Malick's “Tree of life” Gets a Rating, Release Still in Limbo

Getting a Terrence Malick film to theaters is never easy, but it appears that his next film just took a giant step toward release.

The Motion Picture Association of America, the bizarre, often arbitrary cabal that rates movies, has given Malick's "Tree of Life" a PG-13 rating, noted Rope of Silicon. This of course means that the film must be reasonably close to being a finished project.

The film stars Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain (who is about to be insanely famous if her IMDB page is to be believed) as 1950s parents of a young boy who is played in adulthood by Sean Penn. "Each parent contends for his allegiance, and Jack must reconcile their claims. The picture darkens as he has his first glimpses of sickness, suffering and death. The world, once a thing of glory, becomes a labyrinth," accroding to an old sunopsis dug up by /Film. Oh, and there are dinosaurs involved.

Rope of Silicon also pointed out that Apparition, which has been undergoing massive restructuring (read: layoffs), was no longer listed as the distributor, rather a company called Cottonwood Pictures was.

A call to Apparition offices here in New York confirmed that they are still planning to release the film, but the release date was still up in the air, as was the movie being ready for the Venice Film Festival, which starts Sept. 1.

When we asked why they were no longer listed as the distributor, we were told they "don't have a comment on that right now."

A little googling for "Cottonwood Pictures" revealed a website that looks like it was made in 1998 and several indications that it was involved in making "Tree of Life." We even found a phone number, but when we called it we got the answering machine of a company called space direct. We also sent an email to an address we found and are waiting to hear back.

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