Self Conscious 'quirkiness'

[Awesome Welles]

but I'm not going to go out of my way to see them. As I said before, there's just too much else out there. That may make me a fool, but so be it.

That doesn't make you a fool at all, your choosing not to watch them - not judging them, or not watching them because you consider them bad without having seen them. It makes perfect sense I am in the same boat as you, I see a lot of these films released and just don't make them my first priority I intend on getting round to some of them at some point but just because I, or you, don't watch them it doesn't make the choice any sort of critical judgment of the film itself. More probably a criticism of the marketing.

[Cronenfly]

but I'm not going to go out of my way to see them. As I said before, there's just too much else out there. That may make me a fool, but so be it.

That doesn't make you a fool at all, your choosing not to watch them - not judging them, or not watching them because you consider them bad without having seen them. It makes perfect sense I am in the same boat as you, I see a lot of these films released and just don't make them my first priority I intend on getting round to some of them at some point but just because I, or you, don't watch them it doesn't make the choice any sort of critical judgment of the film itself. More probably a criticism of the marketing.

I concur with what you're saying, and I must admit to all too frequently making the mistake of judging a film by its promotional material, especially with regards to a genre I often am not generally fond of like this one. In a perfect world, a film's marketing would pitch it to whatever its ideal audience may be (no matter the genre/type of film), but I know that isn't often the case with marketing parameters being as narrow as they are today, and I'm sure I've missed out on some films I would've liked accordingly. In fact, a number of my favorite modern films have suffered just such a fate (my mistrusting the trailer et al, or my listening to reviews that unfairly malign a worthy film). Thus, I've learned to try to keep an open mind, but I'm the first to admit that I still fall prey to snap judgements all too easily, whether they're conscious or not. In that way I'm always fighting my own assumptions in the kinds of movies I see, but I suppose that's unavoidable for the most part, given how hard it is not to pre-judge a new movie these days (with all the hype, promotion, etc).

[sidehacker]

The whole "quirky" thing is really just a marketing strategy. The Squid and the Whale is actually quite stripped down, stylistically speaking but it just has a lot of Wes Anderson humor. Most of the type it's just an opportunity to gain a larger audience. Little Miss Sunshine is really just a Disney movie with a "hip" stamp attached well. Garden State is a fantasy movie with a similar fakeness. There's also examples of the quirky marketing route misrepresenting an actually good movie, which is what I'd say for Thumbsucker and The Squid and the Whale.

[bunuelian]

Of the films I've seen in this ... genre? ... I've often come away feeling that they consistently lack depth and are little more than exercises in style. Anderson had a good run at first, achieving a lasting depth of feeling and meaning that makes Rushmore and, to some extent, Tenenbaums rewatchable. But "Me and You" and others just struck me as the work of people with no real ideas about anything, who had the good fortune to accumulate technical savvy but none of whaver it is that makes great art great (intellect? philosophy? a source in some painful place that isn't just born of suburban boredom?).

Do you think Jenuet's work would fit within this category of films? Amelie is the ultimate quirkfest.

[Polybius]

Of the films I've seen in this ... genre? ... I've often come away feeling that they consistently lack depth and are little more than exercises in style. Anderson had a good run at first, achieving a lasting depth of feeling and meaning that makes Rushmore and, to some extent, Tenenbaums rewatchable. But "Me and You" and others just struck me as the work of people with no real ideas about anything, who had the good fortune to accumulate technical savvy but none of whaver it is that makes great art great (intellect? philosophy? a source in some painful place that isn't just born of suburban boredom?).

That sums it up quite nicely, for me.

[malcolm1980]

The Squid and the Whale does not belong in that list. The two films I know who commit the biggest sin of fake, self-conscious quirkiness are Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite.

[Cronenfly]

The Squid and the Whale does not belong in that list. The two films I know who commit the biggest sin of fake, self-conscious quirkiness are Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite.

With you on Squid; don't get how it got lumped into all this in the first place.

[jbeall]

Of the films I've seen in this ... genre? ... I've often come away feeling that they consistently lack depth and are little more than exercises in style. Anderson had a good run at first, achieving a lasting depth of feeling and meaning that makes Rushmore and, to some extent, Tenenbaums rewatchable. But "Me and You" and others just struck me as the work of people with no real ideas about anything, who had the good fortune to accumulate technical savvy but none of whaver it is that makes great art great (intellect? philosophy? a source in some painful place that isn't just born of suburban boredom?).

Do you think Jenuet's work would fit within this category of films? Amelie is the ultimate quirkfest.

I'd absolutely agree, and I think it's telling that you asked about Amelie. Some of the 'quirky' figures we're thinking of aren't characters so much as caricatures, and I think Amelie is a case in point. The people around her are completely neurotic, and although Amelie's seems pretty emotionally constipated, she's the lovable imp who solves everybody else's problems and has no real character flaws herself.

It's as if "quirky" as a character description is shorthand for "one-dimensional," the quirkiness of the character absolving the director from the obligation to portray them as a real person with real flaws.

I actually enjoyed Amelie (although I don't need to see it again), but her characterization in that film comes across as really one-sided, whereas the characters in The Royal Tenenbaums are, for all their quirkiness, a helluva lot more flawed and believable.

[Poncho Punch]

I'm guessing none of you like "Pushing Daisies", then. Curmudgeons.

[Noir of the Night]

I actually do kind of like that show. It has this innocence at its heart that is so pure that it's hard for me to be cynical about it. Of course, maybe they're just faking really well, but if so, bravo.

whereas the characters in The Royal Tenenbaums are, for all their quirkiness, a helluva lot more flawed and believable.

Yes, exactly. I discussed this in more detail in the Juno thread, but this is why Wes Anderson is a success and some of his imitators aren't, I think. He sets the movies in this twee fantasy universe, but the emotional baggage the characters have is usually pretty heavy and gets as much attention as the soundtrack or the production design. Actually, I would say that about all of his films except The Life Aquatic, where the attempts at emotional authenticity were hit-and-miss.

[Musashi219]

As one of the Juno snap-judgement bunch, I admit that it's unfair and lazy to judge without having seen a given movie. However, is everyone not guilty of judging/avoiding certain movies based on their (supposed) similarities to other films? I'm not saying it's right, but when you've been burned on multiple occassions, then it's hard to get up the same enthusiasm. As Lee B. Sims noted in the Juno thread, this may lean dangerously close to prejudice, but when there are so many other sorts of movies out there, why keep going back to a genre you know you don't like?

Sure everyone is guilty of avoiding a film whether it be based on pre-existing similiarities or, in plain terms, a trailer that looks terrible. I mentioned stuff like Norbit and Wild Hogs in my previous post, which are obviously the kinds of films that I see a trailer for and automatically make a snap judgment of, "Well I won't be seeing THAT!" Then again, films like that are more of a not my sort of thing instead of being burned previously.

Regarding the "why keep going back to a genre" question you raised, I look at it the same way as why keep going back to a director whose work you didn't care for? Years ago I can remember greatly disliking, to name a few, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, and Oliver Stone based off the handful of movies I had seen from each. And yet I still kept seeing more of their films because there had to be something in their filmographies I could appreciate. In time that did happen and I was incredibly pleased with some of the films I came across from those three filmmakers. There are still filmmakers I cannot stand today, Takashi Miike being a great example, but I liked Audition and The Happiness of the Katakuris, so I know that I'll keep watching his films in hopes of finding other worthwhile ones. That may have sounded long-winded, but I think it's a valid point. You get this flow of "quirky" trailers popping up and one says to themself, "Oh well that looks like X, Y, and Z which I've seen before so I'm passing on it." And then quite possibly something great comes along and it gets passed on. Maybe not a complete pass, maybe you don't bother seeing it in the cinema and rent it or Netflix or whatever, but plenty of people do it all the time and I'm just making an observation on it.

And as a side-note, I, too, agree that The Squid and the Whale has no place on that list.

[Awesome Welles]

It's as if "quirky" as a character description is shorthand for "one-dimensional," the quirkiness of the character absolving the director from the obligation to portray them as a real person with real flaws.

I actually enjoyed Amelie (although I don't need to see it again), but her characterization in that film comes across as really one-sided, whereas the characters in The Royal Tenenbaums are, for all their quirkiness, a helluva lot more flawed and believable.

I think quirky as a shorthand for one dimensional is certainly the case for the bad films discussed here, but as I mentioned earlier when quirk is done properly, as you mention with Tenenbaums it isn't really quirk at all but, in my opinion, just a stylised character idiosyncrasy.

I think the whole point, certainly in Anderson's films, of quirk is merely to present a dramatic story with an edge of wry humour, lifting what might be a rather depressing or stilted story into something much more narratively satisfying. The problem is that this 'quirk' was embraced so much by audiences that becoming the zeitgesit it has, unfortunately, been [badly] replicated to death, though there are a few films which have been pleasing.

[Keith Kawaii]

The Squid and the Whale does not belong in that list. The two films I know who commit the biggest sin of fake, self-conscious quirkiness are Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite.

With you on Squid; don't get how it got lumped into all this in the first place.

I was just browsing movies I owned that I thought could fit in the category. I'll have to rewatch it though, the only scene that sprang to mind I guess was the kid jerking off and wiping his cum on all the books.... hah

I forgot about Napolean Dynamite, but particularly Garden State, which to me is a good representation of the problems with this 'trend'

[Cronenfly]

As one of the Juno snap-judgement bunch, I admit that it's unfair and lazy to judge without having seen a given movie. However, is everyone not guilty of judging/avoiding certain movies based on their (supposed) similarities to other films? I'm not saying it's right, but when you've been burned on multiple occassions, then it's hard to get up the same enthusiasm. As Lee B. Sims noted in the Juno thread, this may lean dangerously close to prejudice, but when there are so many other sorts of movies out there, why keep going back to a genre you know you don't like?

Regarding the "why keep going back to a genre" question you raised, I look at it the same way as why keep going back to a director whose work you didn't care for? Years ago I can remember greatly disliking, to name a few, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, and Oliver Stone based off the handful of movies I had seen from each. And yet I still kept seeing more of their films because there had to be something in their filmographies I could appreciate. In time that did happen and I was incredibly pleased with some of the films I came across from those three filmmakers. There are still filmmakers I cannot stand today, Takashi Miike being a great example, but I liked Audition and The Happiness of the Katakuris, so I know that I'll keep watching his films in hopes of finding other worthwhile ones. That may have sounded long-winded, but I think it's a valid point. You get this flow of "quirky" trailers popping up and one says to themself, "Oh well that looks like X, Y, and Z which I've seen before so I'm passing on it." And then quite possibly something great comes along and it gets passed on. Maybe not a complete pass, maybe you don't bother seeing it in the cinema and rent it or Netflix or whatever, but plenty of people do it all the time and I'm just making an observation on it.

I definitely agree with going back to certain types of movies over time, and in the case of this particular genre I have for the past 7+ years, and I've more often than not disliked what I've seen. Often not violently, but enough so to make me think twice about seeing any more quirky indie movies.

However, there are almost always diamonds in the rough (as you exemplified with the Miike, et al.), and it is important to try and see past the press/hype/etc, because you can certainly miss things you might like for foolish reasons (e.g. not liking a trailer, thinking you "know" a movie because it's of a certain genre). This has happened to me in the past, and I try to keep an open mind, but I'm always bound to overlook some movies I shouldn't. It's a constant battle against yourself, the press, etc, but it's one well worth fighting.

[Polybius]

I think the whole point, certainly in Anderson's films, of quirk is merely to present a dramatic story with an edge of wry humour, lifting what might be a rather depressing or stilted story into something much more narratively satisfying. The problem is that this 'quirk' was embraced so much by audiences that becoming the zeitgesit it has, unfortunately, been [badly] replicated to death, though there are a few films which have been pleasing.

I think Anderson himself has also let it get out of control and become too much a focus of his films, rather than an angle of approach.

Having not seen it, I can't really offer a detailed opinion on The Squid and the Whale or about it's place in this discussion. I think it gets included largely because of Baumbach's central role in it and Life Aquatic, both

Which reminds me...since some of you agree, at least on a qualified or partial basis, that Anderson had drifted off mission by the time of Life Aquatic, do you think Wilson's absence, and Baumbach's presence, as Anderson's collaborator is part of that? If so, to what degree?

[Lemmy Caution]

I thought Rushmore was fairly mediocre. Even went back and re-watched it recently after I heard a lot of praise, and it still didn't get me much interested. I think Anderson is very much hit and miss. Life Aquatic was horrible (except for the Bowie songs in Portuguese). Tanenbaums I thought was very good, but seemed frequently in danger of slipping off the rails.

[domino harvey]

Baumbach has zero presence on the Life Aquatic, there is nothing of him or his other films in the movie other than his name being up there on the screen. It's still pretty baffling, half of me thinks Anderson just feels the need to have someone else credited beside him for his screenplays.

[Person]

I don't think that it could be possible to unconsciously end up creating a film that was quirky. Maybe what the case with modern quirky films is, perhaps, that the filmmakers are, in actuality, boring, subtly self-aggrandizing masturbationists, albeit creative and talented ones.

You read and vaguely overhear the term, "magical realism", which used to intrigue me, but now sets off an alarm bell in my gulliver and I will defer to more pressing concerns. I am vigorously anti-Realism - harsh, mundane, day-to-day, grubby reality has no place in aesthetics in my philosophy, I am sorry to report, Hollywood. I think that this view is shared by other griping gimps. So what we have with magical realism is an attempt to find a middle ground between romanticism and realism to appease a supposed duality of audience.

I am as wary of "quirky" films, as I am of people who use that dubious adjective to describe their character. It usually turns out that such people are what I would call, "flakey, idle, trivialites". I was amazed to discover that I coined the term, "TRIVIAL-ITE" (one whose intellect is consumed by trivial events and issues in the face of vastly greater problems) - I was sure it was or had been in use. Bully for me.

[King of Kong]

Nothing pisses me off more than faux-quirkiness.

There are quite a few film-makers who attemp to reproduce the kind of odd-ball, eccentric character-oriented comedy-dramas that directors such as Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch have excelled in, but lacking the vision of these two directors, the end product comes across as hopelessly contrived. In Anderson's and Jarmusch's films, the quirkiness is usually just a thread in the tapestry, rather than the be-all and end-all itself.

Little Miss Sunshine is a case in point: it is nothing more than an elongated sitcom episode with characters that are nothing but 2-dimensional quirkiness - at least in Anderson's films quirk does not supersede essential character. And don't even get me started on Garden State: despite a great soundtrack, the "eccentric" jokes: Aunt with bad voice singing at funeral, dog humping leg, silly dancing, dusting a gamecube to discover who peed on it - come thick and fast with the grace of a machine tool - in fact, GS is nothing more than a litany of such gags. Napoleon Dynamite at least has a certain flair about it, but again, it's far from an original piece of work.

As for Jeunet - Amelie is more twee than quirky - it's basically a retread of Kieslowski's Red with sugar coating. It's watchable, but too, too... happy for my tastes.

[toiletduck!]

Not that I necessarily agree with the lumping, but since it's happening anyway, the Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman/Michel Gondry revolving trio seems to be begging for a mention as well.

-Toilet Dcuk

[Noir of the Night]

Maybe Gondry, but Kaufman's style is too brooding to really fit in with some of these other films I think. And the two Kaufman films Jonze directed were surreal and dark, so I don't know that he fits. I wouldn't call his music videos twee or whatever word we're using either, although I can see it for Gondry.

[John Bored]

Interestingly enough I see this as one of the great sources of pollution in cinema today, and even outside of it-- not the quirky manner, though after reading these posts I can see that as a sequitur.

Does anybody else see this as a sociological problem rather than a cinematic trend, however interchangeable? There are more than a few commercials these days with people espousing their positions as completely base, albeit fashionably, with only the most complacent, capitalistic interests, living in a bubble of 'individualism' that could be changed out with the laundry. The sort of walking Apple ads you see at college campuses. But beyond over-generalizing, this is truly an absurd age we're living in, however continuous that observation may be.

People have not have not had time to reflect on the shock the internet has brought due to the 'digital revolution'. Most plainly, and this is no discovery by any means but worth mentioning, is the sense of apathy arisen out of the monument of sensory/intellectual information; with servants coming to the door in the form of amazon.com and the whoever else. Most prominently though, or more succinctly seen as both result and beginning of this unnameable problem, is that the internet is too entirely pellucid of people; it shows a vulgar bias. Almost any message board you go to does not represent how people normally communicate; you see the worst, most feeble and facile expressions-- the trading of expressions not fit for expression, nor in many cases intended otherwise. People are seeing the half-language of the mind, intimations that we all recognize, printed out on the screen. The result is that we're increasingly seeing others as embodiments of the same feeble and facile motivations. Believing in yourself is becoming a fanciful romantic notion next to believing in the opportunities of the next paycheck, or worse the former and latter are unrecognizably intertwined. It's no wonder that popular forms of entertainment, communication and advertising play off this in the worst way; carrying a sense of constant unabashed self-pity; feed your desires, do your best, what else is there? The ubiquitous 'Knocked Up' poster could be representative of this. It's a malaise that will continue to plague us until people realize that the internet is a facade; though more generally and accurately it is the everlasting problem of people not being aware of how the times are shaping them.

I see much of today's increasingly self-conscious, 'look at me, I'm trying' cinema as an extension of this phenomena. Not to say that it's all flat-out bad, but to judge its quality would seem irrelevant to me.

This is just an observation written off-hand that I think is appropriate in expanding the discussion; surely cinema almost never arises out of itself only.

[Antoine Doinel]

There are more than a few commercials these days with people espousing their positions as completely base, albeit fashionably, with only the most complacent, capitalistic interests, living in a bubble of 'individualism' that could be changed out with the laundry.

Gee, advertisers are disingenuous? You don't say.

People have not have not had time to reflect on the shock the internet has brought due to the 'digital revolution'. Most plainly, and this is no discovery by any means but worth mentioning, is the sense of apathy arisen out of the monument of sensory/intellectual information; with servants coming to the door in the form of amazon.com and the whoever else. Most prominently though, or more succinctly seen as both result and beginning of this unnameable problem, is that the internet is too entirely pellucid of people; it shows a vulgar bias. Almost any message board you go to does not represent how people normally communicate; you see the worst, most feeble and facile expressions-- the trading of expressions not fit for expression, nor in many cases intended otherwise. People are seeing the half-language of the mind, intimations that we all recognize, printed out on the screen. The result is that we're increasingly seeing others as embodiments of the same feeble and facile motivations. Believing in yourself is becoming a fanciful romantic notion next to believing in the opportunities of the next paycheck, or worse the former and latter are unrecognizably intertwined. It's no wonder that popular forms of entertainment, communication and advertising play off this in the worst way; carrying a sense of constant unabashed self-pity; feed your desires, do your best, what else is there? The ubiquitous 'Knocked Up' poster could be representative of this. It's a malaise that will continue to plague us until people realize that the internet is a facade; though more generally and accurately it is the everlasting problem of people not being aware of how the times are shaping them.

The same argument was made more or less when cinema and television became popular. It's an old, naive argument that would only be worth mentioning if people actually stopped going to live concerts, museums or to the theater at all. The fact that people *gasp* actually still do go out and interact with culture (and still at record breaking levels) pretty much voids that argument completely. Language and culture and living elements that are completely malleable. Just because we're not speaking like people about out of a highly mannered, 18th century novel doesn't mind that intellectually we've become bankrupt. Communication has evolved and so with it our capacity to digest larger amounts of information at twice the speed. We are still in the middle of the technological "revolution" and there is still a long way to go.

I see much of today's increasingly self-conscious, 'look at me, I'm trying' cinema as an extension of this phenomena. Not to say that it's all flat-out bad, but to judge its quality would seem irrelevant to me.

But couldn't the whole "look at me, I'm trying", uh, "criticism" be said of vaudeville, Chaplin or the Marx Brothers? I love them, but let's not kid ourselves that they too are not based in reality (which is another poor argument for assessing the value of a film) and they are hyperstylized and self aware for their time.

It's watchable, but too, too... happy for my tastes.

I have a feeling this is a problem for many fo the people furrowing their brows in this thread.

[toiletduck!]

Maybe Gondry, but Kaufman's style is too brooding to really fit in with some of these other films I think. And the two Kaufman films Jonze directed were surreal and dark, so I don't know that he fits. I wouldn't call his music videos twee or whatever word we're using either, although I can see it for Gondry.

Does quirky also equate with happy? I'm honestly asking, because that could be part of the reason I'm having some trouble with this thread. I hadn't been working under that assumption, and to me, very little mentioned in this thread has more 'quirk' than Kaufman's meta-play in Adaptation. And nothing is more self-conscious.

-Toilet Dcuk

[Mr Sausage]

People have not have not had time to reflect on the shock the internet has brought due to the 'digital revolution'. Most plainly, and this is no discovery by any means but worth mentioning, is the sense of apathy arisen out of the monument of sensory/intellectual information; with servants coming to the door in the form of amazon.com and the whoever else. Most prominently though, or more succinctly seen as both result and beginning of this unnameable problem, is that the internet is too entirely pellucid of people; it shows a vulgar bias. Almost any message board you go to does not represent how people normally communicate; you see the worst, most feeble and facile expressions-- the trading of expressions not fit for expression, nor in many cases intended otherwise. People are seeing the half-language of the mind, intimations that we all recognize, printed out on the screen. The result is that we're increasingly seeing others as embodiments of the same feeble and facile motivations. Believing in yourself is becoming a fanciful romantic notion next to believing in the opportunities of the next paycheck, or worse the former and latter are unrecognizably intertwined. It's no wonder that popular forms of entertainment, communication and advertising play off this in the worst way; carrying a sense of constant unabashed self-pity; feed your desires, do your best, what else is there? The ubiquitous 'Knocked Up' poster could be representative of this. It's a malaise that will continue to plague us until people realize that the internet is a facade; though more generally and accurately it is the everlasting problem of people not being aware of how the times are shaping them.

The same argument was made more or less when cinema and television became popular. It's an old, naive argument that would only be worth mentioning if people actually stopped going to live concerts, museums or to the theater at all. The fact that people *gasp* actually still do go out and interact with culture (and still at record breaking levels) pretty much voids that argument completely. Language and culture and living elements that are completely malleable. Just because we're not speaking like people about out of a highly mannered, 18th century novel doesn't mind that intellectually we've become bankrupt. Communication has evolved and so with it our capacity to digest larger amounts of information at twice the speed. We are still in the middle of the technological "revolution" and there is still a long way to go.

Even further, they were saying the same things about language back in the eighteenth century. To men like Defoe and Swift and, to a lesser extent, Johnson, language too was being debased into vulgarity through common use by common people. Funnily enough, John Bored, the language that you probably consider "fit for expression" would be an abomination, a vulgar and rebarbative debasement, to most men of letters in the eighteenth century. Mine too. This is something to keep perpetually in mind whenever the desire arises to lament current language practises and wish for a return to some linguistic 'good old day.'