Never Mind Pop Film

Two years really makes a difference, doesn't it? Prior to The Tree of Life's release, Terrence Malick was notorious for his long delays between pictures. Something must have awoken something inside the auteur because he has released To the Wonder and has two more films waiting in post-production. Quite the change of pace for a man who had only directed three pictures over 30 years.

Courtesy of EW, this poster borrows a little from The Thin Red Line Criterion released a while back. The fold made sense for that film, but this one just seems curious. The church just off to the left is also an interesting visual cue.
To the Wonder hits theatres April 12th!

Say what you want about Terrence Malick's occasional lack of coherence, but his visual eye is always leads to something stunning. To the Wonder hits theatres April 12th.

For the very little that audiences know about Terrence Malick's upcoming To the Wonder, at least there is a new picture to tide everyone over until its wide release. Here is a synopsis, courtesy of Collider:

After visiting Mont Saint-Michel — once known in France as the Wonder — at the height of their love, Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and Neil (Ben Affleck) come to Oklahoma, where problems soon arise. Marina makes the acquaintance of a priest and fellow exile (Javier Bardem), who is struggling with his vocation, while Neil renews his ties with a childhood friend, Jane (Rachel McAdams). Written and directed by Terrence Malick, TO THE WONDER is an exploration of love in its many forms.
Of course that is what the film is about ostensibly. Who knows what dinosaurs may be lurking around Ben Affleck's head?

The Toronto Internation Film Festival is the most accessible of film fests, but this year a few of the artier films are making their debut along with the more mainstream fare. Two of my most anticipated films are included on that list such as Derek Cianfrance's followup to Blue Valentine and Ben Affleck's third directorial effort. The film that is sure to get the most attention, however, is Terrence Malick's To the Wonder. Whatever the reaction will be to Malick's latest tone-poem, it will be fun to see first-hand.
The Place Beyond the Pines
Derek Cianfrance, USA (World Premiere)
Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a professional motorcycle rider who turns to bank robberies to support his newborn son. But when he crosses paths with a rookie police officer (Bradley Cooper), their violent confrontation spirals into a tense generational feud. The Place Beyond the Pines is a rich dramatic thriller, tracing the intersecting lives of fathers and sons, cops and robbers, heroes and villains.…

Terrence Malick has always been known as a notoriously slow worker, but the fact that film enthusiasts have gone without a title for the Ben-Affleck-and-Rachel-McAdams led-drama for a year and a half tells you a lot. Thanks to The Film Stage we now know the film is titled To the Wonder, and a lot more about the film:
…a philanderer (Ben Affleck) who, feeling at loose ends, travels to Paris, where he enters a hot-and-heavy affair with a European woman (Olga Kurylenko). Said Lothario returns home to Oklahoma, where he marries the European woman (in part for visa reasons). When the relationship founders, he rekindles a romance with a hometown girl (Rachel McAdams) with whom he’s had a long history.
The story summary sounds exactly like what we should have anticipated from a romance directed and written by Terrence Malick. Now if we could just get a release date...

After what seemed like an eternity to fans of Terrence Malick's filmography, Tree of Life made its debut at Cannes. Responses to the film were varied and lines were drawn in the sand. Terrence Malick tends to have that reaction on people. From Badlands to The New World, the atmospheric flourishes and strokes that Malick uses to paint his stories quite often alienate viewers. Common narratives are often ignored in favor of sweeping shots of the world around the characters and ethereal voice overs that convey the thoughts, hopes and dreams of those we watch onscreen.

Mr. O'Brien and Mrs. O'Brien offer contrasting lifestyles to their three children: the way of force and the way of grace. The patron O'Brien knows what little this life gives, it has to be hard-earned, or taken. Regret has colored Mr. O'Brien's life by his passions that have languished and he needs to make that impact felt for his three sons. Life is not to be frivolously spent and Brad Pitt's e…

Madness, valor, cowardice. No soldier's story is the same. 

It seems odd that just recently we got a first look at Tree of Life a few months ago (that took years in the making) and now we get a look at Malick's next film - released in 2012 supposedly - that has only been in production for a few months. Odd man that Terrence Malick.
Not very revealing, but another dazzling shot from Malick. Pictured are Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams, the rest of the cast includes: Javier Bardem, Rachel Weisz and Barry Pepper.
(Courtesy: The Hollywood Reporter)

The first peek at Terrence Malick's Tree of Life is attached to Black Swan and for those of you lucky enough to see Black Swan this weekend you'll get a look at one of the most anticipated films in recent history.
Tree of Life stars Sean Penn as Jack and Brad Pitt as his emotionally-vacant father. Malick's film is reportedly on an epic scale and ranges from when dinosaurs roamed the Earth to current day America where Jack faces an unknown crisis.