Tree of Life

Or "Koyaanisqatsi, if it starred Brad Pitt."

There's a lot of whispered voiceover, pretty pictures and thundering classical music here, and part of me wants to dismiss this as a very expensive student project: "for my thesis, I'm going to do a bricolage where I mash up 2001, Baraka, Sean Penn's 35mm childhood home movies and a National Geographic special."

That would not be entirely fair, though. It's not every day you see a huge blockbuster movie about the nature of God, starring Brad Pitt. The title of the movie is from Proverbs ("[wisdom] is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it") and it begins with an epigraph from the Book of Job, and if you guess right there that a big tragedy is going to occur and the movie is not going to explain it for you, then give yourself five points.

Then there's a long montage of truly breathtaking scope that attempts to cover the majesty of the entire universe. So you might well ask yourself why this human tragedy matters, when the point of this montage seems to be that the universe is vast and not being run for your comfort or your happiness? Why should we care about Brad Pitt's stern father-who-should-have-been-a-musician-but-missed-his-calling, or Jessica Chastain's adoring mother and their sullen-faced son Jack growing up in Waco, Texas in the fifties?

Well, if we roll back a few verses in Proverbs we come across the instruction: "whom the Lord loves, he chastises, as a father does the son he loves." So maybe Brad Pitt is God. And like the common view of the God of the Old Testament, Pitt is stern but also loving towards his children.

And what about mom, who flits around in gorgeous shifts that catch the breeze and the light? Is she the more loving God of the New Testament? Are the brothers Cain and Abel? What does it mean that dad is a little sorry he treated his family like a jerk? Watch the movie and make up your own mind.

I said earlier that it's not every day you see a movie about the nature of God. But the movie that this reminds me of the most, in terms of subject matter, is the Coen Brothers' film A Serious Man, which is also loosely based on the Book of Job and asks us to think about the nature of a God who allows such terrible things to happen to His children.

I would say that personally, the Coen Brothers' less bombastic, less pretentious, more human-scale, even humorous film appeals to me more. In the end, my feeling about The Tree of Life is that it is very well made, thought-provoking, and it reminds me of a lot of other movies that I like very much. The one thing I'm not sure it reminds me of, is itself.

Jumping the Broom

Or alternatively: "My Big Fat Black Wedding." 

This is a pretty slight movie, as you might guess, and wouldn't be worth your time except for one thing. There are so few good roles for African-American actors that this trifle is actually brimming with talent who make it surprisingly entertaining, in a schmaltzy, cliche, checking-off-the-boxes kind of way.

Rich Sabrina is going to marry poor Jason (Sabrina! Get it?) Their families don't get along. They break up the happy couple, but Love Conquers All. Oh, did I ruin the ending for you?

Sabrina (played by Paula Patton, who was so much better in Mission: Impossible 4) comes from a wealthy creole family, who live on Martha's Vineyard, which, as we all know, is the wellspring of Cajun culture. And the Vineyard has never been more beautiful. The whole movie looks like an L. L. Bean catalog.

Jason's family is from--GASP--Brooklyn, which is used here as a synonym for "the hood," which makes me wonder if the screenwriter has ever actually been to Brooklyn. The director clearly hasn't, as the only time we see Jason's mother in New York, she is on--don't snarf--the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

But Jason's mom is played by Loretta Devine, an amazingly skilled actress who manages to eat the role of the villainous, emasculating, easily offended mother of the groom rather delicately and with great humor, at least until she finally gets her comeuppance and magically turns into the good mother-in-law fairy.

She arrives with a retinue of cardboard characters that talented actors somehow manage to breathe life into: Tasha Smith as the sassy best friend, Mike Epps as the groom's ghetto-wise uncle.

On the bride's side, we find badass Angela Bassett in the unfortunate role of the cold rich bitch mother of the bride. I'm sorry, make that the cold, rich, French-speaking bitch. Could it be any worse? Ms. Bassett deserves an Oscar for actually managing not to make this character hateful. Julie Bowen from Modern Family even manages to generate a few laughs in her role as White Person Who Says All the Wrong Things Around Black People.

So where does this leave us? Well, I'm happy to report that nobody gets shot in this movie, you won't learn any cool ghetto slang, and it has absolutely no aspirations of being a Racial Message Movie. And it's not too painful to watch. Unfortunately what it isn't...just isn't enough to recommend this movie.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

This is a really great, stylish movie. The lead's green hair is a little precious (he was an art student!), but Ryu is a great character. He's a deaf mute with a sister badly in need of a kidney--and he's the wrong blood type. That could be really schmaltzy, or really contrived...okay, actually it's a little of both, now that I think about it. But during the movie, I didn't.

Park has tied one hand behind his back by taking on a character who can't speak, but he actually turns it to his advantage. In one scene we learn that Ryu is double-shifting; a bell rings and all of the workers get up and leave. Ryu stares after them...and sits down wearily. After a few moments, more workers arrive and he gets up and starts to work again. That told me more about the character than ten voiceovers.

It also prepares us for another great scene, in which Ryu is fired; we see the boss extend his hand so that it looms threateningly in the foreground of the frame; Ryu puts his grimy thumb in red ink and presses it on the contract. This isn't the most dexterously political film, but if you feel strongly about Obamacare or multinational banks, it may resonate a little with you. Maybe Park is trying to say that the carnage in this film is nobody's fault except that of "the system"...I can't say. But that's as plausible an explanation as any.

Park kind of has a reputation as a really gory director; if you really like this kind of thing, then you might like this film for all the wrong reasons. If you don't like this kind of thing, you might hate this film...also for all the wrong reasons.

While there are moments where it's hard to watch, it actually didn't make me as squeamish as, say, Requiem for a Dream, and not because I didn't care about the characters, but because Park genuinely tries to spare us. There's a scene where a father is watching his daughter's autopsy, and the camera stays on him the entire time; only the soundtrack hints at what he's seeing. Okay, more than "hints at": it's actually pretty horrific despite the fact that it's all sound and no visual.

I have a few minor technical quibbles; I've complained about fades-to-black before, and this film is riddled with them. Also, there's a totally unnecessary voiceover at the end, that might as well say, "do you remember this earlier plot point which is suddenly relevant? No? Well, here it is again!"

On the one hand, I can't wait to see another one of Park's films. On the other hand, I'm not sure I ever want to. Maybe I'll try his film Lady Vengeance and see if I can discern some kind of a pattern.

crazy, stupid, love

Another expecting-to-hate-it-but-didn't movie. If you're a happily married middle-aged man with kids, this is totally your flick.

Everybody else, you'll have to let me know. There's a scene where Julianne Moore calls her ex-husband Steve Carell and pretends the water heater isn't working just so she can hear his voice. I swear I almost cried. I can totally see why Steve Carell, a happily married middle-aged man with kids, felt it needed to be made.

And this is a comedy! Not only is it very funny, but it's very well made. There's a moment where the 17-year-old babysitter is telling her 13-year-old charge why she can't be in love with him, and right at that moment it cuts to a wide shot so you can see she's a head taller than him. Early on Steve Carell asks Ryan Gosling why he's helping him, and he says "let's just say you remind me of somebody." By the end you know who it is, but they actually fail to sledgehammer the audience with that one. It's a nice change of pace.

Sometimes I think a lot of Hollywood movies would be 100% better if they simply ended ten minutes earlier. This is one of those movies. It has a goofball coda that almost ruins the whole thing. But not quite. Still highly recommended.