The New World

I had a rather interesting movie experience last night. I decided to drive over to see the movie at the Sherburn Theater. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Sherburn Theater is an old style theatre experience in the small town where I teach. They show one movie on weekends, with one show each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Admission is $3, a 20-oz. bottle of pop costs $1.25, and a small bag of popcorn (the kind you used to get at high school sporting events) is 50 cents. I wasn't even sure what was playing until I got there (I'd heard one thing, but that was incorrect). The movie for the weekend was The New World, Terrence Malick's version of the Pocohantas story (and that description doesn't do justice to the film). It was a unique experience to walk into the theatre five minutes before showtime, not knowing what was playing. I'm still processing the movie; I can't really say how much I liked it yet. It was quite different. A long movie without many special effects and little dialogue (most dialogue-less movies are filled with car chases and explosions -- none of that here). Q'iriana Kilcher (younger sister of pop singer Jewel, and I'm sure I'm misspelling her name) was entrancing as Pocohantas, and I was quite surprised to see her listed that way in the credits as her name is never spoken in the movie. Actually, I'd say the movie was more formalist than realist (for those of you who've studied film), something that's not seen much nowadays -- at least, by me.