The Future (Miranda July, 2011)

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#26 Post by **swo17** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 12:12 am

knives wrote:The cat is indeed the narrator.

Sounds a lot like this.

Anhedionisiac · #27 Post by **Anhedionisiac** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 4:02 am

Huh. Even now that I know he's the narrator, it's weird how the cat seems downright realistic next to the rest of the footage.

bearcuborg · #28 Post by **bearcuborg** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:02 am

I saw the film last night, with Miranda there for a Q&A in Philly. This film should please those who disliked ME & YOU... and those who loved it - it starts off with her idiosyncratic style - but there's a departure in the middle that showed me another side of her. It's a much stronger film, with greater focus. She had such great control of her characters, of where her story goes - something I didn't feel was there in her earlier film. Highly inventive, and easily headed to many "best of" lists.

Miranda in person is very much like her on screen persona, but she's also incredibly articulate with her audience. Unfortunately most of the questions from the audience were about themselves, and how they related to her work (art school girls/boys) - so she had to work really hard to get back to explaining the film, so I feel like I have some Cliff notes to decipher a lot of the mysteries. What was remarkable to me is that after such a long time in between movies is that she was able make something so fantastic without watering down her creativity.

jbeall · #29 Post by **jbeall** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:14 am

Miranda July is Totally Not Kidding

#30 Post by **zedz** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:43 am

I never saw her first film, mainly because I have a very low tolerance for self-consciously quirky indie fare, but I was very impressed by this.

At first, it pushes the Indie Quirkfest '11 tropes to eleven (cat narration - check; agonizing over which interpretive dance to put up on YouTube - check; exercising pretend super powers - check; expecting everybody else in the universe to be charmed by your zany quirks - check and double check), but then it does a rather smart reversal and skewers the characters on their own self-absorption and exposes all those quirks as the sad and shallow facade they are, and the film ends up way more dark, sour and sober than you would ever suspect. I won't spoil the film by revealing how July does this, but I thought that it was almost suicidally bold in the way it smacks its target audience around.

#31 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:48 am

My wife is totally going to see this.

knives · #32 Post by **knives** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:54 am

Pretending to be a superhero wouldn't bug me too much since I even still do that at family functions. I hear her first film has a case of self immolation so it might be good though I don't want to find out. Her writing is actually pretty good to. I recommend No One Belongs Here More Than You which is just nasty.

Roger Ryan · #33 Post by **Roger Ryan** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:53 am

knives wrote:...I hear her first film has a case of self immolation so it might be good though I don't want to find out...

Well that's over before the opening credits if I remember correctly, so don't let that keep you away...or would you rather see more in the way of self immolation, but don't think you can stomach the film apart from this (I can't quite tell from your post)?
ME & YOU & EVERYONE WE KNOW would seem like it would be intolerable due to the self-conscious quirkiness factor, but the way the children are presented in the film is both touching and hilarious in completely unexpected ways.

I'm looking forward to seeing THE FUTURE and hope that it does indeed show a maturation of style. I'd just like to add here that I found Ms. July's husband's film BEGINNERS to be devastatingly good.

knives · #34 Post by **knives** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:51 am

More self immolation means a better film.

#35 Post by **domino harvey** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 9:35 pm

Deleted scene: A Handy Tip For the Easily Distracted

#36 Post by **domino harvey** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:10 pm

I'd be a little more sympathetic to the trash talk people freely lob at Me and You and Everyone We Know if they'd actually seen it, especially since it is ultimately a more successful film than the Future. July's first film posed an interesting premise: what would a romantic comedy look like if all the principals behaved as though they were performance artists? That many people either objected instantly or became enamored is pretty predictable-- after all, what's more contentious than performance art? It's telling that the best scene in the Future is the one that plays closest to July's strength, as she embraces the yellow shirt which has followed her and finally realizes her dance within its confines as Beach House sets the tone for the nth time.

But while I enjoyed the Future, I feel its conceit is less bold: a hipster couple, incapable of real maturity and on the cusp of actual responsibility, instead descend so far down from maturity that they literally begin to implement a child's concept of magic as a solution to address their underlying issues. It's Blue Valentine with less shouting and the twitch of a witch's nose. And despite all its outward fancies, it ends up playing out exactly as you'd expect. Despite my reservations, it's a hard film to stay too mad at. July is skilled at picking actors attuned to her material, so the performances are strong, and there are a lot of laughs early in the film (my favorite being July's comment on being more attractive).

liam fennell · #37 Post by **liam fennell** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:07 pm

I just viewed Me and You and Everyone We Know and also read the book of short stories on the recommendation of a friend. The way all the characters speak with the same voice in the picture bothered me at first, but on further reflection I think of someone like Sternberg whose characters also always sound the same and I think now I can accept it... maybe the fact that they always say these profound things is a little more problematic for me. The book worked the same way, but because it is short stories I didn't mind it at all and ultimately think it was more successful for me; in that case it was like a bunch of songs in the same key.

I had some problems with the style of the picture, it all looks like an oversaturated TV commercial or something, but at the same time I was grateful that she didn't do the fast cutting thing. But I'm also heavily biased towards older films.

My biggest gripe I think is that I felt overly manipulated, she's constantly pulling the sentiment strings like a puppet master and I sort of resented that by the time it ended. That said, it is really better than I like to admit. I also don't think her stuff is self-conscious at all, I think it's just the author being herself. The book reinforced that feeling greatly.

I'm looking forward to checking out The Future.

knives · #38 Post by **knives** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 11:27 pm

I agree with Dom that The Future is less impressive than Me and You, but I think it's overall smallness might make it a more effective experience. If her previous movie was Solondz this is Antonioni. Her film, at least in it's themes, is more interesting to me as she doesn't just point out disaffected and alienated youth (simplification I know), but tries to see if there is a cure. The adoption of a cat makes a near middle age couple realize that their life has gone no where fast and so on July's insistence they go 30 days without Internet. This results in very different attempts by them to reconnect with the world.

I don't want to spoil things by going into the plot, but July's ultimate answer and how it comes around left me so seething at the characters that I've actually been dreading this write up. It's a fun movie, hell it's a great movie, but in the end I was so angry at the characters, the world, and myself I had to sit back and just breath. This is all in compliment of course since July once again even with her intense stylization proves to be more honest than many of the supposed realists out there. Beneath the oddities (and she re-enacts Gozu with a shirt) lies a story that knows reality perfectly and that's why I'm so emotional about it. I see this stuff all of the time and have in fact been guilty of more than my fair share (the soliciting scenes were especially funny to me as I used to do that sort of work for politicians as it pays really good money by college student standards). So yeah watch this when it comes to your town.

On a side note that Farmiga movie looks really bad. Like christians on a television budget trying to cash in on the Juno craze bad. I feel so sorry for Hawkes as it seems he can't catch a good movie and has to do the heavy lifting. At least I could understand why someone would like Winter's Bone though.

tarpilot · #39 Post by **tarpilot** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 11:54 pm

knives wrote:I feel so sorry for Hawkes as it seems he can't catch a good movie and has to do the heavy lifting.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is gonna be great

knives · #40 Post by **knives** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 12:02 am

He's in it? An other reason to catch that I guess.

#41 Post by **zedz** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 7:38 pm

tarpilot wrote:
knives wrote:I feel so sorry for Hawkes as it seems he can't catch a good movie and has to do the heavy lifting.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is gonna be great

It is great.

#42 Post by **domino harvey** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 6:16 pm

Things I didn't realize: This came out on DVD last Tuesday, and it didn't get a Blu-ray release-- kind of shocking considering how wide a release it got, and how acclaimed it ended up being

James Mills · #43 Post by **James Mills** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 4:43 am

OK, so I thought this film was very bad. I loved her new novel and was alright with her last film, so I was hoping to really like this. Maybe it's just because I too live in Silverlake and am unutterably exhausted with this hip-zany "I'm so accepting and unassuming and fragile and talk in slow motion" bullshit.

I don't always agree with Nothing, but it's kind of scary how perfectly his post nailed what this movie would be before it even went into production.

Alan Smithee · #44 Post by **Alan Smithee** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 5:53 am

I'm utterly exhausted with this sort of critique of July. It doesn't really talk about whats wrong with the film or her filmmaking at all. I also live in a hip capital of the world but don't feel any of this contempt for her. Haven't seen the future yet but if I ever do and I dont like it it won't be because of some vague cultural bias.

James Mills · #45 Post by **James Mills** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 6:17 am

Alan Smithee wrote:I'm utterly exhausted with this sort of critique of July. It doesn't really talk about whats wrong with the film or her filmmaking at all. I also live in a hip capital of the world but don't feel any of this contempt for her. Haven't seen the future yet but if I ever do and I dont like it it won't be because of some vague cultural bias.

I didn't like it because the dialogue and demeanors of the characters were indulgently decadent and aggrandized. People don't act like this. They don't talk like this and they don't think like this. If you can suspend your disbelief and just buy into these rules of dialogue (a la Tarantino), it may work for you. But the fact that the film backdrops these obnoxious characters against other humans who feel like normal people just made it harder for me to ignore the fact that these protagonists are trying so hard to be viewed as (just as the film's own original synopsis stated) "happy, crazy and poetic". It feels incredibly contrived because it is incredibly contrived, not unlike the hipsters amongst you and I.

And as I said, I went into this with a positive bias for July.

tarpilot · #46 Post by **tarpilot** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 6:24 am

James Mills wrote:OK, so I thought this film was very bad. I loved her new novel and was alright with her last film, so I was hoping to really like this. Maybe it's just because I too live in Silverlake and am unutterably exhausted with this hip-zany "I'm so accepting and unassuming and fragile and talk in slow motion" bullshit.

That's really what you took away from it? zedz is spot-on regarding the film's confrontational stance towards these kind of expectations, and it sees July advancing well-beyond a smug autocritique of her own impulses into a jolting riff on life-shifts and complacency that I found a good deal more worth in than Me and You and Everyone We Know (though it's been some 3 or 4 years since I've seen it). The Eraserhead comparisons have already been repeatedly made for me, but I'd add that The Future's best and riskiest moments (one and the same, in this case) take on the form of Henry's baby painfully warbling Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" in your ears until you bleed out your eyesockets. In a good way.

James Mills · #47 Post by **James Mills** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 6:41 am

tarpilot wrote:
James Mills wrote:OK, so I thought this film was very bad. I loved her new novel and was alright with her last film, so I was hoping to really like this. Maybe it's just because I too live in Silverlake and am unutterably exhausted with this hip-zany "I'm so accepting and unassuming and fragile and talk in slow motion" bullshit.
That's really what you took away from it? zedz is spot-on regarding the film's confrontational stance towards these kind of expectations, and it sees July advancing well-beyond a smug autocritique of her own impulses into a jolting riff on life-shifts and complacency that I found a good deal more worth in than Me and You and Everyone We Know (though it's been some 3 or 4 years since I've seen it).

But this is where the dialogue on this matter (beyond this film or July) becomes discursive for me because it's not the smug or ostentatiously artsy personas that I find unbearable (because at least the people who act like this are usually indeed just assholes, no pretense needed). No, like I said earlier, it's the "hip-zany 'I'm so accepting and unassuming and fragile and talk in slow motion' bullshit" that is mostly infuriating because it's so calculatingly fake and pretentious.

knives · #48 Post by **knives** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 6:52 am

tarpilot wrote:
James Mills wrote: take on the form of Henry's baby painfully warbling Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" in your ears until you bleed out your eyesockets. In a good way.

I don't remember that moment.

As to Mills, firstly it's just absurd to even bother mentioning that people don't talk like that. Duh, that's part of her writing style as with every writer on the planet to some extant. If you dropped your hard on for reality you might actually be able to enjoy the movies your watching. Playing with the artifice inherent in a work is just as valid as ignoring it. Also your more general critique seems to ignore that the majority of the film is accusing the lead characters as villains to themselves. All of their problems real or imagined come from them and the film eventually causes their self-centeredness to pay a price. It's like Andre Gregory in My Dinner With Andre.

As to your most recent post, how is it pretentious and how are these pretensions a bad thing? Everybody throws that term around but is that actually what you mean? Also like I said the characters may be that horrible self-absorbed thing you are identifying, but the film is clearly not in favour of that behavior which again is the source of all of their problems. These are stupid adults pretending to be smart kids and they need to give up that want. Additionally how is the film fake? Because it plays up certain aspects of artifice? So what on that there's nothing inherently bad there. Is it because as you've implied already that you find the characters unrealistic in some fashion (in which case don't read Dostoevsky)? well I hate to tell you there are some people out there as bad as these characters. Certainly they come from a very real place even if these universal concerns of purpose, arrogance, and isolation are exaggerated a bit from the norm (though not going into the fantastic as far as personalities are concerned) to allow for a more full exploration of the themes.

colinr0380 · #49 Post by **colinr0380** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 2:08 pm

I still think that Spike Jonze provided the greatest critique of a Miranda July film avant la lettre (though I really like her films!)

James Mills · #50 Post by **James Mills** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 2:11 pm

knives wrote: well I hate to tell you there are some people out there as bad as these characters.

Oh I know, that is my point. When I said "people don't act like this," I was referring to the average persons who aren't living their lives in the garish pretense of this kind of hip culture (which answers your other question: I used the word "pretentious" because frankly these kinds of people are constantly and ostentatiously pretending). That's what annoyed me incredibly, the fact that these characters are embracing this incredibly fake subculture that is so decadent and and obnoxiously prevalent in areas like the film's locale, Silverlake.

And their problems stem from their own tragic flaws and assumptions, not from their "hip-zany 'I'm so accepting and unassuming and fragile and talk in slow motion' bullshit". They don't grow out of this, their contrived vernacular is the same as it ever was throughout the entire film; this is NOT some sort of commentary on these people, if that's what you were implying. On the contrary, it embraces this petty idea of "being unique!" when they're not unique at all; that's the irony behind hipsters.

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