I can imagine what Ms. Zacharek would be like on a long nature hike.

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....and of many a year. But I guess Pauline Kael really hated Badlands, therefore Steph has to dump on The New World. Hopefully this will have the same effect on her career as her husband's moronically dogmatic review of Million Dollar Baby.

I haven't seen "The New World," but I have seen "The Thin Red Line" which was a great World War II movie wrapped up in a coating of pseudopoetical dog stool. Great performances, cineamatography and script based on a book with a grownup's view of war (Yes, I can see you over there "Saving Private Ryan" minus your first 20 minutes) ruined by assinine voiceovers. But goddamn pretty, I'll give him that.

If Ms. Z is describing the movie at all accurately, it sounds like more of the same. I may catch it anyway, though, because the period is fascinating.

Why, pray tell are there so few movies about colonial America? First contact, the Conquest of Paradise and all that. Hell, American history in the movies mostly begins with the Civil War. As period pieces go, the sets could certainly be cheap to make, with log dwellings and such. There's some great movies to be made there, but nobody's made it. Bruce Beresford and Brian Moore came closest with "Black Robe."

Farrell certainly wants to be an actor, which is laudable, because he could have become a movie star. But this is all coming from a person who liked "Alexander" or at least the longer, differently edited DVD version of it. (Then, I seemed to find in the reviews in read, including Ms. Z's a desire, or need to see Alexander the Great as something more than the best conqueror (debatable, Ghengis Khan and the Mongols certainly have a claim) or to take the movie to be making a that case. I took the justifying bullshit Alexander spouts to be just that and the movie's point to be something along the lines of that quote from Lily Tomlin, where she said something along the lines of "Even if you win the rat race, you find out you're still a rat."

Possibly the most execrably shallow critic I've ever come across. Unable to digest a film that leaves things up to the viewer, that takes an internal tack to a story, that is not interested in taking you by the hand and spelling every little thing out for you.

If you can get a gig reviewing movies, there's hope for every ape in Africa.

A colleague *at Salon* no less. From another *Malick film* no less!! I only remembered because it was such a perfect line to describe Malick's work. :)

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/reviews/1999/01/cov_08reviewa.html

I'm so saddened to read such a cheap and knee-jerk reaction by one of my very favorite critics. Surely someone capable of enjoying the sweet poetry of Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice should see that Malick is no shallow tree hugger. I'm deeply shocked.

"Never met a blank he didn't like" is a cliche. You can't steal cliches.

I felt a visceral horror after watching this film -- saturated with the power of self-deluding violence, the ruthless disregard, foolish justification and inexorable momentum that continues unfolding... uninterrupted in our present political life.

Very little else stayed with me after seeing this film. Kilcher's performance was remarkable, but I never felt the extreme lolling visual poetry. (Perhaps this was due to the 15 minutes shorter version that reached Ca.)

As SZ noted, it tumbled along with plenty of plot and action.

But why does she seem so cynical about the dreadful reality evoked by this account of our beginnings ? It isn't just a little resonant with the present; it is indistinguishable- in tone, in focusing on hapless individuals with sincerity & tunnel vision, brutal means to a shallow end. It created a sense of utter hopelessness.

I was literally queasy leaving the theater- and not because of Pocahontas' death. Is everyone else numb to meaning ?

This review just doesn't tell you anything about the movie. It seems mostly to be viewed as a chance for the critic to display how ironic and cynical she can be.

Malick is well-regarded as a director (whether this reviewer thinks it is deserved or not) and a reasoned critique of the movie would be much more useful to readers. This piece made me briefly wonder what type of movies Stephanie Zacharek actually likes. I realize I could check out some of her other reviews, but if they are anything like this one, it would hardly be worth my time.

When I grow up I wanna be like Terrence Malick.