The Tree of Life

I think some films should come with cliff notes. This is true for Terrence Malick's (The New World, The Thin Red Line) film The Tree of Life. Since I'm too dense to understand this film for its true meaning, this will be a short entry. Now I haven't seen any of his other films (although my love for the Disney movie Pocahontas makes me want to see The New World) so I don't know if this is something different for him, but for lack of a better term, The Tree of Life is artsy. I remember seeing a trailer for it months ago, and even though I wasn't sure what it was about, I knew I really wanted to see it because it had so much artistic elements to it that films are lacking today. The toymaker in Hugo use to be a director, but before that he was an artist and a magician so he decided to bring art and magic into films, and I thought that was so wonderful. The Tree of Life had such amazing cinematography that I kept forgetting it was probably mostly CG, even though the dinosaurs look so much more realistic than the Jurassic Park ones. I get the ones in JP were supposed to be robots, but still. Maybe if they remade it today, it would look better. But let's not get any ideas, the last thing we need is a remake. What happened to being original? Malick has that originality, at least in this film, that other films lack. Even though I didn't totally get the story, it was amazing watching these colors in everyday nature unfold before my eyes.

The Tree of Life is nominated for three Oscars. Best Film, Best Achievement in Cinematography, and Best Director. I honesty believe that it deserves Best Cinematography, and I've seen about half of the nominees. However, it's a tough decision on Best Director or Best Film. I think too many people didn't understand it enough to appreciate it to make it become Best Film. Also, I heard even some people walked out. Looking around the theater today, I saw that the majority of the audience (only a couple handful of people) were viewing the film alone. I think it's better appreciated alone because then you're not tempted to either explain it or have it explained to you. It's like a painting where everyone has their own interpretation of it, or at least that's what I think. I'm glad I was encouraged to see it in the theater because it's definitely more enjoyable on the big screen.

The Tree of Life stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn aka Dustin Hoffman because I confuse the two a lot, and Jessica Chastain (who for some reason got nominated for The Help but not Tree of Life). So that's my comment on it, short and sweet.

The Oscars are tomorrow, and unfortunately I didn't see as many nominees as I wanted, but I saw some good ones. It's hard to decide who will get Best Picture, probably The Help, but hopefully not, and I guess that's why I'm not on the Academy. Good luck tomorrow nominees. May the odds be ever in your favor.