More Awards: Online Film Critics Pick ‘Tree of Life,’ ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’

Posted on January 2, 2012 at 9:43 am

The Online Film Critics have announced their awards for 2011:

Best Picture:

The Tree of Life

Best Animated Feature:

Rango

Best Director:

Terrence Malick – The Tree of Life

Best Lead Actor:

Michael Fassbender – Shame

Best Lead Actress:

Tilda Swinton – We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Supporting Actor:

Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Best Supporting Actress:

Jessica Chastain – The Tree of Life

Best Original Screenplay:

Midnight in Paris

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy

Best Editing:

The Tree of Life

Best Cinematography:

The Tree of Life

Best Film Not in the English Language:

A Separation

Best Documentary:

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Special Awards (previously announced):

To Jessica Chastain, the breakout performer of the year

To Martin Scorsese in honor of his work and dedication to the pursuit of film preservation

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Awards 2011 — Part 1

Posted on November 29, 2011 at 5:56 pm

Like the Presidential primaries, the end-of-year movie award lists get earlier all the time. Here’s what’s come in so far:

Gotham Awards (for independent films)

Best feature: “Tree of Life” and “Beginners”

Best ensemble: “Beginners” New York Film Critics Best film: “The Artist”

Best actor: Brad Pitt in “Moneyball” and “Tree of Life”

Best actress: Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”

Best supporting actor: Albert Brooks in “Drive”

Best supporting actress: Jessica Chastain in three performances — “Take Shelter,” “Help,” and “The Tree of Life”

Best screenplay: “Moneyball”

Best documentary: “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”

Best foreign language: “A Separation”

Best cinematography: “Tree of Life”

Independent Spirit Nominations (for independent films)

Best feature “The Artist” “Beginners” “The Descendants” “Drive” “50/50” “Take Shelter”

Best director: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist” Mike Mills, “Beginners” Jeff Nichols, “Take Shelter” Alexander Payne, “The Descendants” Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”

Best screenplay Joseph Cedar, “Footnote” Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist” Tom McCarthy, “Win Win” Mike Mills, “Beginners” Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, “The Descendants”

Best first feature “Another Earth” “In the Family” “Margin Call” “Martha Marcy May Marlene” “Natural Selection”

Best first screenplay Mike Cahill, Brit Marling, “Another Earth” J.C. Chandor, “Margin Call” Patrick deWitt, “Terri” Phil Johnston, “Cedar Rapids” Will Reiser, “50/50”

John Cassavetes award (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000) “Bellflower” “Circumstance” “Hello Lonesome” “Pariah” “The Dynamiter”

Best female lead Lauren Ambrose, “Think of Me” Rachael Harris, “Natural Selection” Adepero Oduye, “Pariah” Elizabeth Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

Best male lead Demian Bechir, “A Better Life” Jean Dujardin, “The Artist” Ryan Gosling, “Drive” Woody Harrelson, “Rampart” Michael Shannon, “Take Shelter”

Best supporting female Jessica Chastain, “Take Shelter” Anjelica Huston, “50/50” Janet McTeer, “Albert Nobbs” Harmony Santana, “Gun Hill Road” Shailene Woodley, “The Descendants”

Best supporting male Albert Brooks, “Drive” John Hawkes, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” Christopher Plummer, “Beginners” John C. Reilly, “Cedar Rapids” Corey Stoll, “Midnight in Paris”

Best cinematography Joel Hodge, “Bellflower” Benjamin Kasulke, “The Off Hours” Darius Khondji, “Midnight in Paris” Guillame Schiffma, “Pariah” Jeffrey Waldron, “The Dynamiter”

Best documentary “An African Election” “Bill Cunningham New York” “The Interrupters” “The Redemption of General Butt Naked” “We Were Here” Best international film “A Separation” “Melancholia” “Shame” “The Kid With a Bike” “Tyrannosaur”

Piaget Producer’s award Chad Burris, “Mosquita y Mari” Sophia Lin, “Take Shelter” Josh Mond, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”

Someone to watch award Simon Arthur, “Silver Tongues” Mark Jackson, “Without” Nicholas Ozeki, “Mamitas”

Truer than fiction award Heather Courtney, “Where Soldiers Come From” Danfung Dennis, “Hell and Back Again” Alma Har’El, “Bombay Beach”

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The Tree of Life

Posted on June 2, 2011 at 6:19 pm

On those dark nights of the soul, when we consider not just life but Life, and Meaning, and our place in the cosmos, our lives don’t play out in our minds in sequence. Images and snatches of words flicker back and forth in what can seem like random order or they can seem to come together like a pointillist painting, revealed at last only at the end. The famously reclusive, famously painstaking filmmaker Terrence Malick has made a film that projects such a meditation on screen, inviting us to bring to it or own search for meaning.Its non-linear, almost anti-linear style admits or rather welcomes many interpretations. Whole passages are impressionistic, almost abstract. Like the “Rite of Spring” section of “Fantasia” or the famous “Powers of Ten” short film popular with middle school science teachers, it explores the farthest reaches of time and space. The slightly more traditional “movie” sections alternate between the story of a family like Malick’s own in mid-century Waco, Texas and contemporary scenes of the now-adult son of the family (Sean Penn), who wanders almost wordless through settings of steel and glass.

Malick has only made five films in nearly 40 years. Each of them has had a meditative quality, a haunting voiceover, exquisite images, and themes centering on the loss of Eden. “The Tree of Life” begins with a quote from the Book of Job, but even though very sad events befall the O’Brien family this is not the story of good people whose faith is tested by a series of unbearable losses. It is an exploration of how we fit into the grandest possible scheme of things, how the patterns repeat in the division of cells to make complex systems, the development of mechanical formulas so singular that they merit a patent, the awakening of the first adult thoughts in a child, innocence and loss, harsh reality and ethereal imagination.

Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien are so archetypal they do not even have first names. They are just Father (never Dad) (Pitt) and Mother (pre-Raphaelite beauty Jessica Chastain). Pitt sheds his movie-star charisma for his Missouri roots, showing us a mid-century man from Middle America, every line of him as straight as the slide rule that like O’Brien himself is about to be out of date. He loves his three boys fiercely and fights down his own tenderness to teach them the lessons he thinks they must have to survive. He is all that is hard and logical and precise and mechanical. Mrs. O’Brien is gentle, almost silent, so in tune with nature she seems to float through it.

The movie’s near-miracle is the way it evokes the muddy, let’s-break-something boy world. Sending a frog up in a rocket, racing behind a truck spewing clouds of DDT, shoving against each other like puppies, holding in wonder a neighbor’s neglige, the heartless, heedless, long, long thoughts of a boy’s life are beautifully portrayed.

It is easy to understand why this film was both booed at Cannes and given its highest honor. I admired the film’s audacity but winced at its pretentiousness. There are some moments of stunning beauty and power. But other parts seemed overdone and empty.

(If you want to know what I think the ending means, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com — and tell me what you think it means!)

Parents should know that this film includes an offscreen death of a child with devastating parental grief, children’s play results in death of an animal, a father is strict with children and his wife to the point of brutality, some dinosaur violence, some disturbing existential themes.

Family discussion: What is this movie about? How do the creation scenes relate to the story of the family? Why is there so little dialog? What is happening in the end on the beach?

If you like this, try: the short film “Powers of Ten” and the other films by Terrence Malick including “Days of Heaven” and “Badlands”

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