me and you and everyone we know

[pete]

I thought this movie was a notch up from your typical summer beautiful weirdo movies in how it depicts children and their sexuality.  I think the depiction is quite fresh and it's really rare to see it not being exploitative or attempting to be provacative.

[Eddo]

Just got back from seeing this, and yes, it is quite terrific. I really enjoyed the characters and the dialogue. That ending was great.

I suppose I could understand this reminding someone of Solondz, but only in the way the children are depicted. Visually and thematically it was quite different.

[w/o horse]

The more I think back on this movie the more I realized how much I enjoyed the movie and its friendliness.

Even if it doesn't end up on my best movies list, it'll probably end up on my best friends list.

[killafilm]

I really liked it. So many wonderful little moments.

I'm about the same, just minus the "really." It's possible the movie was to hyped up for me.  Yes there many wonderful little moments, but not enough to add up to a great experience.  Am I the only one who had a hard time believing in the characters Richard and Christine? Something just felt missing that would either round them out, or at least connect them more to the picture.  I thought just about all of the kids in the flick portrayed people that I very well could have known.  

I think that's the disconnect for me, parts of this seem very human while others, like it's been said in this thread, seem to give into this "Indie" sensibility of the human condition.

So yeah, basically what Losing the Horse and RegularKarate said.

[Gamblour.]

When I saw this, I couldn't help but wonder how in god's name it got so big as to be actually distributed. Is this the indie movie for the year? "This year's Lost in Translation" I think read somewhere taht some critic described it as such. Losing the Horse, you nailed it, it's a gigantic formula of a movie. Indie music? Check. Quiet, odd characters who talk in contrived poetry? Check. Sexual exploitation for the hell of it? Double check. Story? Absent.

[matt35mm]

"This year's Lost in Translation" I think read somewhere taht some critic described it as such.

Advertisements for the movie have Ebert quoted as saying it's this year's Sideways.  I don't know how that applies, really.  I think that's the quotation that you're thinking of.

[Ravi]

The characters didn't come off as precociously quirky.  They do some strange things but it didn't feel like an "indie" collection of weird characters and situations.  It feels totally natural for the characters to do what they do.  The theme of reaching out and human connection doesn't beat the audience into the head, but arises naturally out of the characters and situations.  I wish it was a little longer, but this is a quietly wonderful film.

Miranda July has a face that I swear I've seen in several other films, but I haven't.

[Gold Trumpet]

For as much as I wanted to see this film, the viewing was a dissapointment. I understand LosingTheHorse's worry about the strange loner heroes being reduced to a genre, but I think their is more value in this film than a "Harold and Maude".

First off, the film did tackle ideas and trends that are unique to now. First being the exploration of sex on the net by children. Second, the fact there was a mixed couple who didn't have their relationship explained to the viewers. It was just what it was. These were some moments amongst more that felt like a filmmaker trying to be progressive.

But, the film also felt lazy. I felt like I understood the ideas but was waiting for the story to really keep pace with them. The story would hinder too long on a self identification portrait one could get with Miranda July's character as she meandered on her art projects. I say that because I know someone who is almost exactly like that character and shock, "Harold and Maude" is her favorite film. So where I know many people who are these characters, I found a story that was too mundane too often to really be interesting through out.

Still, I admire the effort.

[Ravi]

I'd say "ordinary" rather than "mundane," but not in a pejorative sense.  The film doesn't have delusions of grandeur about being about the human condition or something grandiose like that.  It simply follows its characters in a low-key manner.

[Pubrick]

there's nothing but love in this movie, i don't know how ppl can even dislike it.  pete said about wong kar-wai that if a film has "good pace/rhythm the audience can forgive a lot of pretentiousness and indulgence and lack of logic". this is a great example of that.

it's the kind of movie that smells like roses. the whole thing was itself complimentary to all the ideas it presented, meaning that everything emanated from a source, the miranda july fountain of incredible beauty. it wasn't pretentious, it didn't pretend to be about anything other than what it was about. for once a movie loved its ideas enuff to illustrate them as ideas, and create a tone conducive to accepting them.

i don't like when ppl say "good tone" or "ideas" without attempting to explain exactly what they were, so here i go. the overriding idea i can think of right now is the immersion of art in everyday world, the tone suited for this, which this revels in, is between romantic and real. almost every scene has this element, none moreso than the final scenes where the painting joins it's organic surroundigs, and the kid with the coin sees an immediate effect on his world through the "idea" he employs.

i've been holding back a review for months, i can't believe so many ppl are not liking this when it's SO easy to love.

[Gamblour.]

P, to me, it's all stabs at being poetic,  they're just HORRIBLE contrived attempts. Lighting the hand on fire, the walk down the street metaphor for life that she OVERexplained, "macaroni"--how cute. man I hated this movie because it tried to be poetry. Poetry comes out of something that's HONEST. this movie was honest maybe about the part where she's a failed modern artist.

[pete]

I don't think metaphor was even contemplated upon in this film.  I mean I guess you can interpret certain imageries as metaphors, but it just seems a like a list of very visceral images that find their ways into the films.  I don't understand how it "tried" to be poetry just because it contained poetic elements that you didn't like.  I mean, you can call it "bad" poetry I guess, but "trying" to be poetry?  Were the dialogues in iambic pentameters?
It was just a utopian kinda film, a film where everyone is really nice, like, how great would it be if things were really this way, and she made a very convincing argument, yes, the world would be a better place if we lived in her world.  But I think you're so conditioned by your own filmviewing habits that you think two characters' attempt to distract themselves from the awkwardness of mutual attraction was somehow an essay of metaphors.

and P: actually Penjak Ratanaruang said that, the guy who directed Last Life in the Universe.  Which was today's IMDB film of the day, incidentally.

[JG]

has anyone seen this yet? i enjoyed it for the most part. i was willing to overlook some weaker elelments due to the fact that it seemed to come from such a sincere place.

i think sincerity is unique these days...

i was about to post a similar post before i saw this.  i couldn't agree more.  there were certainly elements of this that i didn't like, but it just meant so well.  it certainly walks the fine line of pretentiousness, and sometimes crossed it, but sometimes movies need to walk that line.  At least this movie had the balls to do it.   

i liked it.   

[The Red Vine]

i was about to post a similar post before i saw this.  i couldn't agree more.  there were certainly elements of this that i didn't like, but it just meant so well.  it certainly walks the fine line of pretentiousness, and sometimes crossed it.

And that was my main problem with the movie. I enjoyed it's randomness and lack of plot to watch these people's personalities. But it feels so written and I could just imagine July trying so hard to make these people interesting.

SPOILER

Some of the sequences were just horrifically bad and awkwardly handled. Like all the stuff with the "poop" and her meeting up the little boy. I think the movie could've been so much stronger without that stuff.

[JG]

i was about to post a similar post before i saw this.  i couldn't agree more.  there were certainly elements of this that i didn't like, but it just meant so well.  it certainly walks the fine line of pretentiousness, and sometimes crossed it.

And that was my main problem with the movie. I enjoyed it's randomness and lack of plot to watch these people's personalities. But it feels so written and I could just imagine July trying so hard to make these people interesting.

SPOILER

Some of the sequences were just horrifically bad and awkwardly handled. Like all the stuff with the "poop" and her meeting up the little boy. I think the movie could've been so much stronger without that stuff.

i will say that some stuff was very akwardly handled.  i felt a lot of lines early on felt very contrived, like "i was trying to save my life."  there were plenty that i cant think of now.  a lot of the dialogue didn't feel very real, but there was something about the movie's charm that told me to let it slide.

i thought they handled the internet stuff well, though, because that is usually a tough topic to explore on film.

like i said it wasn't great and had it's flaws, but i somehow liked it.