re: What the hell happened to Terrence Malick?

I drove by his house in Austin once. Pretty creepy of me.

I LOVE Thin Red Line. That movie is poetry. The cinematic elements of Days of Heaven are amazing. Tree of Life was pretty good.

After that, he became a parody of himself and it is sad.

The problem with Terry is that he's not a money-motivated person - he lives a not-that-fancy lifestyle in Texas - which tells you that his ego lies in his perception within his own field, and among a lot of people in film (look at the top-tier actors who keep lining up to be in his films knowing they could end up on the editing room floor) he's worshiped. So he's not striving for anything anymore and won't compromise his own 'vision'. IF he was after money, or still needed approval from his peers, he could be co-opted into an arrangement where he could be made to follow a script from a real screenwriter and wouldn't have final editing authority. The end result would likely be amazing. But that isn't happening because Terry isn't chasing cash, doesn't live in LA, and doesn't want for approval anymore, so he'd never ever, ever agree to that.