Katrina Onstad, for The New York Times, profiles the fascinating Miranda July and her fellow filmmaking husband, Mike Mills. People seem to love or hate theme. Those who dislike them, Onstad explains, really hate the trappings of “Urban Bohemia”:
July has come to personify everything infuriating about the Etsy-shopping, Wes Anderson-quoting, McSweeney’s-reading, coastal-living category of upscale urban bohemia that flourished in the aughts.
And:
The urban bohemian irks precisely because his or her quirky individuality is just part of a different kind of uniformity, where the uniform happens to be a bushy beard or Zooey Deschanel bangs rather than country-club khakis. Twee fascinations with childhood innocence can mask an unwillingness to tackle life’s darker quandaries. Who wouldn’t be annoyed by a guy who, say, finds a cracked milk bottle, makes a film about it, then silk screens it on a T-shirt and names his band Milk Bottle? The stakes are low. The results are soon forgotten.
In fact, July’s work stays with you. It’s powerful art, grounded in the specificity of experience.