Movie Reviews: "The Tree of Life" and "Die Hard 2: Die Harder", or Art of the Highest and Lowest Orders

The Tree of Life
2011, Rated PG-13
Written and Directed by Terrence Malick
Starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, and Sean Penn

An old friend was supposed to drop by tonight, but in typical him fashion, he called and cancelled. Some B.S. about his wife going into labor or something like that. And after I took the night off of work and everything! People can be so inconsiderate.

But I'm determined that the night not be a total loss, so I call up a couple of buddies from a writer's group I attend each week, and it turns out they've got about as much going on as I do. I've been talking up Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life to them for a couple of months now, so I ask them if they'd like to come over and make a party of it. They agree and by 6:30 the coffee table is covered in chips & dips, we're sitting on my couch hip to hip, and I pick up the remote and hit the skip button so we don't have to bother with preview clips.

In truth, saying we "made a party of it" might be a tad misleading. The crunching of fried tortillas and the squish of salsa and bean dip is so incongruous with the film that in less than twenty minutes we've abandoned the snacks entirely. I did warn them that this movie wasn't casual viewing. It's an investment. You can't be shuffling back and forth between the living room and the kitchen, grabbing sodas and refilling dippin' bowls as you pick up what's going on onscreen with your left ear and listen to your wife's questions about whether you remembered to snake the bathtub drain with your right. This movie requires your full attention at all times. But it's worth it.

I've told friends and relatives before, and now I'm telling you that, in no uncertain terms, The Tree of Life is the best movie of the last 10 years. It's not even a competition. The only film I can think of that even comes close is 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and even that gets left in the dust when compared with the grandeur, ambition, and resonance of this picture. I don't like to throw around the word "genius" - too many people are too eager to attribute it to filmmakers who don't deserve it - but it's the only word that seems adequate.

Don't misunderstand me. The Tree of Life is not my favorite film of the last 10 years. There's a difference between "favorite" and "best". It's not the movie that I derive the most pleasure from watching. That honor - shocking as it might seem - probably belongs to the 2007 Lonely Island farce, Hot Rod. Like the films of Kubrick or Bergman, The Tree of Life is an investment, as I've already said, and there are times when I'm too spent to invest in a movie. So it's not my favorite film of the last decade. It's just the best. It's the one that takes filmmaking in a new direction, gives us something we've never seen before, exploits the power of film in a way that no other film has, tells us a story we couldn't have gotten through any other medium, and pulls it all off without a single hitch.

The movie is both grand in scope and intimate in execution, telling no less than the story of the meaning of life through both human and universal archetype, as well as character study and personal vignette. The fact that it tells this story with the quality of actual memory - that being a disjointed narrative, sometimes lacking context, but maintaining an overall coherency - is an artistic accomplishment that I can only marvel at. Malick isn't the first filmmaker to attempt this, but he is - in my experience, which I will admit, is far from exhaustive - the first to achieve it. If I'm wrong, please let me know. I'd love to see the film that could compete.

After the credits roll, the cost of the film shows in all of us. We're spent; emotionally and intellectually exhausted, and all we can manage between us is a collective, "Wow." We don't discuss much. We all have to go think about it for a while. I bid my usually talkative friends adieu with little more than pleasantries by way of parting words. I don't think any of us are capable of mustering much else, and even if we could, it seems like anything we could say would be weak and perfunctory.

John Waters - no Terrence Malick, but an important filmmaker in his own, twisted right - once said that he can tell whether or not an audience likes a movie by how quickly they get up and leave once the credits roll. If I'd seen this movie in a theater, I can pretty much guarantee that, unless I had someone there prodding me to get up and move, I wouldn't've been able to stand until the screen went blank and the lights came up. Even then, it would've been reluctantly. Is there any higher praise for a movie than that? Maybe, but I can't think of what it would be.

Later that day, in a 180 degree thematic turn...

Die Hard 2: Die Harder
1990, Rated R
Written by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson (Screenplay) and Walter Wager (Novel, 58 Minutes)
Directed by Renny Harlin
Starring Bruce Willis, William Atherton, Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler, and Art Evans

So, after my son went gaga for Die Hard 1: Die Regular Hard, it was inevitable that we'd end up sitting down together before the mixed blessing that is Die Hard 2: Die Harder. I warn him before I even put the disc in.

"Okay, I'm not gonna lie," I say. "This is nowhere near as good as the first one."

"Cuz sequels are never as good as the originals, right?" he says.

Did I mention that he soaks up my every word like a sponge, even when - actually, I should say especially when - I'm sure he's nowhere nearby? And ever since he discovered the Metal Gear games, he's taken to sneaking around the house unnoticed and lurking in darkened corners. If this were soviet Russia, I'd have been executed by now for all the stuff he's overheard. The burden of fatherhood, I guess. Sigh.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Die Hard 2.

Die Harder is easily my least favorite of the series, but that shouldn't be taken to mean I don't like it. At their worst, the Die Hard movies are better than 99% of the action genre as a whole. But this first sequel is definitely the ugly step-sister of the family.

The conclusion my son and I both end up coming to (he agreeing with me mere seconds after I voice the opinion, if you can believe it *wink, wink*) is that the movie is a perfect storm of schlock. What makes it great is that it so unabashedly embraces being bad. Hardly a second goes by that you can't point out some element of the film that would give a nitpicker fits. At one point I start howling with laughter and my son begs me for an explanation. I point out no less than four of the ridiculous suspensions of logic necessary to have made it through the three minute scene we've just watched (the one culminating in John McClane saving his butt by dropping it in an ejector seat and throwing the switch), and now we're both laughing.

But the sheer intellectual vacuity of the script cannot compare to the movie's crown jewel of crap, which is the so-called acting of Art Evans as airport communications director Leslie Barnes. Those of you who know are probably simultaneously cringing and grinning as you read this. How to describe his performance? It's as if he's reading the script for the first time off of a teleprompter and the director is printing the first take. At one point I actually pause the movie so my son and I can try to deliver a line as woodenly as Art just has, but neither of us can manage it. The acting is so bad that it almost circumnavigates the spectrum and becomes good again. If I thought he were doing it on purpose, I'd say - with no irony whatsoever - that he was genius, but methinks that'd be giving him a tad too much credit. In the end, neither my son nor I can tell whether Art's performance is the worst part of this move or the best. The fact that we have to ask the question probably answers it, but I'll let you decide.

Final thoughts: Die Hard 2 is corny, unrealistic, and downright laughable. McClane's trademark "Yipee-kay-yay" gets shoehorned in for the sake of grasping at the glory of the last time 'round, but ultimately it feels forced. Still, my boy and I have a lot of laughs and spend more time than you might think gripping the arms of the sofa from the tension of what we're watching, and when it's over, we're left with scenes and lines that we'll be quoting and laughing over for the next several days, if not years to come. Is it the best movie we've watched together? Not by a long shot. But do we regret watching it? Not for a yipee-kay-yay-motherf***in' second.