Despite the bad critics and some booing from... blablabla. The Tree of Life went on to win Cannes' Palm d'Or. This is then Malick's second win at Cannes after 1979s Best Director award for Days of Heaven, which also won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, that is, the cinematographer did, Néstor Almendros. June 16, keep in mind.
After Lars Von Trier was declared persona non grata in Cannes for committing the crime of babbling about Hitler and Speer and the bunker and his joking about being a Nazi in this press conference, Kirsten Dunst nevertheless went on to win the award for Best Actress for von Trier's Melancholia, which will succeed The Tree of Life, after June 16, as the film I'm anticipating most. What Bret Easton Ellis has to say about the whole thing:
Kirsten Dunst looked a lot sadder when I ran out of coke at an Oscar party 5 years ago than at the Von Trier press conference at Cannes...
Despite the bad critics and some booing from the Cannes premiere crowd two days ago this is the film I anticipate the most right now. It might also be the answer to all of Conor's questions asked two posts ago. This is also supposed to be the film why Malick disappeared for 20 years between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, not being able to pull off this major achievement then. Another 13 years and The New World have passed, making it the Son of God's lifetime for this movie to be in production. Since you can't enlarge (or I don't seem to be able to enable that function) the YouTube window from here, click on it again after you hit the play button to get to the YouTube site to, because that's what this sentence is all about, enlarge the trailer to full size. You don't want to have it otherwise, trust me. Or just click on this link to get there directly. Just found another clip here.
5 films in 40 years and every one considered a masterpiece. Interesting enough that imdb lists yet another Malick film as being in post-production already. Spotting Ben Affleck in the cast, I really don't know what to think of that. Wikipedia lists it as The Burial and I do nothing but hope that Malick doesn't bury his talents and integrity for good with this one. In the meantime (The Tree of Life opens June 16 in Germany) I'm watching Malick's acknowledged masterpieces in chronological order. And you definitely should do that, too.
The German DVD of at least Badlands has shitty picture quality. Really shitty, that is. You should try to get hands on some HD and Criterion Collection editions of these films.
