Last night I saw Terence Malick‘s acclaimed film Tree of Life. The beautiful movie amazingly mystified and produced utter boredom at the same time. Magnificent and often emotionally detached, Malick created an intriguing mediation on the cycle of life; one which I’m not sure I ever care to see again but at the same time I think highly of… perhaps. I know, quite the conundrum and somewhat surprising from me since I usually have a definitive opinion on damn near everything.

Despite the film’s long emotionless periods, the acting was exemplary especially from Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt, who also served as one of the producers.

And that is where we come to the unexpected connection.

Deciding I needed a more traditional narrative structure and the fact that X-Men: First Class premieres next week, I watched Kick-Ass this morning. Helmed by Matthew Vaughn (director of the forthcoming X film, natch) and based on the twisted graphic novel by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr, Kick-Ass posits a vision of what if an ordinary geek decided to become a super-hero. While I’d read the book years ago, I had never seen the lauded film version until this morning. (I know… I’ll turn my geek card in later. I swear.) I enjoyed Kick-Ass, though much like the original book, it entertained me but ultimately proved to be yet another nihilistic, Millar vision of super heroes.

So the connection? The opening credits roll on Kick-Ass: Lo and behold there’s Mr. Pitt again listed as one of the producers. (He’s produced 17 movies, several of which he doesn’t appear.) Beyond the fact that both Tree of Life and Kick-Ass might be classified as fantasies they couldn’t be much different. The former, a lyrical, haunting mediation on the nature of life and perhaps reality. The latter a bombastic mediation on the ugly nature of violence.

It all struck me as kind of odd in a cool, cosmic-balancing kind of way.

An Unexpected Brad Pitt Connection was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon