Episode 74: The Tree of Life and ...
Episode 74: The Tree of Life and Bottom Five Creations
Explicit
Filmjitsu! The Podcast that wields films as deadly weapons by Jason Santo and Michael Merrigan
S1 · E74
Jun 21, 2026
01:00:00
Episode notes

Since this episode lands on Father's Day, Jay decides to do something thematic for a change and assigns Mike one of the most acclaimed and divisive films of the 21st century: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. Is the film a profound meditation on fathers and sons, memory, grief, faith, and the very nature of existence? Or is it an overlong exercise in whispered narration, floating cameras, and cosmic self-importance? The guys tackle that question head-on and, perhaps unsurprisingly given the film's subject matter, find themselves wandering into some unexpectedly personal territory along the way. After the review, the guys count down their Bottom Five Creations, a collection of inventions, monsters, products, and catastrophically misguided acts of ingenuity that probably should have remained on the drawi ... 

Keywords
boring movies
bad movies
bad cinema
film reviews
film criticism
experimental films
high concept films
beloved films
pretentious films
Bottom Five Creations