I understand that people are talking about the Malick teaser today? I feel stymied by this one (shockingly I'm a "no" at first glance so I'm skipping the traditional YNMS) but I shall share a few thoughts. Mostly, though, I feel Cate Blanchett sums it all up for me in her early teaser line-reading. So long as you pretend that she's me and I'm talking to Terrence Malick instead of Wandering Bale Sun-Logged in the Egyptian Desert Hollywood Wilderness...
You're so different these days. What's going on with you?
Between the club music and what looks like a mash-up of several very familiar -- though I can't quite place them -- films, I just don't get it. Something about this Knight of Cups teaser smells like selling out. By which I mean there's a strong whiff that that is also happening thematically as Christian Bale goes Hollywood and loses himself in decadence and luxury and money and La-La land. But perhaps the love of a good one can savzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Splash with me cold water. I rise!
The world has thousands of movies about angsty grown men behaving badly and then trying to find themselves. If that's where busy Malick, who was once such a vanishing iconoclast, is going how shall I find the will to live? (Other than by ignoring the movie). I much prefer Malick movies when they're about the way grass moves in the wind or the haunted but peaceful look of soldiers who will probably lose everything or the impossibly opaque resplendent close-ups stares of flat-haired enigmatic women with older troubled men who don't seem to understand them or inhabit the great outdoors in the same way.
The other thing I find so strange about this trailer is it feels like a pastiche of Lubeszki's & Malick's (and other movies) greatest hits: Ooh The Tree of Life. Oooh, that fascinatingly obtuse seaside Birdman cutout again. Psycho. Fish-eyed lenses from ___ and Neon hallucinatory clubs from Enter the Void? Or maybe a quick vacation with Sofia Coppola at her favorite lux hotel in California. Oooh, another Tree of Life sweeping vista or vertical sweep skyscraper interior. Hey Bale as Penn who is The Narrator of Life lost man who is also the little boy. People juxtaposed against giant projections like lifted from that shot in Broken Embraces which was lifted from that shot in I forgot. Whatzat, Natalie Portman closely juxtaposed with a pink Closer wig.
Thank you. My name is Jane.
The imagery rush is intoxicating to a degree (gorgeous imagery since Malick/Lubezki are incapable of anything else) but without context it's rather like skipping through Chivo's instagram account while various actors angst at you in voiceover. Which, hey, has it's place don't get me wrong.
But you don't need three Oscar winners for that.
I skipped To the Wonder after the reviews so I'll wait for reviews on this one.
You?