Italian theater accidentally improves "Tree of Life"
06/18/2011
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Terrence Malick's movie The Tree of Life begins and ends boringly, but is pretty good (if plotless) in the middle. A movie theatre in Bologna, Italy managed to get the reels of film in the wrong order and showed a jumbled up version for nine nights in a row, to no complaints and, indeed, to applause from ticket-buyers (which it didn't get from the audience at the correctly ordered version I saw). I can well imagine that this version was a more enjoyable viewing experience than the one Malick picked.

It's not like the notorious critic's screening of Death Wish IV where the reels were shown out of order, so a character decapitated in one reel was looking hale and hearty in a later one. Much the same thing happens in Pulp Fiction, of course, but Tarantino has enough panache to make you wonder what transcendent reason there is for John Travolta to resurrect, other than that the film was pretty dull when Travolta wasn't on screen

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