Each new film that Terrence Malick, the once notoriously unhurried director, has made in the rash of projects since The Tree of Life (2011) evinces a further regression, an increasingly witless sacralizing of male-female coupledom. The title of Malick’s latest, Song to Song, set in Austin against the backdrop of …
HollywoodandFine.com Godfrey Reggio makes the kind of movies I think Terrence Malick longs to make. While Malick has already rejected story and plot, as well as dialogue, character development and, occasionally, even characters, he’s never made a film where he ignored all of these things completely. And that’s all that …
from Yahoo! Movies www.movies.yahoo.com Like a bastard love child of Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, David Lowery’s crime drama shuffles to its own drummer. Either you dance to it or you can skip away, but the latter would be a mistake in an era of cookie cutter genre pics. The …
HollywoodandFine.com So many films today seem to carry the same references to earlier work, indicating the influences that shaped the filmmaker in his work. But references are one thing; using those references for fresh inspiration is something else, and that’s what David Lowery has done with “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.” …
HollywoodandFine.com Over the years, I’ve developed what I refer to as the 20-minute rule. It basically says that a movie that hasn’t hooked me in the first 20 minutes probably isn’t going to. I tend to apply it most forcefully when I’m watching films at festivals or when I’m sorting …
HollywoodandFine.com I recall a while back that a fellow critic took offense when I referred to Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg” as “not an audience-friendly film.” He felt that I was using the term pejoratively – as though I was saying there was something wrong with any film that didn’t make a …
HollywoodandFine.com If Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” was too much the dialogue-driven, story-heavy film for your liking, you’ll probably be more in the mood for his latest, “To the Wonder,” which features Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko in its cast. I hesitate to say that it stars …
HollywoodandFine.com I have, on occasion, posted rants about filmmakers and actors who I consider overrated, a list that includes John Hughes, Terrence Malick, Zooey Deschanel and Ridley Scott, among others. And, at some point, a reader sent in a comment that said, “Why not write about someone who’s underrated?” To …
HollywoodandFine.com Quiet but compelling, emotionally buttoned-up and naked at the same time, Ava DuVernay’s “Middle of Nowhere,” opening in limited release Friday (10/12/12), is a film about holding still while trying to move forward. It’s not an easy trick; indeed, it’s impossible. Which is what the film’s central character, Ruby …
HollywoodandFine.com Let’s sum up, shall we? I essentially worked right through the holidays, in terms of posting on a daily basis. So I’m taking a few days off from reviewing and will resume the daily treadmill when I get back from a short break next Wednesday (1/12/12). I did my …
