The Five Best Whimsiquirkilicious Movies of the Decade
A Seriously Random List /
Dustin Rowles
Seriously Random Lists | July 17, 2009 | Comments (139)
You like quirk and whimsy? Yeah. Me too. Screw the haters. Give me quirk over superhero any day (give me quirk and a superhero, and I’ll lick your eyeballs), and always give me whimsy over action sequences. But quirky characters are a dime a dozen, and whimsical movies aren’t exactly rare. But, when done right, the confluence of the two is a magical thing, indeed. Quirk and whimsy done right is like falling in love, being in love, or getting your heart smashed. I like a solid action film that makes your junk hard as much as the next guy, but whimsiquirkilicous movies make your heart flip, melt, or break. And those are the movies for which I truly live.
And if this list makes me some sort of hipster douchebag, then bring on the tight pants, PBRs, and vinegar.
5. Juno: I’m almost at a loss for words to describe just how good — how deeply and honestly good — Juno made me feel, and how its big bright beating heart is capable of delivering moments of genuine love and heartache and confusion and the general feeling of being left to the cold mercy of the universe in the hell that is growing up. Best of all, it’s great in the way the story plays out differently than you think it would. The screenplay from author and former stripper (yep) Diablo Cody is one of the greatest comedy scripts in years; there hasn’t been a writer this in love with the joy of putting words in characters’ mouths since Quentin Tarantino, and no one else has done believable low-level quirk since old-school Wes Anderson. There’s a moment in Juno when it becomes clear that the film will not walk the well-trodden ground of easy comedies that have come before it but instead aim for — and grandly achieve — something greater, and truer, and full of the shivering joy of life itself. And it’s a small moment, too. Juno (Ellen Page), a 16-year-old high school student who’s carved out a fiercely independent existence for herself, gets pregnant after sleeping with her best friend, the aptly named Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), a meek, softspoken outcast like Juno. Juno shows up on Paulie’s lawn one morning and tells him she’s pregnant, deadpanning that her situation typically leads to “you know … an infant.” and Paulie pauses for a few moments before asking, “What should we do?” His eyes show just the barest glint of tears for the rest of the conversation, and you can tell he’s working through too many emotions to count. He doesn’t freak out at her, and he doesn’t swear at her; he doesn’t even ask if it’s his. He just knows, and acknowledges it, and in that moment he cements everything he feels about Juno and everything the film itself will be: blunt, funny, and warmly accepting. — Daniel Carlson
4. 500 Days of Summer: 500 Days of Summerisn’t an easy movie to describe. Try explaining to a friend why you’re in love with your significant other. You might say, “She’s beautiful; she’s got a great sense of humor; she’s wicked intelligent; and she has a great rack,” but this won’t do your significant other justice. They’re just words, and words rarely stack up to the effervescent giddiness you feel when you’re falling in love, or the crushing heartache an unexpected end to relationship can often leave. 500 Days of Summer, like few movies I’ve ever seen, accurately captures the range of emotions that accompany falling in love and then having your heart shattered. And while the dialogue is witty, and real, and funny, and smart, it’s director Marc Webb’s attention to the details that make 500 Days of Summer such a deeply authentic movie. There are a lot of movie about love, and even more that think they are, but very few successfully capture that helpless uncertainty attendant to a new relationship — the overwhelming need to pin it down, to label it, to gain a sense of security, to know that what he or she is feeling is not fleeting. — Dustin Rowles
3. Waitress: Until you adjust to what’s going on in Waitress and realize that the acting isn’t bad, it’s intentionally loopy and over-the-top, you may think you’re watching a weird, screwball-sitcom parody with the brand of whiplash poignancy that “Scrubs” has popularized. But the actors sell it — Kerri Russell’s earthiness grounds it, Nathan Fillion’s charming nervousness endears you to it, and Andy Griffith’s down-home folksiness and soft heart completely freakin’ delivers it home. It’s just … well … the whole thing … it’s just so goddamn moving. It’s decent film. A humble film. And there’s no pretension; there’s no forced quirk, no nods at the camera, no “Look-at-me! I’m sweet and charming and cute!” vibe. It’s just modest and heartfelt and good. Waitress isn’t for everyone. If you don’t care for romantic comedies, it’s probably not going to work for you — and if it doesn’t, you’ll probably loathe it.The plot is not terribly original. But the tone and feel is like nothing I’ve ever seen before on film. And if you allow yourself to give into it, to get swept up by its charm, you’ll walk out with an achy heart and a smile that may not fade for days. — DR
2. The Royal Tenenbaums: The Royal Tenenbaums is a beautiful, sad portrait of a sprawling family of geniuses in decline, held together primarily by the pain that’s marked the seasons of their ruined lives. The Tenenbaums’ patriarch, Royal (Gene Hackman), is a cantankerous old liar who decides to force himself back into the lives of his estranged wife, Etheline (Anjelica Huston), and three children — Chas (Ben Stiller), Richie (Luke Wilson), and Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow). He feigns cancer in order to move in with the family for a while, but they discover he’s faking it and kick him out, which eventually starts Royal on the road to self-improvement through sacrifice and recovery through helping his family work out their various problems. Royal connects the most with the son he’s emotionally furthest from at the beginning, Chas, whose wife died a year before (as you can probably tell, absent parents are a pretty big thing with Anderson). Stiller’s manic energy brings the perfect edge to Chas’ spiraling depression, and at the end of the film, Royal and Chas stumble into a blissful moment of forgiveness as Chas whispers, “I’ve had a pretty bad year, Dad.” And Royal responds, “I know you have,” placing his hand on his son’s shoulder. It’s a calmly magnificent moment, but hampered by the subdued tone of the film that preceded it. While Rushmore was filled with moments of quiet joy that reveled in the quirks and humanity of its characters, Tenenbaums feels more intentionally repressed, and self-reflexively so. The film announced its serio-comic nature with a kind of posturing that edged dangerously close to parody (though Anderson wouldn’t fully commit such follies until The Life Aquatic.) If Rushmore wore its heart on the sleeve of its navy blazer, then Tenenbaums expected you to laud the film’s emotion without its having to display it often, or even at all. — DC
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Too often, love is as painful as it is pleasurable. It’s all too easy to forget the universally touted axiom: “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” because the pain of a failed romance is so intense it seems never to be overcome. But what if it could? What if, in our ever-advancing endeavors in technology actually yielded a way to obliterate the anguish of heartbreak? Were it possible to elect to “never have loved at all,” would you? This is the question, and the bizarre premise that faces the characters of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Films have attempted to evoke such ephemeral experiences as dreams or hallucinations before, but never has it been done so effectively as this. Sharp and colorful cinematography beautifully depicts Joel’s amorphous “Brainscape,” not only effectively capturing the makeup of memories, but also how they’re formed and sustained. Joel clambers from beaches to dark nightscapes trying to save Clementine from mental annihilation, all the while learning that the overwhelming memories of his lover vastly outweigh their superficial exterior inconsistencies. Will he save her? Or will his life be totally cleansed, for better and for worse, of her influence? — Phillip Stephens
Comments
Posted by: lizzieborden at July 17, 2009 3:05 PM
whimsiquirkilicous is my new favorite word. And I love every one of these movies that I've seen. And I have every intention of seeing (500) Days of Summer at my earliest convenience.
*cracks a PBR* *hands you a cold one* bring on the hipster douchebaggery, I say. and fuck the haters.