Zooey Deschanel Stars In "Quirk Is Killing Indie Movies"

I was surfing the infernet, watching some movie trailers today, and I discovered these two trailers for almost identical looking "quirky romantic comedies starring Zooey Deschanel as an eccentric and charming neurotic who pulls withdrawn and shy actors from other indie hits out of their shells, all set to an indie rock soundtrack."

The trailer for "Gigantic," featuring a very good cast playing quirk to the hilt:


This one is for "500 Days of Summer," (which I like a little more than the "Gigantic" trailer, mostly because it's probably the first movie to feature music from both The Smiths and Hall and Oates:)


Did you watch the trailers? Good.
So Wes Anderson's quirky, funny, wholly original work, primarily "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" begat Oscar nominated and commercial hits like "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Juno." "LMS" and "Juno" have now begat "Gigantic" and "500 Days of Summer." Just as Quentin Tarantino's lightning strikes in the early nineties, "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" led to nearly a decade of unwatchable crime films about pop culture obsessed hit men, now Anderson's work has led to this new generation of hipster approved, quirky relationship comedies about bored white people falling in love through their love of indie rock, vintage T-shirts, and hoodies.

And it's totally obnoxious.

I'm a massive fan of Wes Anderson's work. "Rushmore" is one of my five "desert island" movies, and I love all five of his movies with a deep and burning passion. The fact that most indie movies that get distribution and any kind of audience are pale imitations of his work (including the Oscar nominated "LMS" and "Juno,") is not his fault, and actually only goes to prove how influential and fresh his body of work really is, thematically, stylistically, visually, and pretty much every other way a film can be influential. I think that's what happens with almost every truly original voice in any artistic medium... but regardless, his work (and the work of similarly original filmmakers, like Alexander Payne, Spike Jonze, and Charlie Kaufman,) have led us to this place in the history of independent film.

These movies seem to have a very similar set of characteristics, which I will list below:

-CONFUSING CHARACTER QUIRKS WITH ACTUAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Michael Cera likes orange tic tacs. Paul Dano takes a vow of silence. Zooey Deschanel falls asleep at a mattress store and only thinks to ask if anybody can see up her skirt. Paul Dano wants to adopt a Chinese baby. John Goodman wears ridiculous scarves and talks about his daughter's sex life, much like nobody ever does. This is not character development that turns fictional beings into recognizable humans... these are just overly cutesy details that tell us nothing other than the fact that the screenwriters think they are more clever than they actually are. These quirks are generally also what passes for "comedy" in these movies...

-WITHDRAWN AND SHY MALES TAUGHT ABOUT LIFE AND LOVE BY "MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRLS:" I must give The Onion credit for coining the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," or the type of girl "who exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." This is certainly the case with both "Gigantic" and "500 Days of Summer," as Dashanel is forced to play double "MPDG" duty.

-AN OBSESSION WITH MUSIC, AS IF THIS IS THE FIRST GENERATION OF HUMANS TO EVER "REALLY GET" MUSIC: This is a problem with the attitude of hipsters in general (our parents had The fuckin' Beatles, hipsters... get over yourselves.) I mean, Natalie Portman playing The Shins for a full 30 seconds while Zach Braff sits and listens should not count as cinema. And talking about bands does nothing to reveal character or advance plot, it just communicates to you that Jason Bateman and Ellen Page like Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenters. Also, why do all these movies represent their lead characters' alienation by having them wear big headphones all the time?

-OUT OF PERIOD, OVER THE TOP COSTUMING THAT IS ALSO SUPPOSED TO CONVEY CHARACTER TRAITS: This is one of the most glaring examples of these filmmakers ripping of Anderson's aesthetic, but his movies kept developing more and more as story book worlds featuring adults who have outgrown them... while these other indie movies just feature people wearing (here's the Q word again,) quirky outfits. Why is John Goodman wearing thick glasses and a white scarf? Why do the characters in these movies look like they are cartoon versions of actors in a 70's Woody Allen movie? Why does the cast of the upcoming (and disappointing sophomore effort from Rian Johnson, who made the wholly original "Brick,") "The Brothers Bloom" look like they raided the wardrobe closet from "The Life Aquatic?"

-LOTS AND LOTS OF WHITE PEOPLE: All of them whining about their relationships (this I can relate to, but still...)

Independent cinema is clearly in trouble right now. It's getting harder and harder for indie movies to get financing, and many of the most prominent independent film companies have shut down in the last two years, including most of the studios' indie shingles. It's not fair to put the responsibility of "saving" indie movies on the shoulders of the filmmakers behind the new crop of Zooey Deschanel starring romcoms with hipster soundtracks, but the only way the whole scene will be saved (or destroyed) is one film at a time. A new Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino needs to step up now with an original voice and vision and lay the groundwork for the next group of directors to steal ideas from, because in this economy, independent film can't afford to coast on derivative copies of copies of copies. Indie movies need a good jolt of boldness, inventiveness, fresh ideas, new blood, and actual originality... and new quirks for Zooey Daschanel* to play do not count as true "originality."

*With apologies to the lovely Ms. Daschanel, who I feel is quite talented even if she's been saddled with weakly written roles in these movies and last years horrendous "The Happening," which was at least so madly terrible that at least it wasn't something I'd seen before. And that's more than I can say for "Gigantic" and "500 Days of Summer."

Let's Get "Lost" Tonight (You Can Be My Black Kate Austen Tonight)

First off I apologize for the awful Kanye reference in the title. Oh wait, I don't. Because it's awesome.

Anyway, "Lost" returns tonight (and along with it, my long and rambling post-episode blog posts,) and I'm fairly excited. As in, "it's all I think about now that the college football season is over" excited.

So here are my totally 100% guaranteed to be accurate predictions for the fourth season.

The Smoke Monster Will Finally Reveal Itself
In a stunning cross promotional move between JJ Abrams franchises, it's gonna be the monster from Cloverfield, hereby referred to as Cloverfield. Which makes him less scary. As in, "look out, it's Cloverfield!" It just doesn't have the same ring to it as Godzilla, King Kong, or even Mothra, who, as his namesake implies, is...a giant moth. Anyway, Cloverfield will turn out to have drinking problems, get arrested with a DUI after shooting one day, not get along with the cast, and go the way of Mr. Ecco and Ana-Lucia. In a spiral of self destruction, Cloverfield will become addicted to pain killers, write a tell all book that reveals Mathew Fox to be a racist, and pose nude in Maxim.

In Another Cross Promotional Coup, The Cast of "Juno" Will Crash Land On the Island.
And about the first time one of them says "honest to blog," sings a Moldy Peaches song, or stops narrative progress to talk about hipster bands and obscure Italian horror movies that a former stripper screenwriter thinks would be cool for a sixteen year old girl to like...Sayid will kill them all.

Hurley Will Still Not Shed Any Weight.
This is a real prediction you can take to the bank. I've always loved how the writers have tried to address it, especially when they revealed that Hurley has a secret stash of Ranch dressing he hid from his fellow survivors. I'd probably do the same thing. Ranch is fucking good.

Despite Predictions Of An Upset Or At Least A Close Game, The Patriots Will Massacre The Giants
As long as I'm doing predictions, why not?

The People Jack Talks To On The Radio Are...
The Harlem Globetrotters! Didn't you ever see that episode of "Gilligan's Island?" They promised them that they'd send help back. They promised them!

In The New Flash Forward Structure, We'll Learn More About The Near Future
Though clearly, in the future, fake beards don't look anymore convincing.

Charlie Is Not Dead
But he will have amnesia.

Locke Will Get Engaged To The Island
But after a stormy six month engagement, Locke will break it off, saying that the two have grown apart.

If the Writer's Strike Doesn't End Soon, All The Lost Fans Out There Are Going To Be Pretty Pissed Off In Eight Weeks
Especially when the eighth and final episode that has been produced before the strike began turns out to be about Nicki and Paulo.

Check out which of my predictions come true tonight on "Lost." I'm pretty sure the "Juno" thing is going to happen. I know I'd love it if that movie and everything about it crash landed on a remote island (except for Michael Cera. He must be protected, as he is a national treasure.)


Jack To The Future

The Ballad Of Johnny Saltlake, Or Sundance In a Day and a Half

I promised that I'd follow up my small post about Salt Lake City with a full report from my Sundance trip almost two weeks ago. Seeing as I am a pretty lazy blogger, any of my (millions of loyal) readers would not be blamed for thinking I was never going to fulfill my promise. But here I am, ready to give you the lowdown on the trip and my experiences at Sundance 08.

I jumped into the loaded car with three friends, one of whom had his film, Freezer Burn (which is a really cool and funny comedy that blends elements of science fiction, romance, and character drama into a very original and impressive first feature,) in the Park City Film Music Festival. We drove into Vegas first, and stayed at the Stratosphere. As a major Vegas fanatic, I can now, with full confidence, recommend that you never stay at the Stratosphere. You might as well be in Primm, Nevada (the gas station/ resort 50 miles away from Vegas for people who can't wait less than an hour to feed the demons of their gambling addiction.) The Stratosphere is a bland and ugly place, and the drinks aren't cheap enough to justify how bland and ugly it is. Give me a scummier cheap casino, one of the few remaining classic casinos, or even one of the ridiculous Disney-fied themed Casinos over the Stratosphere. The Stratosphere fails to be any of those things, while featuring some of the worst aspects of all three. Hell, I'll take Circus Circus over it. Because, even though you feel like you might get stabbed by a meth addict at any given moment in Circus Circus, the place has character.

We mostly were in sin city just to sleep, so we only hit the casino floor for about an hour and a half...which was enough time to get five strong whiskey drinks in me and lose 40 bucks playing roulette. Satisfied and drunk, I retired to my room for a brief night of sleep before we hit the road to Utah.

Utah- gorgeous place that I hope to avoid visiting other than for future Sundance trips. But the state didn't get truly disturbing until we entered the Salt Lake City limits. The billboards were the first things that creeped me out. Weird bible quotes, ads for motels that claimed "Brigham says the La Quinta Inn is the coziest in Utah!." an ad for "the first R-rated Mormon film," one of those "adopt a highway" signs that said the highway was adopted by "mothers against gun control," and weirdest of all, a few giant ads that had pictures of recently departed people with their date of birth and death listed on them. I'm sorry for your loss, but did you need to advertise that your family member died?

Then there were the street names. Turn right from West100North Street onto North100East Street. Are the mormons just too uncreative to think of street names or are they just fucking with us secular sinners?

And of course, there are those pesky alcohol laws. Only one ounce of booze per drink, unless you order a "sidecar," which is a second ounce of alcohol served in a shot glass that the bartender is not allowed to pour into your drink for you. And most of the bars are actually called "social clubs," which means you have to pay to get a "membership" to drink there. Even the beer has lower alcohol content in Utah. I guess the Mormons figured that if they're going to Heaven for their beliefs, they should put themselves through Hell on Earth before they die.

The locals seemed to be borderline openly hostile to the invasion of Hollywood types. I used to read about how agents, actors, and directors would invade the town and drive the locals crazy sipping their lattes and yammering on their cell phones (a 90s version of Hollywood stereotypes, I know since this is what everyone in America is like at this point,) and I sympathized. But after a few encounters with SLC citizens, I lost all sympathy. The girls at the CVS Pharmacy near our hotel were openly making comments about us and said as we walked out "but what do we know, we're just a bunch of hicks." I didn't say it, you did. Listen, not to be a jerk, but you work at a CVS in Salt Lake City. You can't make me feel bad about anything in my life.

So, anyway, Sundance. Park City was a short half hour drive up a mountain from Salt Lake, and once you got into town, it was gorgeous. Snow blanketed the entire charming ski town, and being a California native, snow is something that you generally have to drive into mountains to see. It was a frigid 11 degrees outside when we got into Park City, but we bundled up and braved the crowds. We only ended up seeing one movie for a short, day and a half trip to the festival, but it was a doozy- George Romero's newest zombie pic, "Diary of the Dead." The movie was probably Romero's most bluntly political (in a series of bluntly political horror films) but it also had more gore and action than the previous entry into the series, "Land of the Dead." The whole film was shot handheld, with a digital camera, supposedly by one of the main characters, ala "Cloverfield." The device works about as well as it does in the JJ Abrams monster movie, but the characters address the fact that their friend won't stop filming during a crisis way more than Hud's friends do in the year's first blockbuster. Anyway, there was lots of zombie gore, a crazy sequence with a mute Amish badass, and plenty of left leaning political commentary. My kind of movie.

And the good old hippie/ icon of gory and violent horror cinema, Romero, was there, telling the crowd that "I'm a little drunk," and earnestly explaining that "Diary" is "one from the heart." The guy sat two rows behind my friends and I, which was great.

As for the famous Park City celebrity sightings, we had very few of note other than the awesome Romero Q and A. We saw the guy who plays Lloyd on "Entourage," but I've seen him at almost every single slightly big hollywood event I've ever been to as press, so that's hardly one to get stoked about. Our fellow travelers did go to a big MySpace party that Maroon 5 played at and met USC Great Reggie Bush (who my dog is named after, which would have been a weird thing to tell him if I had been at the party) and Perez Hilton. I wonder if those two had anything to say to eachother. Unfortunately, one of my friends got kicked out of the party because some of the former USC players were trying to get their friends in using his bracelet. Not being an SC alumni, I have a feeling he probably thinks a little less of the Trojans than I do. Just slightly. We met up with him after the movie while he huddled in the mall for warmth as we imagined a zombie apocalypse destroying the agents and assistants working the many parties along the frozen streets of Sundance.

Mostly our festival experience taught us that we should probably plan a little more in advance before we go, get ourselves some real Sundance badges and decide what we want to see ahead of time. And oh yeah, probably spend more than just a day in Sundance and try and be there after the first couple days, when nobody is really there yet and none of the big films are screening. All the reports from Sundance 08 I've read in the media have made me feel like I didn't miss much... there didn't seem to be many gems in the festival this year that critics and audiences are excited about. And if the current version of a Sundance "gem" is something as overrated as the cute but not that cute as last year's big hit (and current best picture nominee, WTF,) "Juno," than I weep for the state of American independent cinema.

Our drive back from Utah turned out to be the best part of the trip. As a creative challenge, we decided to start writing a screenplay with the goal of completing a feature by the time we got home. We only got fifteen pages deep, but we decided to keep going with it and finished the script last night. The script is called Johnny Saltlake, and it's about a badass from the town he's named for who seeks revenge on the bad guy who wronged him, befriends a coyote in the desert, runs for Utah state office in order to change the aforementioned liquor laws, fights a giant, Cloverfield-like monster, kills a group of ninja assassins with a chainsaw, discovers a global Mormon conspiracy, fights a flying Shark, hangs out with Martians, becomes the savior of mankind, and smokes. A lot. And that's only part one.

We finished the script yesterday, and it's a full blown, ninety minute feature. And it's totally, completely insane. So if one great thing came out of Sundance 08, it's "Johnny Saltlake." Maybe there's hope for the American indie film scene after all.