MOVIES Fall films: geeky but brilliant

By JOE NEUMAIER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Filmmakers have always thrived on a sense of community. Joined by sensibility or the cultural ferment of a particular time, they get grouped under unofficial banners like the British Kitchen Sink school, the French New Wave, the American Movie Brats or the Chinese Fifth Generation. The latest in-crowd of American writers and directors should be called the New Geek Wave.
"Geeky" best describes the often brilliant, invariably quirky and decidedly un-macho films made by David O. Russell, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne, Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and actor-writer-producer Owen Wilson.
Three of them have films opening this fall: Russell's "I u Huckabees," Payne's "Sideways" and Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou." Coppola's "Lost in Translation" was the buzz movie of last fall, and the smartest film of this past spring was "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a second collaboration between French-born Michel Gondry and Kaufman (whose "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation" scripts were directed by Jonze).
These are filmmakers who don't spend much time in Hollywood and are known for being offbeat.
"I guess we're between the indie world and mainstream films -- but that's always been my area, the middle ground," says Russell, who worked as a political organizer and documentarian for nonprofit groups before directing "Spanking the Monkey" (1994), "Flirting With Disaster" (1996) and "Three Kings" (1999). He describes "I (Heart) Huckabees," starring Jason Schwartzman, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Naomi Watts and Jude Law, as "an existential love story.
"I'm neither fish nor fowl in terms of accessibility," Russell adds. "But that style echoes the movies of the '70s, which taught me about cinema. Those films were mainstream but came from a very introspective place."
"This new group is very much the spiritual descendants of the '70s mavericks," says Robert Evans, who as a studio chief and producer shepherded many of that era's most important films.
"They have an intellectual outlook similar to that of Peter Bogdanovich, Hal Ashby and Mike Nichols. Like that bunch, they're fresh, they emphasize story, and they love movies," Evans adds.
Away from Hollywood
Wes Anderson, a former philosophy student from Texas whose first three films had a singular style, helped bring Bill Murray back into vogue with "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums." Murray stars in "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" as an oceanographer dealing with his dysfunctional family and colleagues; Owen Wilson co-stars.
"These [friends] are the only directors I know, but they're also making my favorite movies," Anderson says of the group. "We're all about the same age. When I met them five years ago, everyone was just getting to know each other."
But they know Hollywood may never "get" them.
"I don't know if I'm interested in being 'gotten,'" says Anderson. "But as for individualism, if someone's set on having a specific 'voice' in their work, it's a recipe for disaster. When it's organic, it may be less annoying."