The Future, Miranda July (2011)

Jesus, between this and Beginners, I'm starting to wonder whether I need to personally go out to Los Angeles and slap everybody. I adored You and Me and Everyone We Know, and I think Miranda July's a delight in every way, but here's a deadly example of how quirky can very quickly render out as tedious.

Or maybe -- here's the relentless fear -- I'm just getting too old? Have had my fill of quirky? I can in fact well imagine seeing this in 1988 alongside, say, Betty Blue, and experiencing it as soul-scouring. Was I blind then or am I deaf now?

Ach, that's all nonsense talk. If I'm old, I'm old enough to know that daddy things go in cycles, the way that Kanye West is just ampin' like Michael, and what we have here is Stranger than Paradise for the new ones same as Jarmusch put Godard in Sandusky for us. No harm, no harm! But no joy. I was glad the cat died; it was creeping me out.

Must be said: As ever with July, the details persist: I completely buy the kid digging a foxhole in the backyard, and answering, when queried about where she'll pee, "I'll do it here. Like a soldier." Also a plus is that no one is rich. And also I loved the guy who put the old blowdryer on Craigslist. Actually, I'm realizing now that I enjoyed the first 45 minutes a lot more than the second.