The Purge, Election Year - 2016 - Movie

The Purge - Election Year

2016 

R - 127 min

Thrill ride for socialist adrenaline freaks, definitely not serious filmmaking.

From the previews so carefully edited to grab you and not let go, and buildup via the other 2 films of this trilogy, I was expecting something a bit more….overwhelming as far as scope.  Something along the lines of different locations across the states, interconnected webs of intrigue from those in power with ties to other countries, or quite possibly more of the inner social circles of those of the NFFA, the New Founding Fathers of America.  Instead, this was once again battle lines drawn between tightly controlled areas, characters, and personal focused drama on a limited scale that I would estimate demonstrated a smaller budget, studio execs not wanting to pour money into the incendiary series for fear of controversy or backlash, or quite possibly a look at the demographics of the previous 2 films and deciding it would not be worth it.  Only adrenaline junkies go see this stuff after all, in large part.

Contrary to that, however, we know that focusing on a particular group of people and subject in a story that has a large scope is one of the ways to effectively demonstrate the crux of the matter without making an epic that could end up being another Water World.  The hard part then is believability and impact. Convincing performances by all, and great editing tension and continual moving action kept this alive and made it the “thrill thing” that people go see most killer and chiller film, splatter films, or other pump-action flicks for.  This is really no different when it comes to that, as expected.

As far as bad guys, and girls, that was also limited, but well-played and came down to inept mercenaries working for the big guys with money, and some bad girls in the street who just wanted their candy bars.  Rather colorful group.

So getting past the cinema aspects and looking at the agenda, there is the socialist/moralist/idealist triangle of big private government interest taking advantage of their situation and providing a platform for extinguishing poor people that do nothing but suck resources from the economy, and also getting their kicks in a near-satanic kind of way by personally purging themselves in a private ceremony.  Conspiracy isn’t quite the word any longer at this stage, it’s more like outright legalized plans by white supremacists to rid themselves of social “vermin”.  Of course, to not make it seem like a white/black issue, the first person they sacrifice is a white drug addict.

The troubling aspect of this is the filmmaker’s almost overeager willingness to make this a vendetta against Christ.  No, I don’t mean Christianity, as in the church, but Christ himself (and consequently the images and hierarchy of church authority as well).  The name of Jesus was put front and center as the “excuse” that these twisted conspirators and control freaks used to justify their genocidal/sociopathic plan.  The church and state duo that is so often decried as an incorrect alliance by left swinging idealist and ACLU fans is seen firmly rooted here as the core of the NFFA’s justification, just as Christ and the Church have been used countless times as axe-swinging material over issues like slavery.  There was of course the underground group, mostly African American that included the token white guy who is our hero of the film, starring Frank Grillo, who come to the rescue in the end, and save the senator.  I’m not afraid of a spoiler here, because those of you who would actually bother to go see this will guess this is going to happen anyway.

Predictable, plot driven, and juvenile, the entire series is based on the old fashioned horror convention of “who’s gonna get whacked, and how bad, and do we get to watch?”.  

I repeat: Thrill ride for socialist adrenaline freaks, definitely not serious filmmaking.  HOWEVER, having said that, I’m betting that privately Mr. Obama and cabinet members got a screening, and enjoyed every gun-hating minute.

- Agitatus

Maggie's Plan - my Part II

Maggie's Plan  - Part 2

2015

R - 1Hr 38Min - Comedy, Drama, Romance

Greta Gerwig - Maggie 

Julianne Moore - Georgette

Ethan Hawke - John

Make sure you read the FIRST review of this, which was yesterday, the day before today, ya dig?
___________________
As with all things that seem pristine and pressed together neatly, after sleeping on it, the next day you’re sure to find wrinkles.  You plant grass seed and you find a patch you missed when it all grows up or the birds ate while you were away.  You turn the perfect tomato over on the vine to find a hornworm firmly embedded in the fruit’s shady underside.

After sleeping over the Maggie’s Plan initial review, I’ll have to say something troubled me while I slept that I woke up thinking about.  It was something clear to me during the viewing, but not as consciously clear as the flicker of the celluloid (or dancing digits) on screen.  This is not to negate ANY of my previous comments actually, because it’s a different subject, offbeat from the filmic language of actor, writing, directing, lighting.  This is a touchy subject nowadays for most of the urban and intelligent, as well as a mundane or mute subject across much of the rest of the culture.  So while stepping carefully to not offend, this topic must be explored, after all, it is central to the central character, therefore it’s central to the entire piece and affects the whole zeitgeist of the thing, if you get me.

Maggie’s Quaker life. 

Late in the film, Julianne Moore’s Georgette character sums her up while seated across the table from her as “simple, a little stupid, loving, kind, open hearted, warm” (not an exact quote, I’ve only seen this once) and then went on to say “I really like you”.  She summed up our filmic understanding of the Maggie character to the core.  We absolutely love her, you can’t help it.  The natural charm, the very honest approach, the wide eyes, her love for children.  But ultimately we’re also led to what could conceivably be a darker part of her, her double-minded hypocrisy, she’s called a hypocrite outright by her friend, and manipulator, or intruder into the lives of others, which she did so very unproductively throughout, admitting in the end her plan was a fiasco and ill-taken, ill-conceived.  Yet we also believe it was naturally inevitable, just like the ending (no spoiler here right?).  

But her faith plays a key role, a master manipulative role that hangs on her like a necklace.  The key shot in the film surrounding her faith, we find, is empty.  (Ok this is a spoiler, so if you haven’t seen this yet PLEASE DO NOT read further).  She attends a Quaker service.  We see a simple sign that is like a parking sign, so we can assume that it has been there for some time, or at least people don’t make signs out of metal and bolt them to an iron fence unless they intend to do something long-term.  The very next shot is so telling of the state of her faith, and the state of the Quaker religion.  It’s the alter of her inner sanctuary.  She sits alone at the meeting, not one other soul in attendance. She has stated to John about her meetings, “I still attend”.  However we only find out late in the game of the story that her faith has an empty, silent component.  Because her faith is directly tied to her behavior, and her behavior is that of idealistic dreaming that leads her down blind alleys, then her faith and the admission of mistaken values become one in the same, or part of the failure.  Her faith becomes nullified in the face of another kind of idealism, being urban, modernist, and ultimately religionless.  She resolves to break away with that life of manipulation, hence her assumed dreamy idealism, therefore we assume that the religious adherence must pass away with it, or that it did.

Her skittishness of things involving her body, her purity, is essentially viewed as tied with this as well.  She refuses the offer of physical love from her sperm donor, attempting to have a child by herself.  In the person of Guy, played by Travis Fimmel, is a perfectly fine specimen of a man offering love and affection that she seems to so obviously need and want, but she wants the fruit of his labor in a plastic jar, one that she emphasizes is “sterile”.  She had to say that of course.  His offer is truly sweet, given the circumstances, and understandable.   She claims, “That’s too complicated”.  This also strengthens the character’s puritanical prudishness and distance from romance and the evident opportunities right before her, reinforcing what appears to be a wayward idealism once again.  Sexual fear is yet another symptom of a wayward religion.

It’s typical of the modern idealist in the new age of abstracting reality from circumstances, of situational ethics and tolerance, buzz words for universalistic correctness, speech sounding like sound blurbs from a newscast carefully censored prior to air time, to dismiss religion along with “old fashioned” words like purity and faithfulness by dragging a wonderfully innocent character like Maggie (an old fashioned name as well), through the sullies and mud pits of the sophisticated and existential modern conventions of parenthood.  In the end, what we have is essentially a soiled virgin whose misguided beliefs are found to be subjugated to the supposedly more elevated personal triumph of “the real world”.  It’s all done comically, and with great cinematic penache, but also there is this sense of tragedy, at least for me there was that sense, a sense of loss of something larger and more beatific than the immediate and pragmatic, an overreaching sense of guidance, of God.  I believe that this is a universal desire, a reality.  Beneath our sometimes stoic standup against darkness there is a prayerful wish for Eden to be true, that we could return to the garden, but alas we are awash in those muddy sullies.

For that reason I’m sure that Rebecca Miller did not attempt to dream up a way to undermine belief, but one cannot separate the wayward or misguided idealism from belief in Maggie’s character, they are one in the same.  In the end, we are left to believe that the character has undergone a great change, or shift, and has come to realize that like her Quaker meetings, her belief in a world that is pure and unadulterated is also empty, and cannot exist.  That I suppose, is the sense of loss that I have, while also triumphing in the belief that she does eventually find the direction that she truly was looking for in the first place.

In place of that vacuum, Rebecca gives us a hope that if we look directly and squarely at ourselves, as we are, not as we would “like” to be, we can find the substantial and fulfilling life, despite it’s flaws.  This does not negate God, but simply puts our condition in a real perspective, an honest one, one that can accept a giant jar of pickles.

- Agitatus

Maggie's Plan - 2015 - Movie

Maggie's Plan 

2015

R - 1Hr 38Min - Comedy, Drama, Romance

Refreshing, invigorating, other positive words come to mind.  This is a SitCom. I hate that word, because it conjures up soap operas, at least in my mind, and wasted hours that people spend on a couch in front of half-hour relational entanglements and personal romantic and suspenseful tensions.  Well, there really should be a new word, a Relational Comedy.  A RelCom.  That’s what this is.

I’ll get to Greta Gerwig, Julianne Moore, and Ethan Hawke in just a moment, and a shining moment too, but first I want to touch on Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph’s roles.  I’ll call them both unexpectedly and pleasantly surprising.  Children of SNL, after the previews I’d seen, I was set for characters that were colored with that sensitivity of the SNL world, the quick and quirky changelings that you can never really believe in, delighted in yes, but of course were very put on.  As I said, I was surprised.  The directing and acting combination here throws us absolute winners of convincing characters that are also enjoyable.  In the middle of the first few sentences of Maya’s first appearance on the screen she does indeed become the friend character, and SNL is nowhere to be found.  Bill Hader, likewise, shed his Saturday personas, many of them, and spot on delivered a real and serious performance as a friend and dad, not to mention a perfect half-drunk scene were his “slip” was extremely well done and not “faked” at all.  Kudos to them both.  Well done.  They’ve managed to avoid the Jim Carrey syndrome of never being completely believable as anything other than an “over-actor” (quote from Liar Liar outtake).

The complete surprise to me here was Greta Gerwig as Maggie.  I say complete surprise here because ( I am now ashamed to say this because I feel like “where have I been?”) I have not seen her before in her other appearances in Frances Ha, Mistress America, or otherwise.  She has SOooooo many credits already.  Again, where have I been?  I need to see those films when I have time. She absolutely envelopes the screen with her natural and effervescent presence.  It just drips off the camera into the theater.  Her home-spun look and calm resolve play so well.  The scenes with the youngest child are classic beautiful and endearing beyond measure.  I think I could just watch those by themselves over a few more times.  This role seems written for her.  It may have been, I don’t know.   But she is the perfect antithesis to Julianne Moore’s exotic and overwrought character Georgette, with the French accent and ballistic scholarly credentials.  Moore of course pulls this off with ease it seems.  It can also be that Greta’s costumer for this role was spot-on perfect, down to the shoes we see in the opening, the done up hair, or like the one restaurant scene where I laughed at the outfit of the yellow checkered blouse conventionally 50s with the Middletown America turquoise (was it?) sweater.  Perfect, and schoolish, like her apartment piled with books.

In fact I need to pause here and just sum up the whole acting thing from every perspective: Incredible.  Every player in this film gives a stellar performance, and so therefore I must also believe that Rebecca Miler, director, has triumphed.  Talk about understanding the language of film and how to get a performance out of people.  Wow, she’s going to have a great career as a director.  That only goes back to ’95, even though she’s been acting since ’88.  Kudos to her as well for this breakthrough film. That’s what I keep wanting to call it.  Why?  Because I believe we’re in for more of here.  Like Clint Eastwood was at one time turning from acting to directing, Rebecca is just getting warmed up I believe.

Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore.  Now here is a couple of seasoned actors who’s chemistry in this case could not be more perfectly matched with the roles.  The scenes in the snow, the bedroom farces, the antithetical proton/neutron attraction/attack synthesis makes the story and the plot work. The scene of Ethan’s character John coming out of his “closet” in the confessional kind of way to Maggie is absolutely perfect, stunning in fact.  So well written.  So here is where the writer gets the honors.  Great characters written well, and great casting all around.

So far, I believe that this film we should see up next year for an Oscar.  For which nomination I would not be sure, but writing might be my choice.

If you’re in to RelComs, this is a must see.

And one point that I’m proud of, I called the last shot.  I knew exactly where the film would cut at the end.  In fact, there in the theater, I actually held up my fingers and pressed them together at almost the exact same moment the closing shot went to black.  I still have that editing magic I guess.

- Agitatus

4 Films/1 Day

4 Films/1 Day

On Wednesday, July 13th, I plan on seeing all 4 of the following films, a banner day.  Then I'll post my usually pointed and biased opinions for each one the next day.  Should be quite an adventure.  I've never viewed 4 films in one day. Taking them in this order:


Maggie's Plan - The Music of Strangers - The Purge - The Infiltrator

Exposed - 2016 - Movie

Exposed

2016
Ana de Armas,  Keanu Reeves, and Melody London - Editor

This was a surprise, really a surprise.  This is a very mature film, not mature in content as in rating, but mature in filmmaking art form.  There are 2 veins of seemingly disparate stories running parallel here that beautifully resolve to create a lush inside portrait of innocence, betrayal, lust, friendship, and the truthful breaking of "the status quo".   It's bad cop vs. little girl.  I absolutely loved my very first viewing of this film, and that is rare for me.  I want to watch it again.

But it turns out there is a reason for this film being "bifurcated" into two streams.  There was originally a director's vision, which had more to do with Isabel's part of the story, involving mystic beings from beyond, angelic creatures, visions, etc.  And then there is the "real" world that K. Reeves inhabits as a kind of loser cop that is dragging his feet all the time because he's shaking off a dead partner syndrome.  (By the way, why do cop partners always insist on taking on their dead partner's cases even at the peril of their job and badge and when the boss has told them "no"?  Answer: it's cinema, and you would not have a story without it).  Read the IMDB biography of Declan Dale, the supposed director, and you'll understand.

So this is really a film by......Melody London?

It's true that the film seems to drag.  That's by what we would call "normal" standards today.  There is a reason for that.  The relationships need to be developed concretely to make this story work.  Cutting out the length of scenes for the sake of impatient "expediency" would not do it justice, but would bring the overall story to harm by trivializing the importance of the bonds between the "real" world, and the world within Isabel's mind.  I will not elaborate as I risk a spoiler if I do so.

But suffice it to say that the filmmaker....uh, editor..... here has done an excellent and MATURE job of pacing the film, bringing out the fine points of actor interactions, and interweaving the storyline.  In the end it's all a huge payoff.  It works.  Fascinating and great filmmaking.  I give it all my stars, and I haven't viewed it a 2nd time yet, but certainly will.

So it would seem that the so called failed marriage of producers and director in this case possibly led to a really good film.  Hm.  Kind of like "collaboration".  I WOULD however have liked to have seen what the film was supposed to be like from just the director's original intentions.

If I could elaborate a bit on the whole "pacing" thing, the genius of timing in films resides in 2 things: 1. Weather is is appropriate to the subject matter and 2: If it is evenly distributed - consistency.   This film accomplishes both.  You can cut scenes early and quickly and then they are unevenly matched with other similar moments, but the editor here was careful not to succumb to an urge to "speed it up".  Makes the whole thing more believable.  

Blue Like Jazz - 2014 - Movie

Blue Like Jazz 

(the movie)

2014

Steve Taylor directs

Donald Miller writes

IMDB Link

I’m one of those who grew up in the Nazarene church watching every Christianese film ever made in the 60s and 70s.  All of the Billy Graham films, the films about “God’s Preacher” in the streets of NY on skid row - David Wilkerson, and all the teen “scare” flicks about drinking and running with the devil that always ended with some kid dying and the other kid getting saved.  It was very much the same as the small missionary books that we read every week.  They were almost mathematically predictable in their formulaic way of presenting missionaries that struggled with some people group that had not heard about Jesus, the hardship that the missionaries themselves went through to reach these people, and then some breakthrough would happen, and as a resolution something wonderful would come from a tragedy or a seemingly unbreakable barrier.

SCCR is the acronym used by Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz, the movie, for the arc of the story, Setting, Conflict, Climax, Resolution.  When applied neatly in those films and books, it took on a predictability that even a teenager could have written themselves.  But when used artfully, as in this film, Blue Like Jazz, Steve Taylor does a mash-up job of twisting it around so that those characters we think are going to end up dead have another lease on life, and those seemingly alive, make ghostly disappearances into an alternative lifestyle, for awhile at least.

So in other words, “This ain’t yo daddy’s church movie boy!”

I really did love it.  It was funny, poignant, and successfully convincing, all those things that most of those early films and books from the fledgling Christian media age were not.  Yes, this is a Christian story, written by an author that is outspokenly Christian, and directed by a music and media whiz that is the same, but with a new sensitivity to reality, and no fear of truthfulness.  Like the book, Blue Like Jazz turns the tables on the secular world without dismissing the people that are secular, and making the apology for the church that has been so long in coming to our skeptical modernists and post-modernist majority of today.

It really does work well. 

Ok, in antithesis to all that I do have to say that there are juvenile filmmaker marks here and some mistakes, like continuing to run the music soundtrack when it would be better to have it off (like the conversation in the bike hut when the Texan and the blonde main characters are having it out about their viewpoints).  Would have been better to sometimes just turn the “musak” off and have dialogue, because then when music IS on, it’s much more impactful.  Consistent music throughout, especially filler music, is dreadful.  But other than that, this was a really well-made film, and hopefully they will collaborate to make more.  I agree with the 4-star marking on Amazon.  Nice job Steve and Don.

John Michael Talbot - 1989 - Music CD

John Michael Talbot

Master Collection

1989

You know, amid all the crud and degradation of mankind that I find myself reviewing at times, such as the depression of the Bob Dylan film, or the lost Knight in Terrence Malick's latest work, in the sincere hope that people will actually read that and get something from those reviews, I must interject some absolute beauty and hope in other forms.  Enter John Michael Talbot, once again lifting my spirit above what I am currently doing and "busy" with to calm me, bless me, and gently but persuasively lead me into the chambers and halls of endless light and love in the presence of God Almighty.

This CD collection was listened to 7 full times through by my brother Ernie before I brought it home  and put it in my iTunes digitally.  How do I know how many times?  Because fastidious Ernie put a small "tick" mark by his address and the price of the audio LPs and CDs that he purchased.  And I do mean EACH time he listened completely through something.  So that means that Ernie listened to at least 238 John Michael Talbot songs in his life.

I've included the small pic here for your amusement at the expense of my blessedly eldest OCD brother.  Pray for him.

I'm Not There - 2007 - Movie

I'm Not There

2007
IMDB Link

Six different people embody/channel Dylan, the most audacious of which is Cate Blanchett.  Unbelievable performances.  Drama, pathos, humor as well.

But I could not help but be struck by how very sad this story was.  There was melancholy and angst everywhere, sprayed across the screen, from the regrets of a family torn apart, to a dog left behind, a smoking motorcycle against a tree, and a confused public and bewilderment and disappointment with everything.

That about sums up the circus around Bob's work.  A very creative challenge, putting Dylan's biograph to a fictional setting and then lighting it on fire, like the girl lighting her head with a match in one scene as he drives away in a car.  Most excellent use of visual storytelling I've seen in a long while. It's also fitting that it's very much in the style of a 60s dreamscape film, seemingly dislocating, while also running 6 different stories at the same time that result in a cohesive whole.  That's a difficult thing to hold together, or pull together in the first place, and a nightmare for an editor.

But as usual, I'm behind the times in writing a review for this, as it is 9 years old and I'm just getting around to seeing it.

If you're a music fan, and a Dylan ponderer, this is like ice cream on the cake of what we already know. 

Knight of Cups - Lives up to my expectations. Genius.

Knight of Cups

2015

Terrence Malick

In the very start of cinema, you had the rotoscope.  It was the illusion of images flashing by through little slots in a circular metal container, and your eye did not see the little slots at the right speed, but they blurred together, allowing the glimpses of the images on the opposite side of the hollow container to be "glanced" at through them, and since the images were in sequence, that gave the illusion of motion.  It's still the same today, at 24 frames per second, or 30, or 60, depending on the camera.

The very early cinema was a desire to create the illusion of motion.  The material used for the motion images varied from horses to people walking, or throwing a ball.  But from then on, structure began to form, and cinema evolved into storytelling.  The novelty of the simple image quickly grew into an art form not just of the image, but of the meaningful interaction between image and observer.  The most artful became master of the image so that it told the most effective story.  

Malick lived up to my expectation, as noted in my prediction in my Facebook post which I almost never write, in that his masterful use of the image as primary in creating his stories has come to full fruition in Knight of Cups.  He has finally transcended cinema's modern constraints for good, and I don't see him looking back.  

As much as entertainment fans may cringe at the thought, this is what truly great cinema should be.  His work is as close to the dreamlike experience of existential thought as the dream itself.  There is no doubt there is a great deal of direction, manipulation (as difficult as it is to sense that word as positive, it is), and content.  In fact, there is so much more content here packed into it's 2 hours that it could take weeks to unpack it.  

This is such a totally different approach to storytelling that it draws largely bifurcated reactions, packed firmly into 2 camps, one being the "love it" camp all of whom may not be able to explain why they do, but they do, and the bewildered or "hate it" camp, which will no doubt admire the energy and visual beauty of Cups, but will likely eschew the depth of it on the grounds of what appears to be the absence of plot and dialogue.

After just seeing it tonight, I have to say I will need to see it again.  It deserves a second viewing, or repeated viewings.   Those who would downplay the film as possibly pandering to lower visual tastes and appealing to salivating predators needing eye-candy fixes either have not really viewed the film, or are perhaps in that class of moviegoers themselves and not paying attention.  The great juxtapositions that Terrence is making here are a teeter-totter of the conscience, the ocean tides giving a perfect metaphor for the ebb and flow of an embattled soul-searching male in the onslaught of post-modernity, and also the very fact of being a vulnerable male, subject to what every man is subjected to in some degree, sooner or later, without exceptions.  

There is one line in the traditionally Malick hushy-whispery monologues that slip by us often quickly and without seeming connection (although on examination you'll find that they are solidly connected and filled with multiple meanings), and I had to actually get my phone out and note it down before I forgot it exactly as quoted.  It is a line of monologue floating above the scenes of Bale's character Rick interacting with the strip club girl played by Isabel Lucas I believe.  It is the girl's voice:

"We're not living the lives we're meant for......We're meant for something else."

THAT is a load of content that we could talk about all night, and deliciously delivered by the most blatantly audacious of the girls Rick is drawn in by.  That would be Malick's great gift of irony subtly yet also boldly swashed across the screen for our minds to wrap around.  Malick is very much like the court jester here, a goofy character seemingly out of place, but absolutely treasured by the King because the biting wit of a great jester holds great value and substance.

To end the film with the word "Begin" is also just such a play for us.  We are given the many facets of a jewel, and then it's laid before us on the table and the question is asked of us, "What will you do with it"?  The open road speeds towards us as the last image.

To be continued.....

Knight of Cups - 2015 - Movie Pre-Review

Knight of Cups: 2015 Terrence Malick

Initial Pre-Review

This is my Facebook post of Mar. 9th:

I believe that A.A. Doud of the A.V. Club's analysis is very observant and right on in many ways.

https://film.avclub.com/los-angeles-gets-the-terrence-malick-treatment-in-knigh-1798186822

An extensive analysis is exactly the antithesis, however, of what a film like Malick's is really about. The reason he has so broken with stereotype and worked his against-the-odds filmmaking style, and repetitively, is for 2 main reasons (and I'm sure there are more if we look further, but 2 main reasons in any case). 1) Like a great master painter, and I just viewed Pollack a few weeks ago, and that fits this perfectly, to repeat a formula that works and to refine it would be the goal and 2)the style perfectly breaks the expectations we have, yes, and if one allows oneself to be "taken" by the film's direction, which is indeed meditative and dreamlike, then you'll find that the "narrative" is held within that structure - in other words, like a great painting, there is a reason for it being great that is not necessarily borne out of expectation, but a naturalism that makes it great, and it has to be taken as a WHOLE and not pieces, which is why narrative structure indeed cannot be applied here. Like that sentence for instance. Technically it still works, even though there is no stopping place.

Pollack's later works were great precisely because he found a freedom from the restraints of the edge of the canvas, and the edge of the "known" and began to allow his free association to combine with his full acknowledgement of his craft.  As it applies to Malick, in The New World for instance, there is a definite progression of plot, as we know the story to have it's own plot in any case, but with Malick the PLOT is not the objective, it is the TELLING that makes it come alive, a story we're already familiar with. Just one example from that film: the great English gardens in the end with their flawless landscaping, and there is Pocahontas dressed to the nines in her tight fitting shoes, corset, hair done up in a bun, etc. The visual alone is all that needs to be said, especially when Malick places the Native American escort over and against that landscape in his near-native getup, as anachronous and disturbing almost as an elephant defecating at a ladies tea.

I'm supposing that you'll have to put me in the "faithful" lot, because I'm seeing into that structure, possibly a bit easier than the average moviegoer, not out of a sense of "film snobbery" or superiority, but because I've spent over 30 years of consistent film study and analysis, starting with my revelatory film school experience in the late '80s. I drop very easily into the Malick spell, and without reservation am a fan. And I haven't even SEEN this film yet. I'm only responding to this review. I'm very likely to write a follow up to this after I've been able to catch it near my culturally and geographically estranged location. The nearest even this Friday, after a week of it being out, is still a 3 hour drive.

Los Angeles gets the Terrence Malick treatment in Knight Of Cups

Malick has provided, with his gorgeous meander of a seventh feature, plenty of ammunition for the faithful and the not.

AVCLUB.COM