A few words on Terrence Malick's TO THE WONDER.

Someday, I'll finally watch the DVD of THE NEW WORLD (which I still haven't seen) to get a more complete idea of where TO THE WONDER fits in the scheme of Terrence Malick's fifteen-years-and-counting Second Act as a filmmaker (the First Act produced two masterpieces, BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN; the Second Act has offered up two bloated-length films with sections of brilliance, THE THIN RED LINE and THE TREE OF LIFE).

SPOILER ALERT: TO THE WONDER does have a plot thread (recounted here without the religious/mythic/stylized/nature&humanity overtones Malick and gifted cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki splash onto the widescreen canvas) which carries throughout the entirety of the film: Man working as environmental inspector meets ethereal Femme, brings her and elementary-school-aged daughter from Paris to Oklahoma; Man loses Femme because he Can't Commit and Femme's Visa has expired, Man has affair with Woman he once knew; Man loses Woman because he Won't Commit; Femme (daughter lives now with birth father) wants to come back to America; Man and Femme marry and create child of their own; Man has Committer's Remorse; Femme has one-afternoon stand at an Econo Lodge with neighbor; Man upset over affair; Man and Femme divorce; Femme returns to a cold, grey-weathered France; Man Half-Commits To Something by raising their daughter in Oklahoma.

And there's a fourth major character in the film.  I wrote the paragraph below as a comment on a critic's film blog:
If one could cut together footage both in the film and what Malick probably discarded, an interesting Antonioni/Bergman/Bresson-influenced 75-minute feature--about the trials and attempt at renewed faith of Javier Bardem's priest (attending to the lost and broken of Bartlesville, Oklahoma)--would appear.

Feedback for opinionating on Jessica Chastain on ZERO DARK THIRTY.

Yesterday, I reposted comments I posted to the HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE site about ZERO DARK THIRTY and Jessica Chastain's lead performance as Maya.  Chastain's been a good actress elsewhere, but not in ZDT, where her performance has been overrated.

HE commenter Thunder Redux wrote:
TVMCCA is right on the money regarding Chastain. I think she was grossly miscast in this film. No idea how she got a best actress nom for this performance.

Commenter bobbyperu took strong exception:

Congratulations to TVM and Thunder for the Seriously Out of My Fucking Head But Let Me Just Be Contrarian award of the day. You guys are total fucking douches -- Chastain, as everyone knows by now (at least those with taste, frame of reference and knowledge of technique/sense of actresses currently working in America), is about the only versatile American thirty-something actress working right now. Without cataloging her dozen, diametrically opposed performances in the last year (different voices, bodies and masquerades, all of them) suffice to say that you two are clueless dicks.

But good to know that virtually no one agrees with you, based in her tally of awards this season from both press and industry.

Malick's THE TREE OF LIFE: one theater chain posts an explanatory sign.

I haven't seen Terrence Malick's apparently-impressionistic THE TREE OF LIFE yet, but here's a link to a recent Jeffrey Wells HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE post:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/06/american_idiot.php

Like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in 1968, THE TREE OF LIFE is unconventional enough to trigger some audience-member walkouts.  And I guess it's a sad sign of the times that a theater chain felt it had to post a sign of explanation/warning about the film on one of the entrance doors.