The Conversations: Terrence Malick - Part II

If you haven't seen The Tree of Life, this post isn't for you. Oh, please, bookmark it. But don't read it. The Conversations: Terrence Malick - Part II is full of spoilers. But, more significantly, it's full of interpretation, and you owe it to yourself to try to grapple with The Tree of Life on your own; it's a movie for grappling, and it's about grappling, really. That said, those who have seen The Tree of Life are encouraged to head on over to The House Next Door and continue the discussion -- whether that's today or next week or next month, depending on when the movie gets to you. Whether you think Malick's fifth film is his masterpiece, or an erratic failure that crumbles under the weight of its ambition, it's certainly Malick's most debate-ready picture -- open to all kinds of interpretation. We got some great comments on Part I of this discussion, and I hope we see more of that here. So, when you're ready, give it a read, and let us know what we missed.

Touched For the Very First Time: X-Men: First Class

Superhero movies are like orgies. Get enough extreme people in the room and suddenly the miraculous becomes mundane. By that description, X-Men First Class is an orgy full of virgins. Matthew Vaughn’s film traces the Marvel comic franchise to its roots – back when Professor Charles Xavier was just a cocky grad student, Magneto couldn’t levitate anything much bigger than a car battery and Mystique went by the equally stripperish name of Raven. Novices who barely understand their powers, never mind what it takes to harness them, these characters are special but not quite super, noble but not quite heroic or misguided but not quite villainous. They are mutants who are all too human, and that’s precisely what makes them interesting. The dirty little secret of comic book movies is that the stronger superheroes become, the more they tend to bore; pit two formidable opponents against one another and what you get, more often than not, is lots of thrusting, grunting, panting and a sense that each participant is trying to put off the climax for as long as possible. X-Men First Class, in contrast, is one of the rare superhero movies populated by characters who are more concerned with ultimate conquest than with foreplay.

Or so it seems to me. Admittedly, I know comic books only slightly better than I know orgies, so maybe this is an Ironman hangover talking. Nevertheless, it’s refreshing to come across some superhero/villain fight scenes that don’t seem to be motivated by style points. Considering that this is a prequel, it takes some incredible suspension of disbelief to convince ourselves that these comic book icons are in any grave danger, but at least when these budding X-Men mix it up they seem as likely to hurt themselves as their opponents. There’s no suspense to be found by watching to see if they survive, but there’s intrigue to be had in watching to see how they survive. X-Men First Class can’t completely escape serving up fight scenes that come off like choreographed dance routines – it doesn’t help that whenever Azazel and Riptide strut out onto the battlefield wearing designer suits and come-hither stares they seem as likely to break out into West Side Story’s gym mambo as to throw down – but it successfully keeps its characters out of rhythm. Where so many superhero movies try to impress with excellence, X-Men First Class finds fashion in awkwardness.

Mint!: Super 8

When I was in elementary school, my friend’s older brother, who was in middle school at the time but seemed to me to be about 23, wrote a screenplay. All I remember about the script is that it was (1) written on college ruled paper; (2) starred a character named Maximilian; and (3) involved a scene in which a bunch of kids, including Max, threw flowerpots down from a rooftop at the story’s adult villains, who might have been Russians, but who knows. Come to think of it, that might be all I ever knew about the screenplay, which at 100-or-so pages struck me as something that would take months to read, which is why I happily settled for descriptions. My friend was certain his big brother’s script would be made into a movie, and so was I. After all, the script had a main character with a cool name and kids throwing flowerpots at bad guys. What else could it possibly need? (And did I mention it was written on college ruled paper? This was serious stuff!) To my mind, it was only a matter of time before cameras came into our neighborhood to shoot the big flowerpot scene. My only uncertainty was whether I’d be in it.

Cut to today: J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 tells the story of kids growing up in a similar period and with a similar fascination with movies. Super 8 is being called Abrams’ homage to Steven Spielberg (who is the film’s executive producer), and with good reason: the film itself recalls some of Spielberg’s early pictures, particularly E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jaws, and Super 8’s kid-made film within a film, The Case, reminds of those 8 mm homemade movies Spielberg made growing up in Arizona. But to me Super 8’s throwback appeal is broader than that, and to focus on Spielberg’s influence is to miss the bigger picture. Abrams’ film is set in 1979 but it’s of the 1980s, a period in which Hollywood regularly gave us movies about kids triumphing in the face of very adult danger. Just off the top of my head, we had E.T. (1982), War Games (1983), The NeverEnding Story (1984), Cloak & Dagger (1984), The Goonies (1985), Explorers (1985), Flight of the Navigator (1986), Space Camp (1986) and Russkies (1987). (Honorable mention to 1983’s The Outsiders and 1986’s Stand By Me, which pit kids against kids, and 1984’s Red Dawn, which is about teenagers.) These are movies I grew up on or around (I’ve actually never seen Space Camp or Russkies, though it feels as if I have). These are movies that made me feel like I didn’t have to grow up to be a hero. And these are the kinds of movies I miss discovering on summer afternoons – although I didn’t realize how much until I saw Super 8.