Suddenly you crave IHOP

There are riots in the streets. That's what the news is telling me, anyway. I understand, though. I understand and share the same feelings of anger, sadness, and overall helplessness being expressed by everyone in both peaceful and non-peaceful protests over this injustice. I mean, really -- fuckin' Adam Sandler's movie beat out Pacific Rim at the box office? THIS IS BULLSHIT. *cue rimshot, followed by gunshot into blogger's fat mouth*

But things aren't so bad, he says to himself, because there's an Amy Adams film currently in theaters, and the American public did the right thing this time and supported her with their dollars (it also might have something to do with the movie being about Superman, but whatever). Yeah, it took me about a month to finally get around to catching Man of Steel, but I was busy chasing dreams and money and gaining traction on maybe a little of both.

I guess Superman Returns didn't do it for anyone, otherwise why would they be rebooting the reboot? Maybe it was because Warner Bros. couldn't handle Real-Life-Dom-Cobb Christopher Nolan wrapping up the money-making behemoth that was the Batman trilogy, and like some clingy desperate girlfriend or boyfriend unable to accept the plain & simple fact that It Is Over, they begged and pleaded Nolan for something -- ANYTHING -- to continue doing what he was doing. Can you imagine being Nolan and having the power to turn any slick asshole movie exec into fuckin' panicked MacGruber with just a simple "No" or "I don't think so"?

Nolan then stroked his imaginary beard and thought up the idea of overseeing the Superman reboot, provided they find someone else to type out the words and someone else to direct. The Brothers Warner and their sister Dot then visited movie jail and paroled Zack Snyder, telling him that if he wanted to screw around and make another masturbatory fever dream about hot chicks fighting zombie Nazi orcs and giant robots, he better first earn himself some new box office capitol and get with what the Noles is cooking up. So Snyder shows up for work and just to earn extra brownie points, he even apes Nolan's filmmaking style of combining steady widescreen visuals with handheld close-ups and natural looking source-style lighting.  At least that's how I imagine it all happening.

Now we have Man of Steel, and here's a quick rundown: Father freaks out about Krypton ending and rockets his son the fuck out of there just in time to get shanked by some asshole named Zod. Rocket Boy lands on Earth, sun gives him superpowers, he's raised on a farm by the Kents, he grows up, lives life, Zod arrives on Earth to take over/settle grudge, superhero shit follows. Also, there's a cute reporter named Lois Lane who wants the scoop because that's what reporters do for a living. If I can continue being a completely reductive asshat about it, it's kinda like if you took the first hour of Donner's Superman film and followed it up with the second hour of Superman II, minus Lex Luthor and his bullshittery, and mostly told during the first half in a fractured flashback type of form. 

Speaking of the Donner & Lester films, I went into this flick wanting to enjoy it as its own thing, and I didn't bring any baggage from the previous Supermans, other than "please be better than parts III and IV". But the more I think about this flick after the fact, the more I can't help but compare it to those first two joints. But more on that later.

This is how old I'm getting, seeing movies where guys who used to be the main draw are now the supporting players. Like, before the film, they showed a trailer for something called Paranoia starring one of the Hemsworth boys, and Harrison Ford & Gary Oldman in the secondary roles. I remember when Ford was a leading box-office sensation for what seemed -- fuck that, it didn't seem, it WAS -- my whole life and now he's reached that point in his career where he'll always be an A+ Hollywood Legend For Life but unless his work in the future involves revisiting such roles as Indiana Jones or Han Solo or Joe Frantic, his blockbuster days are kinda over.

That's just how it is for your famous types as they approach the twilight of the good times; they live out the remainder of their limelight by showing up in someone else's flick to give it a touch of stardom, or they disgrace themselves by getting caught screaming sexist/racist epithets on the phone to their trophy wives. In other words, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain in Machete Kills.

In the case of the former, here are Exhibits B and C: You have the star of Gladiator and L.A. Confidential playing Superman's birth father, Jor-El, and you have the star of Field of Dreams and Dances with Wolves playing Superman's Earth daddy, Jonathan "Pa" Kent. As Papa Number One, Russell Crowe is decent in the role, doing that monotone-ish thing he does most of the time whenever he's not ordering his fellow Gladiators to form into single columns or trolling the fuck out of Parker Barnes. He has a lot more to do as Jor-El, compared to Marlon Brando in the O.G. Supes film. He runs, jumps, swims, rides a flying Avatar lizard -- and yet, Brando exuded a fuck ton more gravitas just by simply holding up some glowy-pointed crystal at a motherfucker. In this case, the fat fuckin' turtle beat the doughy hare.

It's the same case with Costner in the part of Daddy Nombre Deux; his Pa Kent has a lot more screen time compared to Glenn Ford in the '78 version, but goddamn Ford hit me much harder in his 2 or 3 scenes then K.C. does during his sporadic appearances in the first hour. I mean, even Costner's badass final moment where he gets swept up by a tornado didn't have as much of a punch as Ford suddenly grabbing his wrist and dropping dead. Maybe that's less a reflection on the film and more on my personal baggage; I have old parents and having one of them keel over due to a fondness for bacon is more likely than them getting the Twister treatment, is what I'm saying.

Speaking of Pa Kent's final moments, I thought it was interesting that in Man of Steel, it's shown that he died in 1997, which also happens to be the same year Costner's The Postman was released. So I don't know if that was a coincidence or some kind of fucked up joke to have Costner's character die the same year his directing career died (but then was resurrected -- or at least had one hell of a death spasm -- in 2003 with his really, really, really fuckin' good Open Range). And you know what, man? I liked The Postman. I'll sooner watch that then your beloved The Artist -- AND YES I JUST FUCKIN SAID THAT SHIT.

I gotta give it up to this flick for showing more of Clark Kent's formative years, confirming my suspicions that a guy with his abilities would have a pretty shitty time during the already pretty shitty period of life known as Grades K-12. Poor kid has these panic attacks because his x-ray vision and shit goes on and off unexpectedly like your average car alarm, causing him to run for the nearest alone place -- where of course he's followed by half the school wanting to peep out the freak in his freakiness.

That scene brought up a painful memory of the time I felt way-too-nauseated in the 4th grade and ran out of class to head for the bathroom, only to barely make it a few feet out the door and past the pavement, where I violently spewed out Pop Tarts and Lunchables onto the grass for what seemed like forever. I thought to myself "How can this get worse?" and then God answered back by cueing the school bell, and then everyone in the 4th grade came out of their classes and gathered around as I vomited in such a manner that even that pie-eater in Stand by Me would've been like WTF. I tempted that God once again by wondering yet again if it could get even worse again. And that's when I heard one of the kids yell "IT'S COMING OUT OF HIS NOSE!!!" followed by a collective EWWWWW from both children and adults. And they were right. It was indeed spewing out of my nose as well.

But at least Clark Kent makes up for his spazzy moments by saving a bunch of these assholes after their school bus falls into a river. So some of these kids and townspeople are saying it's a miracle of God or something like that. Meanwhile, God apparently wasn't in a miracle mood when he let those kids in The Sweet Hereafter know all too well what it feels like to spend your last moments on Earth becoming drowned human popsicles. Some would justify it by saying that the extinguishing of all that young innocent life was His punishment to us for letting gays get married. (Meanwhile, He seemed to be OK with slavery and that whole Hitler thing. But when them homos get to making vows....)

Speaking of Hitler, the villain known as General Zod is kinda like him in that he's a genocidal cunt as well. He wants to make Earth more habitable for his fellow Kryptonians, and while someone with his intelligence and leadership ability could probably figure out a way for both humans and Kryps to live together, he's rather just let all the humans die out. I can't blame him. I mean, what would Kryptonians get out of living with humans, aside from non-stop requests from kids for piggy back rides to the sky, people bugging them to use X-ray vision on them so they won't have to go to the doctor, or being asked at barbecues to start up the grill with their heat vision. Worst of all, a Kryptonian will always be the first person a human will call when they need help moving, and it's not like the human will put any effort in lifting his or her side of the furniture.

Then somewhere along the way, people would start to resent the Kryps for taking all the x-ray jobs and the house movers jobs and whatever other jobs that humans would be passed over in favor of Kryptonians. That would suck for the Kryptonians but would be awesome for mi gente, because now all the anti-immigrant laserbeams of hate would veer away from them and move towards the Kryps.  About fuckin' time, I say.

Zod is played by Michael Shannon (not to be confused with Michael J. Shannon from Superman II ), and he's pretty good here, as should be expected when you cast a well-respected Academy Award-nominated actor. I especially dug how half the time he sounds like Dolph Lundgren. There is more to his character than the Zod portrayed by Terence Stamp in the Donner/Lester flicks; ultimately, he does what he thinks/feels is for the greater good, his fellow Kryps. The O.G. Zod, on the other hand, just wanted to rule because it's good to be the king, or something. And yet, I found Stamp's version of Zod a lot more fun to watch.

I feel that way about the film in general. While they might have gotten more into Superman's past, and given more complicated motivations for the villain, they also sucked a lot of the fun out of it and replaced it with a darker, more "real" feel to it. I mean, I get it -- that's what Nolan did with Batman and it worked really well in that case. But I don't think that same tone fits the Superman world at all. I'm not familiar with the comic books at all, so maybe that kind of thing worked better there (I'm assuming they've tried the grittier/darker approach on some of their runs), but I guess maybe I'm just burnt out on that sort of thing after the Nolan Batman trilogy.

It just doesn't feel like a Superman movie, and maybe the filmmakers knew it, which is why they called it Man of Steel instead of, I don't know, Another Superman or some shit. Even the flying is different; he doesn't so much take off from the ground as he explodes from it, getting into some weird explod-o-flight rather than the graceful gliding & landing Reeve did back in the day. The flying in this movie looks like a pain in the ass and probably takes a lot out of you, wearing you out and leaving you in no mood to put up with some chick asking you to guess what color her underwear is. Fuck that shit, find me a couch for me to rest my weary frame, woman.

But whatever, man. On the other hand, you have Superman Returns which did keep the spirit and tone of the Donner/Lester flicks but came out a dull experience. So at least this one never bored me, even at close to two-and-a-half hours. The pacing never lags, and the second half of the film is an extended battle with plenty of explosions and demolished buildings and what has to be thousands of human casualties, not to mention a brief interlude in space. Remember when Warner Bros. came thisclose to making a live-action Akira movie before canceling? Well, the last half-hour or so of Man of Steel is probably as close as we'll ever get to having one. All it's missing is Supes yelling out "TETSUUUUOOOOO!!!!!" and some dude turning into some giant mess of organs and junk.

The last Superman flick kinda pussied out of the whole "truth, justice, and the American way" deal and while this movie doesn't use the line (or if they did, I didn't hear it because I was chomping my nachos like a madman who eats nachos), it at least had Superman say something to the effect of "I was raised in Kansas, that's how fuckin' American I am, you black son-of-a-bitch", which I appreciated. And I would've appreciated it even more if the actor saying that line wasn't as British as socialized medicine. But no, they couldn't find someone in this motherfucker who looked Murrican enough to play an alien from another galaxy. They had to go across the pond for that. The fuck? That's as insane as casting an Australian to play a Canadian. I will not hear of this madness no longer. Anyway, this Cavill guy, he's fine in the role. He's also fiiiiine as a hot piece of man-ass, but that's besides the point. He's no Reeve, this one, but Reeve is currently merged with the infinite, so he'll do.

As for the reason I even watched this fuckin' thing: It takes almost an hour before Ms. Adams shows up as Lois Lane, tough-talker and hard-drinker. She also writes for the Daily Planet and calls men out on their dick measuring (figuratively speaking). Just as I'm sure she became a lot of baseball fans' dream girl in Trouble with the Curve as an attractive lady who knows a hell of a lot about baseball stats, here she'll probably give camera geeks a minor case of the swoons during the scene where she puts together her Nikon D3 like it was La Femme Nikita's sniper rifle or something. Actually, I take that back. Camera geeks, being the insufferable twats that they are, will probably scoff at this girl for having such an outdated camera -- the D3 is soooo 2008, a-hyuk, a-hyuk. 

When she first meets up with Superman, she's just been injured, so he uses his heat vision to cauterize her wound. She screams and he's holding her and I guess that's the film's way of saying that they just fucked without actually fucking, or something. Most of the time she's just going around asking people for stories about the guy, following the lead until Laurence Fishburne tells her to quit that shit before he gives her the Ike/boot treatment. OK, not really, he's just her boss and all he does is suspend her without pay.

She's good in the movie, but I think I'm gonna have to hold out until the sequel to really have an opinion of her as Lois Lane. I say that because she doesn't get as much to do, on account of the movie being more about Superman's past and dealings with that General Zod motherfucker. The nerve of the filmmakers to waste time on that bullshit when they should really be telling the story about this ace reporter. But with what little they give her, she doesn't get the chance to really Margot Kidder up the proceedings. She also doesn't get the chance to embarrass herself with some "Can You Read My Mind" bullshit, either, so I guess I should be grateful for that. But c'mon guys, up the Amy quotient when you make part II.

She does get to wield a space blaster, though, so that was kinda cool. But because she's The Adorable Amy Adams, she wields the weapon awkwardly.

And hey, it's better than Superman III and IV, which is all you can really ask for at this point.

In conclusion, if you want to feel funny about feeling funny about Diane Lane in old age makeup and grandma clothes, or if 9/11 wasn't enough mass destruction and death in a city for you, go see Man of Steel. 

Rape jokes with my bros

I gave my ticket to the cute girl in the knitted beret and she smiled at me because that's what a good employee does, and of course I decided to use that as part of the scenario I created as soon as I walked into the Laemmle Playhouse 7 and spotted her: There's my girlfriend Wendy (the name I've given her), and she works at this theater and gets discounts and sure enough her no-good boyfriend (that would be me) is yet again taking advantage of it. "He's incorrigible!" she'll remark to herself. But as time passes, the glow of a steady relationship will fade and Wendy will grow increasingly annoyed and call me out on every thing I do, then I'll find everything she does bothersome as well, because that's what happens when you live with someone long enough. Eventually Wendy will tell me that she thinks we should go our separate ways and I will immediately agree, forgetting that before her I was filling up wastebaskets with piles of wadded-up loneliness.

Hi there. I'm me and you're you and I'm about to ramble about the latest picture from cinematic badass fucker of all mothers, Mister Terrence Motherfuckin' Malick. It's called To the Wonder and that's what I went to see at the Laemmle. Among the actors who survived the final cut: The chick from Hitman; Mean Girl Rachel McAdams; Javier Bardem's sexy Spanish ass; and former Goofus to Matt Damon's Gallant/current Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Ben Affleck (who I understand was quite exemplary in the motion picture Phantoms). If you're looking for Rachel Weisz, Michael Sheen, Barry Pepper, and Jessica Chastain, you can find them drowning their I Got Edited Out sorrows at the local bar -- except for Chastain, who is contentedly sipping a Diet Coke because at least she got to be in The Tree of Life, plus she's also the Designated Driver of the group. 

So when the movie begins, we're introduced to Affleck and Chick from Hitman's characters (unnamed until the end credits) and they're having a lovely time of being two attractive people frolicking the fuck out of France, in particular over at that place in Normandy with the freaky-ass bouncy mudflats that I can't remember the name of and I'm not gonna bother looking up the name, because then I'll just digress into looking up porn and won't finish my ramblings. Anyway, their frolicking probably doesn't look too odd to the locals, since I'm sure they're used to seeing tourists free-spiritedly take in the sights of this lovely country, prancing about with their arms outstretched like they're in a Terrence Malick film or something.

Speaking of frolicking -- a word I will use often in this post, in case you want to play a drinking game while reading this shit -- remember back in the day, when you first discovered John Woo and the use of doves in his films was kinda cool until he ran it into the ground with overuse and it became kind of a joke? I think Malick has reached that point with the way the characters in this film dance/skip/brisk-walk their way through the locations. It's like their all on something and they want to drink in the colors that are apparently emanating from all of nature. If my man was saving up Frolic Points during those 18+ years that he wasn't making movies, the motherfucker sure as hell used them all up by the end credits of To the Wonder. Had there been any tulips on the set of this movie, you bet your sweet ass these characters would be tiptoeing through them.

"Mama, why are you unhappy?" asks the daughter of Hitman Chick, not knowing that by being in the same room with her and talking, she has answered her own question. Yeah, there's a precocious 10-year-old (is there any other kind?) from a previous relationship third-wheeling our couple's dynamic, but despite that chatty burden, everything is going awesome for them so Affleck decides to bring them over to small town Oklahoma.

For a while, our French duo is digging the fuck out of the clean supermarkets and Sonic Drive-ins, forgetting that they came from one of the most awesome places to live. But I guess it's kind of a grass-is-greener deal Malick is pointing out; I mean, Paris has -- among other things -- a fucked up traffic system and a bunch of asshole Parisians living there, while the streets of Oklahoma are wide and structured and when/if you get yelled at by a road-rager, at least it'll be in a comical Southern accent. Also, don't forget that for a couple of foreigners, the simple delicious purity of a freshly baked baguette served with ham and butter from a local boulangerie is an everyday occurance that ain't shit compared to the newfound chemical fakey-goodness that is the Butterfinger Sonic Blast.

Actually, I take it back. I don't think the whole green-grass sentiment is where Malick is coming from. I don't know where the fuck Malick is coming from. What I do know is that as the film goes on, Hitman Chick grows more and more discontent with her new surroundings, as does her daughter. But not in a Familiarity Breeds Contempt thing, and not a Fish Out Of Water thing either, it's more about how much any place you're living in can suck a fat fucking cock when the guy whose fat cock your sucking all-of-a-sudden ain't as lovey-dovey as he was in the beginning. OK, I'm being crude there. Sorry. What I mean is that even the strongest relationship carries with it the risk of thrill-loss, and those unlucky to find that risk becoming a reality will find out the hard way that even the most enchanting place can feel so fucking lonely when the honeymoon is over. Don't I know the feeling. Come back to me, Wendy.

See, maybe in The Wonder, money isn't required and all one needs to get by is to constantly happily gallivant through his or her surroundings, but back in Oklahoma U.S.A., Affleck has to work for a living. His job involves walking around aimlessly, looking at tractors and oil drills and listening to toothless locals talk to him about dogs acting weird. I'm still not sure exactly what his job is, but if one of the required duties in this position includes not looking the least bit convincing as a working man who knows what he's doing, then it's safe to say that Affleck's character is employee of the decade. But job security isn't enough for Hitman Chick, who is in need of being caressed/held/frolicked with 24/7 and she's starting to grow restless.

Shit, girl, at least he's working, he's doing something with his time. Maybe you wouldn't feel so unloved and rootless if you had something to do with your time other than ecstatically flitting about hick suburbia like you're Nell Unshacked, picking up poor wayward hens and dancing with them and singing to them in French what I can only assume translates to: YOU CANNOT ESCAPE MY FREE-SPIRITED NATURE, CHICKEN.

And it's not like the neighbors are weirded out by your behavior, probably chalking it up to you being a foreigner. They invite you and your brat daughter to join them in their backyard mommy-and-me fuckarounds, but you don't seem too excited about joining that particular soccer mom circle. Well what the fuck, lady? You happy being unhappy alone at home? Find something to do. Get yourself a fuckin' job, something part-time like a door greeter at the Super Walmart. Something. Anything. Get busy living or get busy dying, lady. That's what I say. Get a job or get a blog, that's also what I say.

I'm being unfair. Even if Affleck's character was a shiftless layabout, he'd still be doing the distant thing with her. It happens. Sometimes you spend your life looking for something, like some hot French/Ukrainian chick from Hitman, and then you get it, your contentment emanates from you like Bruce Leroy with the Glow, until you find yourself not giving so much of a shit anymore because as human beings we're all fucked up creatures and boo hoo and blabbity blah blah blah to the fuck blah blah.

Anyway. Affleck and the two French broads, they have an interesting way of interacting with each other; they only speak French to him and Affleck says close to nothing in return. Or maybe he does talk to them, maybe he was a chatterbox in the first cut, but Malick and his editors made sure to snip that shit out and leave behind only the opposite party's reaction. See, like most of T-Mal's films, this is more of a visual trip through storytelling-land, and in To the Wonder, anything resembling expository dialogue between the characters is mostly taken out (or used in the flowery poetic narration) and it's up to the audience to piece together what's going on.

Affleck unfortunately looks out of his element here -- and I'm saying that as a guy who never hated on homeboy (except for that episode of Project Greenlight where he was munching on popcorn while watching an early cut of Feast and then left behind his trash and a bunch of spilled popcorn on the couch, never bothering to pick up after himself -- what a piece of shit). Here, he looks lost and lame. He looks like Ben Affleck. I came away from this flick thinking that Affleck probably had a shitload of dialogue but because his acting sucked and/or his French sounded like ass, Malick thought it was better to cut all that shit out and make him more of the strong, silent type -- and he can get away with it too, since he pretty much rewrites the shit out of these joints in the editing room anyway. I wonder if Adrian Brody sucked in The Thin Red Line, and that's why the final cut turned his talkative character into the fuckin' Bellboy. 

Rachel McAdams shows up as a farm girl who recently lost someone in her life, or at least that's what I think I pieced together with the fragmented/elliptical storytelling here, because Malick doesn't give a shit about you understanding what exactly is going on, he's more interested in that you feel these motherfuckers in your soul. Oh, look at McAdams, looking so pretty and lonely, dealing with errant buffalo and asshole horses in need of serious whispering, without so much as a single farmhand to help her out (yet she manages to have enough free time to look her best!). And here comes her old school chum Affleck, recently tired of the French tang and moving on up to some good ol' heartland pussy.

Mean Girl looks like the quintessential Malick Girl in this flick, photographing very well in the natural settings under the natural light (kudos to mi hermano, the great cinematographer of raza, señor Emmanuel "El Chivo" Lubezki). Affleck's inadequacy must've rubbed off on her though, because her performance in this picture is an odd duck of a different color. She's like the personification of the narration in one of these films, speaking in a whispery breath like the entire world is a library or something. It doesn't matter where or when or why, the whole time she comes off like she's auditioning for The Village Part II. Maybe she took the horse whispering part literally, I don't know. Whatever the case, I actually came away feeling the most for her character, despite the performance.

Meanwhile, Javier Bardem isn't getting none from anyone, because he's a priest who doesn't bang boys. Just because he never got married and/or probably never got his dick wet doesn't mean he can't understand how an awesome relationship can grow strained. Hitman Chick goes to his church and occasionally opens up to him, and it's too damn bad she has no idea that he can kinda relate to the feeling that the man you love is getting all distant on your ass, only in his case, God is his boyfriend. He spends most of his days looking like the most morose motherfucker around and I feel sorry for those who attend his services, given the listless job he does with his sermons. Even for a Catholic priest, this guy's sermons are a chore. When he's not at church, he's prowling the streets with bible in hand, ready to give you the Jesus business -- and by "Jesus business", I mean, he walks around town looking as lost and forlorn as Ben Affleck's character at work.

Even the maintenance man at the church is politely giving him shit about it, trying to inspire the Holy Ghost in the dude. That janitor is pretty hilarious in his minute or so of screen time; it sounds like some unscripted shit that they just let the cameras roll on (come to think of it, this entire film felt like some unscripted shit that they just let the cameras roll on), but if it turns out that his bit was scripted, I wouldn't be surprised given that Malick is capable of writing some pretty awesome dialogue when he's not busy pontificating about This Great Evil, Where's It Come From. I remember watching a behind-the-scenes clip a while back for this film, and it looks like quite a bit of the cast consists of regular everyday citizens.

Kinda jarring to see how different the real people look in the nice neighborhoods from the ones in the more rundown areas, and I don't just mean in a racial way, either; they range from fresh-faced and well-fed to prematurely weathered skin and no teeth. Turns out these non-actors give more convincing performances than the real actors -- or maybe that was Malick's intention, to really distinguish those with genuine energy and life from those who are merely pretending. Oh, the excuses you'll look for when you really like a particular filmmaker, eh?

Especially when that filmmaker is goddamn Terrence Motherfuckin' Malick. In case you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm quite fond of this man's work. I've come away from every one of his past films with a feeling that was never less than Love. So it kinda pains me to say that I only liked To the Wonder. That's kind of a douchebag thing to say, "only liked". I guess the kinder way to put it would be to say "liked but didn't love".

Usually his films get to me in such a way that I walk away from them with this awe-inspiring sense of FUCK YEAH film ecstasy, but this one had me leaving with more of a "that's it?" deal. I think a big part of it has to do with me ultimately not giving a shit about Affleck and Hitman Chick, who are like, the main people we're supposed to be into here. On occasion I found myself growing impatient with their drama; I get enough of watching relationships go bad when I visit my married friends. I was far more involved with McAdams and Bardem's characters, and yet the film doesn't spend nearly enough time with them. He focused on the wrong people, if you ask me. Did you ask me? No you didn't, you're not even here. So let me just write this fuckin' buuuuulllll-sheeeeeeet.

If you're a Malick fan, you should check it out but I'm not going to guarantee that you'll like it. Don't put that shit on me, son. I know this film is also available on iTunes and On Demand, but if you're gonna see it, don't cheat yourself of some visual splendor -- go for the big screen. It really is only for completists though; if you thought The Tree of Life was some impenetrable artsy film-school bullshit, then you're going to think this film is like Super Tree of Life Alpha X: Champion Edition. Halfway through the film, the older gentleman sitting behind me turned to his lady and said "This is the worst movie ever". I wonder if he and his date went into this figuring that any film starring Argo Fuck Yourself, the girl from The Notebook, and that bad Anton Chigurh has to be packed with Good Times. You've been warned: the poster may say "To the Wonder" but the sign says Stay Away Fools 'Cause Artsy Existentialism Rules At The Maaa-aaa-lick Shack.

Hopefully upon second viewing, it'll grow on me and my opinion will change to where this movie can stand tall with the big boys that are Terrence Malick's other films. But for now, To the Wonder will have to settle for looking up at them and tugging at their lapels, then being told to settle down by The Tree of Life while having its adorable hair tousled by Days of Heaven. It'll look at The New World and be promptly ignored; even though The New World is only a few years older, it'll treat Wonder like a baby and want nothing to do with him. Then Wonder will go outside, where the cool uncle that is Badlands will let him have a sip from his Shiner Bock and show him his revolver, and then they'll both look over across the yard and notice The Thin Red Line sitting by himself, flask in hand, looking completely fuckin' worn out because war does things to a man.

This film came out only two years after his last joint. Goddamn. For a man who normally takes anywhere from 5 to 18 years between projects, this is like some Tyler Perry speed he's working at. He's on a tear, this bear; my man's currently working on two more films and I don't know if it's because of a sudden surge of inspiration, a realization that he's a lot closer to the end than he is to the beginning, or maybe Woody Allen called him a faggot. Whatever the case, I'm happy to know that there are more films coming out in the near future. If To the Wonder is any indication, Malick's faster-paced output will result in lesser films. But if To the Wonder is any indication, "lesser" Malick will still be worth my time.

At least he didn't call his worst film "The Master", like P.T. Anderson did with his. Sick joke, if you ask me.