The Screengrab : tree of life

In Other Blogs: 100% Watchmen-Free Edition

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:30:00 GMT

It’s enough already! I blame myself for piling on, but surely we can find some intriguing blog entries out there on subjects other than the movie that rhymes with Blotchmen. For instance, Arbogast on Film is looking back at an apocalyptic fantasy from the olden days. “Maybe the world did come to an end in 1988. I don't want to be glib but I'm hard pressed to think of anything that has surfaced in the interim that really is something to tap dance about. There was an electricity back then, a crackle in the air that's missing now, the void filled by buzz, which isn't the same thing. None of us knew the backstory of MIRACLE MILE (1988) at the time of its release; we didn't know that the property had been kicked around Hollywood for the better part of a decade or that its author, Steve DeJarnatt, had written the script for Warners but had bound himself to the project as a director, which queered the deal. We didn't know DeJarnatt (well, we didn't know DeJarnatt) had bought the script back from the studio for $25,000 and that Hemdale stepped in with an offer to produce for just under $4 million, which got the ball rolling. Nope. All of this happened while we were sleeping, and when we woke up MIRACLE MILE had happened.”

At Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells speculates on rumors that Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life will feature…dinosaurs? “Some 18 years ago I over-wrote a very long piece about Malick, a where-is-he? thing called Malick Aforethought…I remember researching and describing an ambitious film that Malick wanted to film in the wake of the 1978 release of Days of Heaven, called Q. (A title later appropriated by Larry Cohen when he made Q, The Winged Serpent.) And I remember a passage about a dinosaur sleeping and dreaming in a sea of magma -- I remember that much. The story spanned millenia. We all know there's a 20th Century portion in which Pitt (I think) plays Penn's dad in flashbacks. I realize this all sounds a little vague.”

If you’re attending SXSW without a film badge, Slackerwood offers some tips. “Movies shot in Austin or with Austin ties may fill up quickly. Sometimes cast and crew members and their families are invited and a number of seats are reserved. On the other hand, these are the movies that often draw more ticketholders than badgeholders, because the audience is full of locals wanting to see their neighbor or coworker's movie. So if you get there early, you might be okay.”

At The House Next Door, Jeremiah Kipp talks to Daniel Bird about Central European New Wave Cinema. “In Poland I am a cultural outsider. I try to read films in cultural context, but my response is, ultimately, personal. I am English, after all. But I have been living in Warsaw on and off since 2002. Yes, there are culturally specific aspects to many of the films I write about. Sometimes an understanding helps the appreciation of these films, but not always. Zulawski's Diabel makes a lot more sense if you know something about the Warsaw student riots in March 1968. But what attracts me to a particular film is its bizarre quality. I guess you could say such films seem bizarre to a cultural outsider. But then I think the only person in the world who finds Diabel 'normal' is Zulawski himself.”

Finally in List-o-Mania, the AV Club offers 24 graphic novels besides, uh, you-know-what that they’d like to see made into movies. Like all right-thinking people, they’d love to see David Lynch adapt Daniel Clowes’ A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. “Seeing the two work together on this eerie, unhinged story, which blends elements of Twin Peaks and the Manson family’s worst nightmares, would be a rare treat—or a total disaster. Luckily, Clowes has already anticipated the latter possibility; in the pages of Eightball, where Velvet Glove first appeared, he wrote a hilarious what-if story of its Hollywood adaptation, complete with happy ending, product placement, and cheesy classic-rock soundtrack.”

Digging Dirt on Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Not much is known about Tree of Life, the latest from secretive director Terrence Malick (Badlands, The New World), which I guess has something to do with the fact that he’s a secretive director. We know the film stars Sean Penn and Brad Pitt, who replaced the originally cast Heath Ledger (fortuitous turn of events there). We know, thanks to this casting call, that Tree of Life Needs Babies (which sounds almost as ominous as “Soylent Green is people”). And we know that the film is now shooting in the Austin area. In fact, as fortune would have it, it’s being shot a few blocks from the home of Austin American-Statesman columnist Michael Corcoran in Smithville, Texas, and thus Corky has been able to unearth a detail or two.

First of all, it appears that “Smithville is standing in for 1950s Waco, where Malick grew up. We know this because the film has asked the Waco Tribune to make some mock 1950s front pages. Could this be Malick’s first personal memoir film?” If so, it would come as something of a relief, since the title Tree of Life is conjuring up bad flashbacks to The Fountain for me.

Secondly, “Brad Pitt plays the father and Jessica Chastain is the mother of three boys, ages 7- 12. One scene filmed Tuesday was at a barbecue pit on Lee Street and one witness told me that Pitt was driving three boys in a vintage 1950’s car. The day before filming started, the three kids were hanging out at the house on Burleson Street where the title tree is planted.”

And…that’s about it, aside from the photo Corcoran snapped, which may or may not depict the titular tree. Oh, and then there’s this tidbit: “Another publication printed the rumor that someone had been defecating on the front porch of the film house. Not true, says the chief of police. The house is under surveillance around the clock, lest some Brad Pitt fan want something he touched.”

Stay tuned for further developments.

Morning Deal Report: Re-Cranked

Peter Smith — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Now here's some news you can use: Lionsgate is making a sequel to Crank. This one pins Jason Statham against "a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working." Um, awesome. But the same story drops still-more-intriguing news: Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under, Dexter) will star in a futuristic thriller called Game with 300's Gerard Butler. Michael C. Hall rules.

The latest movie in the Philip K. Dick adaptation wave, Radio Free Albemuth, stars. . . Alanis Morissette. I will not make jokes. I will just say that Alanis Morissette almost single-handedly ruined the mid-nineties, and I wish she had gone away forever. That is all.

Heath Ledger and Sean Penn will costar in Terrence Malick's next film, Tree of Life.

— Peter Smith