Kenneth Turan and Marshall Fine‘s dismissal of Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life, despite almost everyone falling for it in Cannes and a very strong 85% Rotten Tomatoes approval rating, tells me it may not figure that strongly in the Best Picture race.

And so what, right? Malick has never made an “Academy film,” and Life is probably, as Turan complains, too “opaque” for mainstreamers. It’ll be their loss at the end of the day. History will not look kindly. “Meh” was the farthest thing from my mind as I watched the first 40 minutes’ worth, and yet I knew, deep down, that the lack of a narrative through-line would be a stopper for more than a few.

“Look, I get it,” Fine says. “Malick makes the movies he wants to make in the way he wants to make them. He communicates visually and through indirection (as opposed to misdirection). In doing so, he summons surprising emotion, given how ephemeral his actual story-telling is. But impatience does accrue – not so much a feeling of ‘what’s the point?’ as ‘get to the point.’ The Tree of Life is a film that’s too precious and wispy, too insubstantial in its artiness, to be satisfying in virtually any way.”

I was more on the fence in my initial Cannes review. Life “does lose itself in its own impressionistic quicksand after the first half-hour,” I wrote. “It begins to drown, sink, swallow itself. The center cannot hold. But it’s entirely worth seeing (and praising) for the portions that clearly and unmistakably deliver. I’m especially referring to what people will soon be calling the 2001/Douglas Trumbull section. Who in the big-budget realm is even trying to make pure art films like this except Malick?”

According to Variety‘s Justin Kroll, Michael Mann will probably/eventually direct Go Like Hell, a period race-car film about Lee Iacocca and Carroll Shelby‘s successful attempt to beat the Ferrari team at Le Mans in 1966. Brad Pitt is reportedly interested in starring but is as yet uncommitted; if he does it I’m presuming he’ll play Shelby.

If it happens Go Like Hell will be the second expensive French race-track movie from a major American director, the first being John Frankenheimer‘s Grand Prix (’66), which I caught for the first time on DVD a couple of years ago. It feels a little bit bloated at 179 minutes but it isn’t half bad. In fact, it would be great to see a Bluray version as it was shot in 70mm.

There was also Lee H. Katzin‘s Le Mans (’71) with Steve McQueen, which bravely went with very little dialogue during the first half-hour or so and (consequently?) under-performed at the box-office. I can’t even remember if I’ve seen it or not…strange.

I suppose if I want to keep abreast I’ve no choice but to catch Very Bad Trip 2 (i.e., The Hangover Part II) at the Pathe Wepler this evening. “Largely mirthless…deeply square…cleaves numbingly to the script of the previous movie,” says N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis. What a thing to do while here.

I flew out of Venice’s Marco Polo airport this morning at 9:45 am. I’m now back in the Paris loft. So there’s this afternoon, tonight, all day tomorrow and Sunday morning until my Roissy bus leaves for Charles De Gaulle airport and the flight to JFK, almost exactly 48 hours hence. The following pics are my last Venice batch.

Friday, 5.27, 6:25 am.

What I’d forgotten is how dead quiet Venice can be. If you stay away from the tourists in the San Marco district, that is, and keep searching your way into the smaller calles and backwater canals. There’s only the sound of the occasional barge or motorboat or taxi, and there’s even something soothing about that.

Through the barred bedroom window in the early morning, looking out at the green, overgrown back yard of my rented Venice pad (2403 Ca Guardiani in the Dorsoduro district), there’s nothing but the sound of softly chirping birds; it’s like being in some remote cottage near a Tuscan vineyard. I haven’t felt such peace and serenity since I last stayed there, in 2007.

Campo Santa Margherita — Thursday, 5.36, 8:35 pm.

On the Aliliguna water bus to Marco Polo airport — Friday, 5.27, 8:40 am.

Thursday, 5.26, 9:55 pm.

This forthcoming German Bluray of Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks might look a little better than the various public-domain DVDs out there, but otherwise it’s a visual sham of a mockery of a mockery of a visual sham.

The basic core elements are in good shape, I’m told, but until complete legal ownership can be re-established by Paramount, this 1961 semi-classic will look mildly shitty. (The Brando family failed to renew the copyright about 10 or 12 years ago, so blame them.) Here’s an appreciation that I wrote in ’08.

“Lou Stroller made some comment about Mrs. Malick, and Terry was not having it, and beat the hell out of him. In true Texas style — he was so Texas. Didn’t even hesitate, just started swinging. They were down like two buffalo — they were big guys — and they were on the ground, rolling around, and Terry just whupped him.

“Oh, I acted outraged — ‘What a breakdown of discipline, this fighting on the set!’ — but I couldn’t have been prouder of him. Can you imagine? If more directors would beat up their producers, we’d have a lot more artistic freedom.” — from a making-of-Badlands piece in GQ.

Trust me, when an outfit like Oscilloscope picks up a film that has shown at the Cannes Film Festival, it means that other players with a lot more money were scared that it might not do too well with U.S. filmgoers. It also means it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to acquire. Such is the situation with Lynn Ramsay‘s We Need To Talk About Kevin, which many of us saw earlier this month.

In Cannes I described Ramsay’s film as “emotionally speaking, rat poison.” I also observed that “as far as Ramsay’s film is concerned Kevin (Ezra Miller) is just a steely-brained, black-eyed Belezebub who’s been brought to life in order to pour acid into people’s lives. His ultimate acts of destruction happen at the very end, but they’re pretty much anti-climactic given the certainty in the audience’s mind that the only humane and compassionate response to this kid early on would have been to put him in a burlap bag, fill it with rocks and toss it off a pier.”

John Carpenter‘s The Ward (fetching blonde confined in asylum in which a ghost is lurking around) showed at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival and nobody said squat. It opened in England last January. It finally preems here in mid-summer, probably on 7.8.11.

Costarring Amber Heard, Danielle Panabaker, Mika Boorem, Jared Harris, etc. Screenplay by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen. Girl Interrupted meets Snake Pit, No Exit, etc.

The Hangover, Part II director Todd Phillips likes, I think, Hollywood Elsewhere (he’s told me this at least) and doesn’t particularly like Movie City News and/or David Poland‘s stuff. I’m sure sooner or later I’ll run into an actor or director or producer who doesn’t care for me or my views so there but for the grace of God, etc. Still, this is funny:

I’ve only been able to listen to 70% of this, but a partial transcript provided by Film Drunk is, to my comprehension, at least partly accurate (and it may be entirely so). All comments are from Phillips.

“Let’s do it. It’s going to be aggressive because I’m not a fan of Poland’s or the site.”

“I will say, having read your site here and there, you might be the worst box-office prognosticator on the planet Earth, let alone that has a website. Literally. You are wrong 99% of the time.”

“You have this bizarre attitude that you know things about the business.”

“And I’m only talking numbers because I know you love to talk numbers on your site, but you are out-of-control wrong all the time.”

“Yes, there is a bit of revenge in making the movie, particularly with people like you.”

“Yes, sure I think this movie is going to do well overseas, but more specifically, I think I remember you telling me before the [Hangover One press tour] interview started, saying, you know, ‘Warner Brothers has this idea that your movie’s going to do $100 million, and no offense, it’s a good movie, but I see it topping out at $60 or $70, but there is a limit on an R-rated comedy with no stars…’

“And, you went on to tell me, ‘and by the way, I saw Land of the Lost, and it’s a pretty good movie…’ and you started telling me how brilliant Land of the Lost was. Which I didn’t like, and I love Will Ferrell and I love Brad Silverman, I’m not being a hater — and you trying to antagonize me saying it was a bad idea to open against Land of the Lost. Cut to, we do $45 million on the weekend. You thought we were going to do $60 total.”

“You told me to my face, and I was okay with it, that Land of the Lost was a superior film. And I defy you to find three people that agree with you on that.”

“I did visit your site the other day, and I don’t know what you did, but it looks horrible. What happened?”

They Live By Night’s Bilge Ebiri got in touch with an owner of an old Barry Lyndon laser disc from the mid ’90s, and “not only is it 1.66 but it specifically says on the disc that it was transferred under Kubrick’s supervision.” He reported this yesterday.