Today’s Observer has a feature about the current debate re ‘slow cinema’ – sparked partly by the new Terrence Malick film Tree of Life (which has now got a July 8 release date from Fox). American critics seem to have got into a tizz about it. Some of the best current films are ‘slow’ – e.g. Le quattro volte – but no more so than before I think. In the same paper Robert McCrum argues that whereas cultural choices for the middle class were traditionally governed by canons laid down by elites, everything is much more open now. He characterises this by suggesting that we used to be like koalas (eating only tasty eucalyptus) but now we are more like goats (i.e. omnivorous). The more goatlike we get presumably, the more we are swayed by what is easily available – and easy to eat. So really the problem is boring action movies not ‘slow cinema’.