We Can't Wait #14 The Tree of Life

Directed by the no longer totally unprolific Terrence Malick
Starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and three child actors (Sean Penn and Fiona Shaw also appear)
Synopsis is vague --something about a young family in the 1950s and the loss of innocence. But do Malick's plots ever inspire "ooh!"s. No, it's the filmmaking. Bring on the shots of grass, trees and skies!
Brought to you by Plan B Entertainment (originally founded by Brad Grey, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
Expected Release Date It's Malick. I won't even try to guess

Nathaniel: Malick has directed only four features in his lifetime (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The New World) and each time we lose several critics to The Rapture when they surface. Since it made other lists besides mine, I assume you're disciples?

JA: I got to see Badlands on a big screen last year, and that pretty much cemented the fact that I will never ever ever miss a Malick movie on a big screen ever again. I'd only seen his films on DVD before that and, while enjoying them all, it's just not the same. So very much pretty.

And Malick's eye (via Lubezki's eye) trained on Pitt amongst that foliage has already got me standing at attention.

Joe: Oy. Not to in any way slight Badlands, because that movie was the absolute greatest, but The Thin Red Line was absolutely unbearable to me, and I didn't even make it through half of The New World before shutting it off. I'm sorry, I couldn't deal. I know this makes me middlebrow and pedestrian to say this but holy god they were just so boring. So no, this didn't exactly make my list. I love Emmanuel Lubezki, y'all, but I can just watch Children of Men again the week this one opens.

Whitney: Malick has made my top directors list for a long time, so to find out that he's directing a movie this year totally made my day. Really, I was telling everyone I knew that he was making a new movie and that Brad Pitt was starring. Even my mom, whose latest dip into the cinema world was Eagle Eye ("too much swearing") and who didn't care at all.

It will be like The Assassination of Jesse James, but with the real Malick. I wonder what thought-provoking classical music he'll choose this time??!

poll by twiigs.com

Fox: I'm glad to see that The Tree of Life is shaping up to be primarily Pitt's film and that Sean Penn simply "also appears". I really don't wanna see any more of that guy for a looong (three Os!!!) time. Maybe he can vacate with the Winslets for awhile?

But, unlike Joe, I was glued to The New World and casually consider it to be the best film of the 00's. It came on and wrapped around my head for three hours (or however long it was). I get into a trance when watching Malick's films. I think his dedication to the purest form of cinema is something we should celebrate while we still have him around.

Nathaniel: I go all hypnotized, too. But don't get too excited about the absence of Penn, Fox. Malick loves the voiceover as much as I love a good musical number. I ain't exaggerating! (Weird that I love Malick so much since I despise narration as a general rule???). And since Penn is credited as "adult Jack" I assume he's one of the boys all growed up (unless his parents had a really weird sense of humor) and therefore narrating.

I'm totally curious how all the readers feel about Malick, though. Not to be terribly reductive but his visuals tend to either entrance or provide the cure for insomnia. Which is it for you out there?

In case you missed any entries they went like so...
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We Can't Wait:
#1 Inglourious Basterds, #2 Where the Wild Things Are, #3 Fantastic Mr. Fox,
#4 Avatar, #5 Bright Star, #6 Shutter Island, #7 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
#8 Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, #9 Nailed, #10 Taking Woodstock,
#11 Watchmen, #12 The Hurt Locker, #13 The Road, #14 The Tree of Life
#15 Away We Go, #16 500 Days of Summer, #17 Drag Me To Hell,
#18 Whatever Works, #19 Broken Embraces, #20 Nine (the musical)
intro (orphans -didn't make group list)
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A Pre-Coffee Glance Back at Last Night

I'll whip up something "Oscary Review" later but the coffee injection is required first... a lot of it.

Things I Was (Mostly) Right About: I predicted that Pan's, Dreamgirls, and The Departed would walk off with the most Oscars. Dreamgirls didn't. The other two did.
Things I Was Wrong About: Lots of things (all the Oscar pages are updated)
Highlights: Finally seeing Martin Scorsese win. I was so completely nervous and thrilled
Low Points: Seeing Emmanuel Lubezki lose for cinematography (for Children of Men) to Pan's Labyrinth. I'd argue that Lubezki was the most deserving frontrunner in the entire building in any category. That was hard to sit through.
Ellen as Host: Yes please. Let's do it again.

Oscar's Labyrinth

How many statues can Pan's Labyrinth take home on Sunday night? That is the question.

When it comes to foreign language films you often see a correlation between Oscar success and domestic box office. The awards correlation is much stronger than it is with English language pictures. Those don't need to be regarded as hits to have a big awards profile (think Little Children, Letters From Iwo Jima, and Babel this year alone) though it obviously doesn't hurt.

For a foreign film anything between $3 - 9 million at the US box office is definitely in the 'big hit' category since at least 80% of the subtitled films never reach the $1 million mark. Films from this decade in that range include Amores Perros, Atanarjuat the Fast Runner, Bad Education, The Barbarian Invasions, Caché (Hidden), City of God, Downfall, Goodbye Lenin!, Maria Full of Grace, Talk to Her and Nowhere in Africa -- several of which were Oscar nominated.

The 'smash hits' are the ones that end up cracking the 8 figure barrier. Recent films that've lept that big hurdle for subtitled pictures are House of Flying Daggers, The Motorcycle Diaries, Volver and Y Tu Mama Tambien. Films that get this big despite requiring literacy in American moviegoers are almost always rewarded with Oscar nominations unless they're action flicks (Kung Fu Hustle or Brotherhood of the Wolf) ineligible (Hero) or named Monsoon Wedding ($13 million but still ignored by AMPAS).

Once a foreign flick nabs multiple Oscar nominations they can usually get even bigger. These are the ones that end up in the multiplexes: Il Postino ($10 million before nominations. $21 by the end of its run) Life is Beautiful ($18 before nominations, $57 in total) Pan's Labyrinth this year had just broken the 8 figure mark before its nominations were announced. Now it's as big as an Amélie (in the $30+ range) but still not the behemoth that the champ Crouching Tiger was ($60 million before nominations. $128 by the end of its run)

blah blah blah box office blah blah...

Point being: the big obstacle for Pan's Labyrinth is not subtitles (once you reach a certain saturation point you're not "foreign" anymore --just a regular old hit movie) but its genre. Lord of the Rings aside, Oscar voters are often immune to the charms of the fantastical outside of say, special effects and makeup. But Pan's is a crowdpleaser. Could it be a powerhouse on Sunday night? Could it actually win the most Oscars? It's more probable than it sounds.

Let's look at the six categories:

Original Screenplay
This would be a major get but it's the only statue that seems truly out of reach. It's hard to imagine Best Picture nominees like Babel, Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen letting a fantasy film overtake them.
Verdict: Very unlikely

Art Direction
In this category Pan's major competitor is Dreamgirls but my guess (and hope) is that enough voters will feel that John Myhre was already rewarded for the stage & curtains razzle dazzle when he won for Chicago and will be too wowed by Pan's memorable set construction to pass it up in this category.
Verdict: Pan's is the frontrunner. But vulnerable.

Cinematography
If any film in this category can defeat Emmanuel Lubezki's virtuoso work on Children of Men, it's this doubled fantasy world. But let's hope Lubezki, a world class DP, holds on to his momentum after his recent cinematography guild win and is finally Oscared on his fourth nomination. Lubezki is a true rarity. He can get nominated even if the film housing his work isn't anywhere near the Best Picture race. In fact, none of his nominations have come from Best Pictures. This award should and probably will land in his talented hands.
Verdict: Pan's is a possible spoiler.

Original Score
Scoring is often a difficult category to predict. Babel seems to empty of original material to deserve the statue (will voters notice that the music they're responding too is not the original score itself). Notes' music is probably too divisive (as Phillip Glass scores often are)
Verdict: It's a squeaker. Will Pan's memorable haunted lullaby carry it past The Queen or the umpteenth chance to honor Thomas Newman (for The Good German this time)?

Foreign Film
It's high profile and those multiple nominations in other categories ensure that they'll take it very seriously. But Amélie also had that advantage and lost to a more sober film No Man's Land. Germany's entry The Lives of Others could go the distance but I'm guessing Pan's holds on because it's not "light". It doesn't have the comedy working against them taking it seriously.
Verdict: Pan's is the frontrunner

Make-Up
The makeup creations of Pan, the Pale Man (pictured) and that Black Dahlia-esque injury on the evil Captain (Sergi Lopez) ought to fend off Pan's only real challenger, the prosthetic gore and theatrical face and body paint of Apocalypto.
Verdict: Pan's is the frontrunner

I may regret this but as of this writing I'm predicting that Pan's Labyrinth will nab the most (or tied for the most) statues of the night with a minimum of three and a maximum of four wins.