knows what he’s doing. And by that, I mean, only HE knows what he is doing. (via /Film)

The film stars Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as parents who raise a son with anger issues. That’s all the info you need to guess who Sean Penn plays in this movie. Hey, pretty though.

The Tree of Life hits theaters May 27, 2011.