Leave Terrence Malick Alone

Listen, you Cannes-going blog-bots and would-be critics: you need to shut your flapping fingertips about Tree of Life and Terrence Malick, right now. Yes, it’s great that you got to see it, and yes, 50% of you were like “ooh, I need to see it again to know what I really think about it” (not you, Manohla dear), which is heinously annoying, especially for those of us for whom this is the Movie Event of the Year, and then you were all like, “well it’s a long, atmospheric look at big questions!” Really? You think? A TERRENCE MALICK MOVIE? And “oh gosh, it’s a big picture, sweeping, and maybe self-indulgent and no one is quite sure what to make of it!” FOR THE LOVE OF EISENSTEIN, SHUT UP. For starters, we have seen Terrence Malick movies before, so duh, and yes, The Thin Red Line was like five hours of guys clawing their way up a hill and halfway through you basically couldn’t remember who any of the characters were (neither could Malick!), and sure, The New World was basically like a few weeks of reels of people running through fields of INDIGENOUS GRASSES, but that was the point! Nobody had that much to say in Ye Olden Times, unlike now, when apparently no one will shut up! REMEMBER THE GRASSES. Now everyone is a critic, which is fine by me, because any old fool can look at the use of tracking shots in Thor or the THORNY QUESTION OF RACE IN SNAKES ON A PLANE, but when it comes to Terrence Malick, we don’t really need to hear what you have to blog-barf! Because you are most likely not qualified to render verdicts on metaphysical questions and their presentation! Especially when his point, over and over again, is that we are all one! Meanwhile, Terrence Malick is a very shy man and also, let’s be honest, he is not a spring chicken, and we need to squeeze as many movies out of him before he kicks it, and YOUR JOB, freelance friend who is unintelligibly live-blogging Cannes on your Blackberry, is to say go back to finding out what kind of panties Brad Pitt is wearing, or whatever gets you the pageviews at your respective publications. Good luck getting a table at Côté Jardin while you tromp on art!