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I feel like I’m writing about Abrams like he’s some god of filmmaking or something. But truly, as that goes, I have at least found I’m more keen on researching a film, reading its news and reviews and the rest of it when I know he’s involved in some capacity. I even saw Cloverfield while studying for a semester in Spain - in Spanish and with subtitles (not that there’s much dialogue, anyway) - because
waiting ‘til I got home would have been nutso. And don’t even get me started on what I did with those screenshots posted to some website a few months before it was released.

I mean, J.J. could shoot a 30-second spot of a piece of crap wrapped in tinfoil and I’d be curious about what it could all mean.

But I digress… Super 8: probable entertainment if you’re a pre-teen. Otherwise, I’d say don’t bother.

Win Win

Now here’s one of those movies that requires some help. I have exactly one friend - hey, Justin! - who knew what movie I was talking about when I said Win Win. Everyone else has needed to know it’s that one starring Paul Giamatti as a wrestling coach, and that it was critically acclaimed and earned just $10 million at the box office. You know the film?

Anyway, it didn’t make me recoil quite like Super 8 did. But like J.J. Abrams, I expect more from Thomas McCarthy. He’s the guy behind The Visitor. I just loved that movie, you know.

Win Win has heart, and actress Amy Ryan, who I adore, but it’s touching in the way The Blind Side was touching. Like it’s a tale of morality, and doing good and being pleasing to others, but I - at least - remained a few steps ahead of the story through the entire thing.

The Tree of Life

Of everything I saw this year, The Tree of Life is easily the most beautiful, theatrically. It’s got some of the best cinematography I’ve yet seen in any movie, and where - like the city Venice - you could literally take a snapshot of any one part and come away with something real pretty. Like living room centerpiece worthy.

My problem with Tree of Life, then, is again its story. I hardly felt like I came away with much of anything I didn’t already know.

Yes, we can live for others or live for ourselves. Yes, we can be of the world or not of the world. Yes, we can reflect on the fact that our lives - let alone humanity, et al. - are but a blip on the timeline of our planet’s, our universe’s, existence. There was a lot around before out time. There will be a lot to come later.

And then the Earth will probably be swallowed by the Sun.

I do think I’d be interested in reading a critical piece or several on the movie and what others have interpreted, or what may have been its intended meaning. I think it’s a bit of a necessity when a film can be as wildly vague as Tree of Life is. But I think there’s something to be said about a movie that is only enjoyable - for me, anyway - when it’s digested, after the fact, through scholarly papers.

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