Mike, despite your discouraging observation that The Tree of Life will appeal to anyone who likes films that explore “mankind’s fundamental issues of meaning, religion, and spirituality,” I’ll certainly follow your advice and go to see it. While Malick’s more recent films have not lived up to expectations, the opportunity to check out a new movie by the director of Badlands and Days of Heaven is still something (in my view) never to be missed:. There’s always the hope that lightning will strike thrice. FWIW, I wrote about Malick for the New York Sun back in 2006. In the piece, I described Badlands as his masterpiece, and so it is, but having watched Days of Heaven a couple of times again lately, I reckon that it runs Badlands pretty close.