@avclub-0d63bf5ed3212a68cbb3b23ab9e73d09:disqus, I don't think Tree of Life is necessarily "bad," and it certainly didn't lose me as an admirer of Malick. I do think the '50s sequences are compelling, beautiful, and really well made, and for that alone it's at least an "interesting" film (sorry for the banal word…

Well, it can be confusing when people use words that they don't know the meaning of.

What's overwrought about it? The short(-ish) sentences? The minimal use of adjectives and adverbs? The clear way it describes the way narrative concerns and formal approaches are often wedded in Malick's films?

Really, the best thing you can do is watch them all in order (there are only six), because part of what's so intriguing about Malick is the evolution of his style while (as this review touches on), a lot of his narrative and thematic concerns persist through that evolution. But if you have to choose a few, Badlands,…

Ha!, perhaps it's because his dialogue is almost completely cut, but it's the best I've seen Affleck in ages.

And it is a good review, in that it captures what is pretty close to amazing about the film without shying away from pointing out its frustrating bits. I saw it a few weeks ago. I admired it for sure (admittedly, I'm one of the "fans"), and there were moments that I loved. It's been the most difficult of his films for…

Your mother knows me well, father hates my guts . . .

I'd agree. I find the Rosenbaum quotation above misses the point of this film almost as much as the film's subjects miss the point of The Shining. It's not so much about giving crackpot "theorists" an undeserved platform for film analysis as it is, well, what you said. In that case, it's still not an great film…

It's kind of like when you're walking through a supermarket and the song from Friends is playing and you realize, shit, this song has multiple verses AND a bridge. No thanks.

That's a cool little tidbit that I'm thankful to know now.

@avclub-615a666e6472b587f63193032da45961:disqus, and Alan Rickman!

The first album, Trace, is excellent (and probably better than Wilco's first effort, A.M.). But then Son Volt's next two albums were more of the same, while Wilco put out Being There and Summer Teeth and never looked back.

Agreed. Not to slight The Godfather II, which I love. Then again, on any given day, I might also prefer The Conversation to The Godfather II as well.

Agreed (obviously), and there's not a bum scene or nary a bad shot in the entire film . . .

I don't like to call things perfect too often, but three New Hollywood films that came out within two years of each other come about as close as you can get, in American cinema anyway: Chinatown, Nashville, and Shampoo.

Damn, I know she's seriously disliked around these parts, but I just love Gwyneth Paltrow. Ah well . . . takes all kinds, I guess.

Who will play Fred Rogers?

I understand why people don't love S6, but it's hardly awful. In fact, the first third of the season (through Tabula Rasa) is incredibly good. The middle third is spotty, to be sure, but it ends with a bang. And as a depiction of good people going through really hard, emotionally devastating times . . . well, it's one…

I did a series re-watch last fall and was sort of surprised that I found myself really loving S4. It takes the show in so many different directions (flash forwards, full-on action movie, international intrigue, much deeper sci-fi, etc.), any of which it could have blown, but instead there's just payoff after stellar…

Are you sure that's her? I just had a look and it could be her, but the web proves frustratingly inconclusive . . .