The past and future of film criticism/"Super 8" and "The Tree of Life"

It seems a bit curious, even ironic, that I would write a blog entry that is in any way critical of film critics.  That is basically what this whole thing is, after all.  Like many who love watching movies, I'd have to say that "professional film critic" would be among my top five dream jobs.  Getting paid to watch movies and talk about them?  I could totally do that.  And like many who dream of such a position, I'd fancy myself as "the people's critic", one who truly hears the voices of the masses and related to them on a level that your average critic, believed to be a beret-wearing art snob who'd rather watch four-hour German avant-garde films over Hollywood blockbusters, never possibly could.  But does the stereotype, and the environment it flourished in, still hold true?  Is film criticism yet another facet of both pop culture and every day life that has been rendered obsolete and subsequently redefined by the Internet?

The fact that I have this blog at all leads one to realize that it has.  Film critics were once a select few, an elite group of revered, highly trained journalists considered among the best of the best at what they do.  Their names still resonate today with those who love movies: Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin, Rex Reed.  Now the Internet has put that power in the hands of anyone who chooses to use it.  It makes it possible for an average 32-year-old guy from the suburbs of Detroit, MI, and millions or perhaps billions like me, to share their opinions with the world.  Social networking has even taken it to the next level.  When in the past you had to wait a day or two after a movie's release for reviews to hit, as people would await the trusted word of those few who were the first to see movie, now people are tweeting their 140 character or less reviews before they have even left their theater seat, as the credits have only begun to roll on the first showing of the day.  Instantaneous word of mouth has been enough to float or sink a movie.  And while most tweets certainly do not pack the journalistic punch of the reviews of old (though I'm sure Kael's famous line from her "Star Wars" review, "A Cracker Jack box that's all prizes", would have gotten plenty of retweets), they have shifted the power of spreading the word into the hands of the most powerful people in the film industry: the general public.

That said, you can still open your newspaper (or the Entertainment page on your newspaper's website, as it were) on Friday morning to see how their resident critic (or whichever one they syndicate) felt about that week's newest releases.  And plenty of people still put a lot of stock in these reviews, if the popularity of websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic is any indication.  In the end people still trust their own instincts when deciding what movie they'd like to go see, but would never turn down a little professional guidance to direct them toward the best way to spend their movie going dollar.

This past weekend, I saw two very different movies with one very large common factor: both films are highly critically acclaimed.  One film, "Super 8", is this week's entry in the Hollywood summer blockbuster sweepstakes, a large-budgeted (though not star-packed) sci-fi drama tale that is seemingly calculated to the perfect summer movie.  It has been garnering As and 4 star reviews from critics all over the country. The other film I saw, "The Tree of Life", is a highly anticipated but smaller, more artistic film that features top talent like Brad Pitt and Sean Penn but is far from a conventional film, yet seems tailor made to satisfy the sensibilities of the "film critic as art snob" stereotype.

"Super 8" (2011)

A big deal has been made of preserving the mysteries in this particular film, so I'll attempt to speak in generalities/commonly know facts when describing the film.  It centers on a group of kids around the age of 12-13 in a small Ohio factory town in 1979 that spend their youth making monster movies with their Super 8 movie camera.  They accidentally manage to film a train crash containing top secret US Air Force cargo, and are cryptically told never to speak of it.  This, of course, is when strange things start happening in their town, and to their group of friends, as they struggle to uncover the truth about what was really on the train, and what it truly wants.

This is a film that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve.  A big deal has been made about how "Spielberg-ian" the movie is; it should be noted that the man who directly or indirectly gave us many of the films that inspired this one (notably "ET", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "The Goonies") also produced "Super 8".  And the influence is very welcome; the kids (mostly unknowns) are perfectly cast, give spot-on performances and are clearly the best part of the movie.  Coming of age and dealing with personal/family tragedies are recurring themes throughout Spielberg's directing or producing work.  But there is much of director/writer J.J. Abrams here as well.  The man who gave us "Lost" and "Alias" has woven plenty of mystery and conspiracy into "Super 8".  And while it's an interesting angle to take, it sets the movie up for some serious pacing issues.  Abrams is obviously used to the freedom a TV series provides in the way of a lack of time constraint, allowing multi-leveled mysteries to unfold organically and at a measured pace.  But while "Lost" could spend 6 years and 144 hours setting up and revealing its mysteries, a movie typically has only two.  Here is "Super 8"'s fatal flaw: it is too slow to reveal its secrets, and by the time it starts to truly explain itself, more than an hour into it's hour and 51 minute run time, you wonder how interested you still are in knowing what the movie has to say.  It's still a very good and entertaining movie, and with its worst flaws it is still a better and richer experience than the average Hollywood blockbuster.  But if Abrams had spent a little less time paying homage to the movies he loved, and more time advancing his own story at a satisfying pace, he might have come a lot closer to achieving the magic he was so obviously striving for.

"The Tree of Life" (2011)

"The Tree of Life" sits at the other end of the spectrum, quite far away from filmmaking conventions in general and sitting much closer to, for lack of a better term, art.  It is difficult to describe exactly what the film is, as there is only a loose narrative story woven into it.  At its center lies a tale about the choices we make in life and what path, morally good or bad, they lead us down, eventually shaping us into the people we are.  This is presented to us between some of the most strikingly beautiful imagery ever filmed, montages of images of nature and the passage of time that are equally breathtaking and a bit irritating.  (A more cynical person could make a pretty great drinking game based on the number of low angle shots of trees and buildings or whispered, dramatic voice-overs.)  The whole thing just feels a bit forced: designed in all the right ways to purposely coax awe and emotion out of the viewer.  The problem with this scam is that it works almost flawlessly.  The film is at its best in the moments when it does focus on its central narrative, particularly when the teenage character of Jack (played as an adult in some scenes by Sean Penn, though the young actor playing him as a teenager is superb.)  Jack is a young man growing up in an unnamed Texas suburb in the late 50s/early 60s.  And while the narrative parts of the story show us his whole childhood and hint at his obviously troubled adulthood, watching him as a teenager is this movie's most rewarding experience.  We see Jack interacting with his polar opposite parents: his almost stereotypically stern but caring father (Brad Pitt), who seems to follow the film's "path of nature", and his loving, passive, nearly angelic mother (Jessica Chastain), an obvious follower of the "path of grace".  (These two paths, and which we as people choose to follow, are the central point of the film.)  We see Jack trying to find for himself which path to follow, making moral choices, often not the best ones, along the way.  The audience can actually see how the consequences of his choices and the influence of each parent begin to mold him.  A slightly overlong, vague but beautiful ending sequence reveals to us, at possible risk of spoiling anything (though really, this isn't the kind of movie that can be "spoiled" anyway), that our lives are continually shaped and changed by the choices we make and the ideals we follow.

Watching "The Tree of Life", you kind of want to dislike it in a way.  The whole affair looks like it was carefully crafted to be the perfect stereotypical "art film".  A cynical person would love to see the film collapse under the weight of its own pretentiousness, and how obviously it wants to Be Important and Make a Statement about Life.  It naturally gets a bit heavy-handed at times, hinting at religious overtones but never outright giving into them.  It is quite a bit bloated with artsy tricks, but the moments that connect do resonate, whether you necessarily want them to or not.

So to sum it all up, did either of these two very different but equally acclaimed live up to the rapturous critical hype they both received?  Not exactly.  Were they worthwhile experiences with enough good in them to make them worth watching?  Absolutely.  Not every movie can be as great or as terrible as the world wants it to be, but that makes them no less worthy of being seen.

But what are you listening to me for?  Make the decision on your own.