Wtf with these quirky movies?

Um, I thought There Will Be Blood was actually somewhat surreal throughout, just not in typical ways.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

While Magnolia was explicitly surreal at the end, There Will Be Blood and The Master definitely have an underlying surreal quality. It may be the way Anderson has a sometimes Kubrickian mesmerizing quality. I definitely agree with you though.

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Mubi

Natural Born Killers was the only film that made me turn off the TV. Does anybody consider it to be quirky? I really disliked that movie, the hour I spent while watching that film was a real torture for me, it was just... so bizarre.

Should I give it another go?

I love NBK. If you didn't enjoy it for its stylish excess, I doubt you have much reason to go back.

I adore 'quirky' films, the more surreal the better for me when it's that type of film.

Me too, i turned it off after 45 minutes as you said it was just too bizarre it also didn't help that it had the insufferable Julliette Lewis in it. It's based on the same true story as Terence Malicks Badlands which is a good movie imo.

If Magnolia was too surreal for you, don't watch The Master. Personally, I love quirky movies. David Lynch is one of my four or five favorite directors. The collision of fantasy and reality has always fascinated me and I love seeing those ideas brought to life on the screen in unique, creative ways. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Synecdoche, New York, but I figure I ought to check out some of Kaufman's other work first.

I sincerely believe Paul Thomas Anderson will come to be known as the Kubrick of my generation- a non-prolific, challenging, and uncompromisingly ambitious young filmmaker with strong studio backing.

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"Puns are the highest form of literature." -Alfred Hitchcock

NBK isn't really "based" on anything; it uses a Bonnie & Clyde story to portray a media-corrupted world in a very surreal way that mixes potent imagery with hyperactive editing to reflect the bombardment on its populace. Everyone is on ego overload, and absurdly de-sensitized by the saturation of a lethal concoction of sex, violence and thrill-seeking fame worship.

Superficially, the film is presented as the very thing it seeks to deconstruct and indict, using M & M as our entrance into its reality, and following them on their bloody journey. The film ironically uses them to symbolically destroy the system that hyped them and their evil, NOT to endorse their murderous natures and actions but to show how it is evil and harmful in its own way, and essentially no better.

I didn't feel much surrealism out of the film. Perhaps the concluding scene, but even that was more drama to me.

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Well i'm not exactly sure if it's true or not but i read somewhere bot NBK and Badlands were based on this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather

Ultimately though, M & M are the epitome of anti-heroism because they go through a transforming journey and come to represent the least evil and corrupt people in NBK's fictional dystopia. They are destruction embodied as a force for positive change who strike a blow against a stagnantly self-absorbed and totally corrupt system.

They are NOT heroes, let me be clear. They are anti-heroes who are the lesser of two evils, but a lot of viewers missed the point because they thought the world of NBK was the real world, thus those viewers had no reason to identify with its mass-murdering couple.

That in itself has scary implications and shows how close we are to NBK's dark vision.

Here's the point again, though: NBK is a satire about M & M's world. It's not meant to just be a re-telling of a lovers killing spree. It has bigger fish to fry.

NBK is less frantic in its second half, so you might like it better the second time, but you'll still have to deal with first part or see what its point is, if you can find any.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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Yes, the second half, actually from the part where they meet the indian onward, focuses the film more on its themes and less on presentation, but as I said, it clearly has a point and its themes are present throughout, just more latent in its first half which is more about giving you a feel for its reality and the blitz on the senses that it is.

The meeting with the indian and what happens is the turning point which focuses M & M's killing spree into a transformative journey and sets up their direct confrontation with the system that has used them to its own ends.

You're both right, both Anderson and Kubrick make long, boring, uninteresting films that people feel the need to convince themselve are great.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Or... other people genuinely enjoy those films.

On the subject of There Will Be Blood, while I didn't think it was a great film as a whole, I was enraptured by the movie while watching it. And that's mainly due to Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano's performances. Don't know if I'd buy it, but I'm glad I saw it. Day-Lewis is great in just about anything.

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

Except that Synecdoche is pretty off the wall, right from the start. As should be expected from anything Charlie Kaufman has a hand in.

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Things I really like:
Violent films
Woody Harrelson
Juliette Lewis
Rodney Dangerfield
Tom Sizemore
Tommy Lee Jones
Robert Downey Jr.

What I didn't like:
Natural Born Killers

I love the cast and violent crime films are my favorite. Before I saw this, I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that I would dislike this film. Probably the most disappointing film I've ever seen.

^ I agree with this. Too much a point to be just surreal, couldn't expect much better from Daniel Days grimm and grit character for the culmination of the film. I loved the expressionistic atonal/twelve-tone score throughout, then bursting into the classic classical at the end, too darned perfect almost.