Deadhead Miles

1972 truck movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A possibly-crazy Cooper steals a Peterbilt, paints it yellow, and starts a transcontinental trip. He picks up the Jeffersons' butler, and they have a series of misadventures.

If you like trucker movies or 70's counterculture road movies, you need to check this one out before you forget about it and it goes away forever. A large percentage of the population ain't going to get this Malick-penned undiscovered little gem, but for those who do, it's going to hit hard. I came for the truck driving and Malick script, stayed for Alan Arkin's ridiculous performance, and fell in love with the Paul Benedict brilliance. Let's start with that script which seemed aimed straight for my funny bone. There's very little story here, just episodic free-form truck-driving tomfooleries, but there's a great feeling of nostalgia and a celebration of the open road. The story has a very made-as-you-go feel, but not in a bad way at all. Take this sequence when the characters try to go to a drag race: They can't get into the drag race because they either can't pay or don't want to pay. Paul Benedict's character says that he is going to watch the drag race from inside. The two have a little fight. Benedict buys a fake mustache. They steal a doll. Arkin rips off the dolls head and attaches it to the bottom of the gear shift in somebody else's truck. He moves the gear shift which contorts the doll's face and then says, "The world is bigger than you know." Nothing in that scene connects with anything else. Hell, the scene doesn't make sense on its own, but for whatever reason, it adds to the experience and is really funny. Here's another bit of dialogue after the characters throw full stolen bottles of soda at signs from their moving cab in a scene that might be about six bottles too long:

Arkin: Boy, I never had so much fun. Howdy mighty damn!
Benedict: Golly.
Arkin: That was fun.
Benedict: Gee.
Arkin: That's what I call fun.
Benedict: That was something all right.

Come on! That's almost Shakespearean! I also liked this exchange, following some enthusiastic singing:

Benedict: You know "Red River Valley"?
Arkin: Yeah.
Benedict: You want to sing it?
Arkin: No.

As I type that, I realize it's one of those you-had-to-have-been-there moments, but I don't care. I'm typing it anyway. I'm not sure any of the dialogue would work without Arkin and Benedict. The latter I was just thrilled to see. Arkin is completely unhinged here, so close to Depp's Hunter S. Thompson that you almost wonder if Depp drew inspiration from this before remembering that he drew his inspiration from an actual guy. Arkin's performance is one of the oddest I've seen as he hollers at blow-up dolls, claims his name is Bingo Freighthaulers, or tells stories about Jesus. A lot of the fun is this weird rapport that Arkin and Benedict have. Watch Benedict's face as Arkin is talking through a drive-in showing of Samson and Delilah when he says, "Hey, look at Jesus up there!" or claims that "Jesus don't make no deals." Or when Arkin's rambling something like "If I see him again, I'm gonna stick his head with a fork mumble mumble mumble" followed by a pained scream, a moment when Arkin just gives up on using words. That look on Benedict's face is priceless. My favorite moment (possibly ever) is when both characters are screaming. A feeling of euphoria washed over me, dear readers.

OK, I'm going to start reminiscing with myself about this movie that none of you will ever see. My new favorite movie!

Oh, but for all you Richard Kiel completists--you could blink and miss him, but he is in this one. You know, the dude with the 7'2" teeth.

The Tree of Life

2011 piece of abstract art

Rating: 18/20 (Mark: 17/20; Amy: 15/20)

Plot: In the beginning, there was darkness. Yadda yadda yadda. A dinosaur farts. A kid dies. Then, darkness again. The end.

Absolutely staggering, and this despite me not listening to Larstonovich and seeing in a movie theater. I'll go ahead and get my gripe out of the way: I was not a big fan of the whispered multi-character narration in this. I almost would have rather seen the almost completely wordless series of images that this would have been. The structure of Malick's family drama is going to frustrate a lot of people who see this. It's non-linear and episodic, excluding big moments in order to include minutia and memory tidbits, blending dream with the most mundane of human interactions, piling metaphor on metaphor and metaphor. That's what it is really, an orgy of metaphor. Metaphor porn, and if you're into that sort of thing, you'll get off while watching The Tree of Life. There's a story here, but it's a puzzle, like a fragile piece of porcelain that Malick has ballping-hammered into fine pieces and many years later attempted to glue back together again. This is one of those movies that almost speaks its own language. You clutch onto what's familiar--the actors, who I thought were good only because they didn't get in the way; the gorgeous visuals that you'd expect from something Malick took this long to put together; the haunting, largely classical score. And if you're like me, while you're working hard in the beginning to clutch on to something and trying desperately to put the pieces of the puzzle together or wondering why the hell there are dinosaurs, the movies going to clutch back. This one got a grip on me and still hasn't let go. It's poetry on the screen, big and ambitious and more than a little pretentious, a visceral experience that I think I'll carry in my bones for a long, long time. Was this storyboarded?

Malick apparently has four movies in production or filming. That would nearly double his output from the last 28 years!