Bill Murray is the greatest screen comic actor of the sound era. He's in two of my top five movies of all time (#3 Royal Tennenbaums and #6 Ghostbusters). Even now with the laconic, underplayed persona he invented with Wes Anderson Murray can make you laugh till it hurts.
Which is why it's so funny that even though the new Jim Jarmusch film is being sold as a comedy, and it is funny, this is the most straight-forward dramatic part Murray has played since The Razor's Edge(a great flick by the way). Broken Flowers in the minimalist's minimalist romantic drama. It just happens to be funny so that it isn't so opressivly sad, and because the audience is condidtioned to laugh at Bill Murray.
And Murray is great in this film, if not quite at Rushmore levels. A viewer has to take a leap to buy into his underplaying, but once you are there you see that the blankness isn't that at all, it's canvas for his director.
Jarmusch shines in the film. He's not the American Ozu or Hsien, but something more his own. Let's face it, Ozu would never be called a hipster, but then again I think that might piss Jarmusch off as well. I think Broken Flowers is a plea. It is begging the world to find human connection and to see ironic detachment for what it is: childish insecurity.
Post-Broken Flowers Top 10:
1. Broken Flowers
2. Last Days
3. Hustle & Flow
4. Kung Fu Hustle
5. Batman Begins
6. Grizzly Man
7. Happy Endings
8. Layer Cake
9. The 40 Year Old Virgin
10. March of the Penguins
Which is why it's so funny that even though the new Jim Jarmusch film is being sold as a comedy, and it is funny, this is the most straight-forward dramatic part Murray has played since The Razor's Edge(a great flick by the way). Broken Flowers in the minimalist's minimalist romantic drama. It just happens to be funny so that it isn't so opressivly sad, and because the audience is condidtioned to laugh at Bill Murray.
And Murray is great in this film, if not quite at Rushmore levels. A viewer has to take a leap to buy into his underplaying, but once you are there you see that the blankness isn't that at all, it's canvas for his director.
Jarmusch shines in the film. He's not the American Ozu or Hsien, but something more his own. Let's face it, Ozu would never be called a hipster, but then again I think that might piss Jarmusch off as well. I think Broken Flowers is a plea. It is begging the world to find human connection and to see ironic detachment for what it is: childish insecurity.
Post-Broken Flowers Top 10:
1. Broken Flowers
2. Last Days
3. Hustle & Flow
4. Kung Fu Hustle
5. Batman Begins
6. Grizzly Man
7. Happy Endings
8. Layer Cake
9. The 40 Year Old Virgin
10. March of the Penguins
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