Of Terrence Malick's films I've only seen Badlands. I've seen clips of all his movies up until The New World, and thought "wow, gotta see that sometime". These were landscape films with classical camera distances and golden light. The Tree of Life didn't look quite the same, there seemed to be more close-ups, but I also filed it away mentally as something to see. Then I saw a small glimpse of To the Wonder and thought, this is just Murnau, but okay. Then... he's made two films that look like they're videos of actors improvising love-play. The shots are all massive wide-angle close-ups of actors not doing much, shot in what look like found locations, all with this pebble-gray light. These bear no resemblance to the aesthetic he'd built up over forty years - they look, just from glimpses, again, I could be wrong - but they look as though he wanted to put things out with "written and directed by Terrence Malick" on them without taking the time to make real Terrence Malick films.
This is the impression I have:
Badlands to The Tree of Life - recognisably one man's aesthetic.
To the Wonder - that aesthetic in decadence.
Knight of Cups/Song to Song - inexplicably bad-looking ass, unrecognisable as the same person's work.
I'm going to watch all these movies anyway, but just tell me, have I got this right, or have I seen the wrong clips?