>>211896667The ones directly to blame were Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman who have steered him away from soulful movies into, like you say, "empty formalism.
When he was making movies with Owen Wilson they all had heart and something to say... now it's just character standing around in dioramas where the staccato movement and line delivery is supposed to be "funny".
You can tell it comes from Roman Coppola specifically since he also tried to make a similar movies that was quickly forgotten so he's just been dryhumping Wes Anderson since.