So I really didn't want to write another post about the movie Me and You and Everyone We Know. My reactions after seeing it a few months ago at the PDX Film Festival are still up for grabs. And you can read one of the hundreds of rave reviews (listed on the righthand side of Miranda July's blog) and you still wouldn't get a real feel for it.

I, like vfc, really wanted to hate it. Due to my own personal experiences working with Miranda (and my general disdain for "new" movies), I wanted to hate it. I wanted it to be critically-acclaimed yet boringly pretentious so I could waddle around and bitch and moan about undeserved success. But you know what? She deserves it. It burns me to say it, but it's true.

[Full article at The Oregonian]

It's not like we haven't ever seen a film of the sort Miranda July has made in "Me and You and Everyone We Know."

In these web-of-life films, a variety of characters wander through individual narratives unaware that they are connected by a larger story and by bonds that remain hidden to the audience until the dramatic arc brings them to the surface. They tend to be films about loss, pain and disconnection. They require you to lean in a little so as to keep track of the many characters. They boast impressive performances, sometimes by well-known actors. The payoffs they provide tend to be bittersweet and incomplete.

Much of this is true of "Me and You and Everyone We Know." But in her roles as writer, director and star, July brings to the project a freshness of vision and tone that makes it feel as if nobody has done this sort of thing before. There's an air of discovery and delight to the enterprise that few of its peers share. And if July fails to knock us out as a cineaste -- that is, as a creator and orchestrator of moving images -- she impresses greatly in the stories, performances and ideas that she delivers.

So yes. I'm a drunken fangirl. This movie is my baby. I'm very selective about who I've taken with me to see it. Because taking someone who wouldn't appreciate it would somehow ruin it for me. So I keep it in my pocket like a little shiny rock. And I put what is, in essence, a very work-inappropriate image on my desktop in my office.



And nobody notices.

P.S. The Soundtrack (streaming under the link) is ridiculously full of awesomeness.