TTRL

I personally do not feel that a movie HAS to have a plot, but it's better if it does. I've seen a lot of movies that drag on forever with seemingly no direction, some of Gus van Sant's films in particular (Elephant, Gerry). Sometimes it can work, and sometimes it just comes of as boring, pretentious, dull.

With van Sant's two films I mentioned, I think he performs at both ends of the spectrum. I think that Elephant is a wonderful film, and its slow pacing, sparse dialogue, and minimal action all blend together to really make you feel like you are just watching a random day at a  high school. When the gunmen finally kill people, it feels extreme, scary, and real.

Gerry, on the other hand, was one of the most meandering and awful films I have ever seen. The entire film consisted of like two hours of Casey Affleck and Matt Damon crawling around in a bunch of sand, crying like bitches because they were lost and it was hot. Oh yeah, and the twist? They are both named Gerry. Then after you watch all that, one of them, I forget which (the one named Gerry, maybe?), kills the other one. Then collapses. Then wakes up from his heat induced sand coma and gets saved. The end. It was really... just not a good movie at all.

I think that what Mallick did with TTRL was pretty good. I enjoyed the film, and felt the style was appropriate. The film certainly struck me as well crafted, and I think that Mallick's vision of war and the lives entangled in it was conveyed perfectly. What I want to know is what's the deal with artsy war movies and production problems? First Apocalypse Now, then this.