81: Stories About Weird Little Guys

This fall, as we've started buckling down for December and the start of movie awards season, I noticed that I've been absorbing a lot of stories about Weird Little Guys lately. Weird Little Guys is a term I first picked up from a Twitter Account called Cats Being Weird Little Guys, which is exactly what it says on the tin. It's just another iteration of the internet's collective obsession with cats, which are inherently both cute and weird, but the difference here is the intensity: when a cat is being a Weird Little Guy it's being really weird. I maintain that being a Weird Little Guy isn't just limited to felines. With my apologies to Ratatouille, not everyone can be a Weird Little Guy, but a Weird Little Guy can come from anywhere.

I first thought to break out the Weird Little Guy comparison when I saw Barry Keoghan in Saltburn. I didn't care for most of the movie, but Keoghan takes the uncanny energy he's built his career on and runs with it. (If you're a movie character, do not invite Keoghan into your home. At best, you'll have a strange experience.) I'd argue that the cast of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels almost all count as Weird Little Guys who can't seem to get it together. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off captures that energy with a manic glee that felt most welcome. (More on the latter below!) But the character that made me really notice the pattern was Eileen in Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen. She's like every other Moshfegh character I've run across so far: ugly in personality, if not in physical appearance; slovenly; self-obsessed; trying to survive in a world where she doesn't fit in, and has no desire to conform. It remains to be seen whether Thomasin Mackenzie will manage to channel serious Weird Little Guy energy in the movie adaptation out next week, but I'm sure I'll be able to tide myself over with this week's trip to the theater to see Ridley Scott's Napoleon.

What I wrote:

Last week for Seeing & Believing, I wrestled through my reaction to Todd Haynes's latest film May December.

What I watched:

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is a delight! I've loved the comic and the 2010 movie adaptation since the first time I encountered them. The new anime adaptation takes the characters from both, throws them into a candy-colored jar, shakes them up, and scatters them everywhere. We get the same setting, characters, and even the same character development, but the plot's completely different. It feels satisfying, because this new version of the story makes perfect sense, but also manages to sidestep some of the problems with the original story by spending more time with the side characters. The show gives everyone the room they need to breathe, opening up Bryan Lee O'Malley's weird world for further shenanigans.

What I'm reading:

Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky.