Too Much Sun in the South of France...
I just saw "Broken Flowers", the film written & directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Bill Murray as a Don Juan who gets a letter from an ex-girlfriend informing him that he has a 19-year old son, but he doesn't know who his baby's mama is because she didn't sign the note. Thus, a road trip ensues to track down his son and come to grips with his bachelor lifestyle as he confronts old age.
This movie won the Grand Prix (2nd place) at the Cannes Film Festival this summer, and has been hailed by every critic under the sun as a brilliant film. Entertainment Weekly listed it as their top "must-see" film of the summer. It goes without saying that I was pumped to see this movie, expecting a sort-of "Lost In Translation Redux".
What I got was...................that. A whole lot of.................that. This movie moved sooooooo slowly, a snail's pace is too kind. Here is a quick break down of the movie's time allotment: 45 minutes of Bill Murray staring rather blankly at the camera, 20 minutes of artistic "nature shots", 15 minutes of good dialogue, 15 minutes of shitty dialogue, and 5 minutes of flashbacks.
It was boring. There. I said it. It wasn't "nuanced", murray didn't show "range". He just looked into a goddamn lens and showed as little emotion as humanly possible. But it's not all Murray's fault. The title of "writer" should be stricken from Jarmusch's resume based on the fact that there isn't enough dialogue or action to constitute an entire script. If you give your main actor (Murray, who's in practically every scene of the movie) no lines to say, they can't really do much besides stare quitely into the camera.
I'm being a bit harsh...parts of the movie were funny and the cinematography was nice, but so what? A movie that got more positive press than any other film this summer should add up too more.
And I end with my list of my favorite movies from the TC Film Festival:
1. My Summer of Love
2. A Good Woman
3. Mad Hot Ballroom
4. Me & You & Everyone We Know
5. Broken Flowers
This movie won the Grand Prix (2nd place) at the Cannes Film Festival this summer, and has been hailed by every critic under the sun as a brilliant film. Entertainment Weekly listed it as their top "must-see" film of the summer. It goes without saying that I was pumped to see this movie, expecting a sort-of "Lost In Translation Redux".
What I got was...................that. A whole lot of.................that. This movie moved sooooooo slowly, a snail's pace is too kind. Here is a quick break down of the movie's time allotment: 45 minutes of Bill Murray staring rather blankly at the camera, 20 minutes of artistic "nature shots", 15 minutes of good dialogue, 15 minutes of shitty dialogue, and 5 minutes of flashbacks.
It was boring. There. I said it. It wasn't "nuanced", murray didn't show "range". He just looked into a goddamn lens and showed as little emotion as humanly possible. But it's not all Murray's fault. The title of "writer" should be stricken from Jarmusch's resume based on the fact that there isn't enough dialogue or action to constitute an entire script. If you give your main actor (Murray, who's in practically every scene of the movie) no lines to say, they can't really do much besides stare quitely into the camera.
I'm being a bit harsh...parts of the movie were funny and the cinematography was nice, but so what? A movie that got more positive press than any other film this summer should add up too more.
And I end with my list of my favorite movies from the TC Film Festival:
1. My Summer of Love
2. A Good Woman
3. Mad Hot Ballroom
4. Me & You & Everyone We Know
5. Broken Flowers