Terrence

Brian De Palma's thriller "Passion" and Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder" are among the 18 movies that will compete for the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion award this year, organizers said Thursday. This year's lineup is slimmed from previous showcases for what creative director Alberto Barbera said should be easier viewer digestion. Sixty films, including 50 world premieres, will be shown at the festival, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 8. Recent festivals have screened upward of 100 films, with as many as 24 in competition.

The Dark Knight might need a little extra time to rise, as Christian Bale had a late one this weekend. It's not the Soho House cavorting or Chateau Marmont bungalow-hopping one might imagine. Bale burned the midnight oil Friday at work on the mystery-shrouded new film from director Terrence Malick. At Hollywood's Supperclub guests were greeted with posted notices from Dogwood Films, Malick's production company, informing them they'd be filmed upon entering the venue.  The Ministry was present and spotted Bale immediately.

The latest edition of the annual Ojai Playwrights Conference, set for  August, will feature a new play by Terrence McNally, as well as return appearances by Stephen Adly Guirgis and Father Gregory Boyle. The conference, one of the country's top centers for new play development, is scheduled to take place Aug. 8 to 12. McNally's play "And Away We Go," which will be the closing workshop production of the conference, travels through time to visit various theatrical rehearsals in ancient Rome, Shakespeare's Globe and other historic venues.

Since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" has sparked all manner of reflection and debate and (even among its admirers) exasperation. The film's abstract, meditative story about a 1950s Texas family and its place in the Scheme of Things invites its audience to form its own impressions. And, as sound designer and frequent Malick collaborator Erik Aadahl puts it, "It's more about the questions than the answers. " Which is good. Because we have questions.

The idea of a "good year" at the movies is perhaps part objective truth, part selective collation, part smart spin. So I will gladly declare this an outstanding year at the art house, where there was consistently more enthusiasm for quality work than there was space in print to discuss the boldly incisive, insightful films parading into theaters. It's a wildly diverse list that includes not just English-language narrative films like "The Tree of Life," "Melancholia," "Beginners," "Meek's Cutoff," "Cold Weather," "The Future," "Martha Marcy May Marlene" and "We Need to Talk About Kevin" but also such documentaries as "The Interrupters," "The Arbor," "Dragonslayer" and "The Black Power Mix Tape 1967-1975" — not to mention such foreign-language films as "City of Life and Death," "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," "Carancho," "Mysteries of Lisbon," "The Yellow Sea" and "A Separation.

Reporting from Las Vegas -- J. Terrence Lanni, a casino executive who helped Las Vegas shed its mob-run image and earn Wall Street's respect, died late Thursday at his home in Pasadena. He was 68 and had cancer. Lanni served as an executive with Caesars World before joining Kirk Kerkorian's MGM Grand Inc. in 1995. Under his stewardship, the one-casino company grew into a 17-resort conglomerate, with a slew of casinos on the Las Vegas Strip and a venture in booming Macao. The company is now named MGM Resorts International.

Gil Pender, the tousle-haired, khaki-clad hero of Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," is a writer struggling to finish a novel about a man who works in a "nostalgia shop. " That's another way of saying that both Pender, played by Owen Wilson, and his protagonist have something in common with Allen, whose antiquarian tastes are well known. And something in common, for that matter, with Terrence Malick, who structured his newest film, the ponderous, gorgeous "The Tree of Life," in large part to test similar ideas about the pull and power of the past.

Fox Searchlight picked the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for Tuesday's local premiere of "The Tree of Life" and the choice couldn't have been more fitting. Just as museum visitors may wrestle to understand an abstract painting, moviegoers are certain to be tested by writer-director Terrence Malick's meditation on the origin of the universe, the mystery of faith and a troubled family's journey from grief to reconciliation. Few prominent releases in recent years present the marketing challenges of "Tree of Life," the enigmatic Malick's first movie since 2005's "The New World.

"The Tree of Life" introduces a character pondering the meaning of existence as he searches for the answers to the universe's most perplexing questions. Undeniably impressive, it's a film that will have viewers posing questions as well, just not the ones its director may have intended. For what Terrence Malick's complex, extraordinarily ambitious and years-in-the-making new feature unintentionally does is makes people ask what they want out of cinema. Are you looking for serious philosophizing, fluid filmmaking and stunning images?

— Writer-director Terrence Malick wasn't there to accept it, but "The Tree of Life," his ambitious and long-anticipated examination of what it all means, won the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or on Sunday night. "He remains infamously and notoriously shy and humble," said producer William Pohlad, who accepted the festival's top award on Malick's behalf with producer Dede Gardner. "But he is very happy to get this. " The film opens in the U.S. on Friday. It was a strong night for Americans and American-influenced films in general.