netflixed

Instead of reading this weekend, I chose to watch films. Yeah, I’m lazy. I’m also too lazy to give these three flicks the treatment they deserve…

The Tree of Life is a delicious and sumptuous film–I was wholly absorbed as I often am by Malick’s stuff. Characters who talk to God or the Infinite more than they do to others on screen? A shimmering tube TV fade-out splotch standing in for the Divine? Lots of Kubricky stuff in the extremely distant past, including a dinosaur sequence? Brad Pitt doing something he rarely does on screen–acting? I mean this shit is ridiculously good. I have never seen another film which so completely and wonderfully evokes the magic of childhood, putting adult viewers into the dawn of their own awareness. There’s a long montage of the sorts of things kids notice shot in the way they notice them, imbued with magic and mysterious light.

Yes, it’s vague, impressionistic, and continuously trembling on the fine line between arthouse and outrageously bombastic. I didn’t care. I will watch it again and again–and I say that despite having problems with the film’s ending.

I watched The Cabin In The Woods via HD streaming on my iPad. Dozens of film buffs I respect and admire told me to see it, but the ad campaign was so egregiously bad I stayed away. If you are a fan of horror films (good and bad), and if you enjoyed what Scream did to the genre, than you should see Cabin in the Woods. I laughed out loud a few times, which is rare for me. I’ll say nothing else because any spoiler could ruin it for you.

I will point out that both of these films reek of H.P. Lovecraft. Malick’s vision of humans as insignificant pawns breeding and seeking pathetically for meaning in the universe of a callous and disinterested God goes along nicely with The Cabin in the Woods. Take my word for it.

I can respect God’s disinterest in the affairs of small meddlesome creatures living on a rock orbiting a bland and typical sun. So could Godard. I was largely indifferent to Vivre sa Vie, but did enjoy it enough to stay with it to the end, which cracked me up. It’s not on a par with Weekend, but as far as Godard’s hilarious comedies go, it’s reasonably good.