I don’t know how many of you remember movies from the early 1970s, or were even alive in the 1970s, but the period from 1969 to 1975 witnessed a wealth of gritty, nihilistic B-movie dramas.  The protagonists were often shady anti-heroes involved in some violent pursuit either above or below the law.

Easy Rider in 1969 probably spawned the genre (or Bonnie and Clyde in 1967), and was shortly followed by Dirty Harry (1971), Badlands (1973), Death Wish (1974), and my personal favorite, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), among many others.  The genre died out about the time Smokey and the Bandit arrived in 1977, when a smirking Burt Reynolds and an over-the-top Jackie Gleason turned it into a southern-fried mockery.

This type of film was personified by Charles Bronson, the lead in Death Wish, who typified the craggy, mumbling, speak-little-but-carry-a-big-Magnum character that was often at the center of these movies.  Bronson, like Clint Eastwood, was never very likeable in his films, but he had an air of cold-blooded ruthlessness that made you cheer for him anyway, as the baddies he dispatched were always much more sinister (but much less charismatic) than he was.

There has been a lot of talk about Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life film of late, and Fox Searchlight has announced that it has acquired the U.S. rights to the highly anticipated film. Tree of Life is written and directed by Malick, who’s past credits include Badlands with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek back in 1973.

That film went on to become a respected and iconic film about the true life Starkweather-Fugate killing spree in the 1950’s. More recently, Malick directed such films as The Thin Red Line (1998) and The New World (2005.)

Tree of Life stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn and has been finished for a while (it was first announced back in 2005.) It was originally supposed to appear at the Cannes film festival earlier this year, but was not ready.  Some people were hoping it would debut at Telluride last week since Brad Pitt attended the festival, but it did not.

Now there are some hopes/rumors (unsubstantiated) that it could sneak into Fantastic Fest. Guess we’ll find out in a few weeks.