Critics are agonizing

......over the Tree of Life and I love it. Well, not really flipping out, but the reactions are extremely divided (oh, like no one was expecting that….). The movie premiered early Monday morning in Cannes and ended to dramatic boos and scattered applause, and while there’s a general consensus that why yes, this movie is a visual orgasm because did you not realize that this is Terrence Malick and there are dinosaurs and visions of primordial Earth and God knows what else in the movie, everyone seems to either hate it or worship it in equal measure.

Weirdly enough, the initial frenzy of Tweets sent immediately after the screening succinctly summed up the gist of the polarized reactions:

“As beautiful as TREE OF LIFE is, it’s pretentious drivel of the worst Cannes kind.”

“Tree of Life is naive, pretentious, hypnotic, enthralling and absolutely unmissable.”

“Utterly mesmerising first hour, slightly listless second, generally unmissable”

“visually breathtaking and technically masterful, but excruciatingly drawn out and annoyingly pretentious”

“A glorified perfume ad” Ow.

“Tree of Life just ended, and it’s a very sad and beautiful…wank? The ultimate refutation of narrative? An interminable tone poem?”

“Tree of Life is a prayer.”

and my favorite:

“….sad to report that Samuel L. Jackson does not show up after the credits. Unclear as to how Tree of Life fits into The Avengers.”

A month to goooooo.

Most Anticipated Performances of 2011

Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender in a "A Dangerous Method"

Michelle Williams in "My Week With Marilyn"

Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Kirsten Dunst in "Melancholia" (just the thought of Dunst paired with Lars Von Trier is so surreal. I gotta see what happens)

Jessica Chastain in "The Tree of Life"

Marion Cotillard and Rachel McAdams in "Midnight in Paris"

Greta Gerwig in "Arthur"