Kicky's movie review: Broken Flowers--what a piece of ****.

Lightwizard wrote:

If "Broken Flowers" when completely over one's head I could understand why they would write a review that can't actually point out what is bad or good about the film but just simply call it a piece of ****. The review is a piece of ****.

I envision you sipping brandy (pinky out, of course) and sticking your nose way up in the air whilst wearing a smoking jacket when you say that.

BTW: You usually indicate what some professional reviewer has had to say on the subject, as proof that the A2K critic must not know what he's talking about. You're slipping.

It's a piece of ****.

Your loss.

I see you have a preference for lame comedies.

The review for "Shark Sandwich" was merely a two word review which simply read "**** Sandwich".

Saw Night on Earth tonight. Hadnt seen it yet, it was for me the missing link between Mystery Train, which I loved, and Dead Man, which I yawned at, so I'd been curious about it.

It was cute enough, nice, funny, quirky. Clearly a transition kind of film: more happening, more comic distraction, fuller focus on the actors, than in Mystery Train or Stranger than Paradise. Cute, it was, of a human scale, but I dont know how much I'll remember.

Yesterday meanwhile I got to see Broken Flowers, his newest, which for Hungary was an avant-premiere.

Ack. Sorry to have taken Esther to go see it. What a boring, nothingish movie. No spice no taste. Just drags on, to eventually yield what are at best dime-store philosophies.

Little particularly Jarmuschesque about it, either. Its like all his authentic spirit got diluted along the way. Instead of the lovingly observing camera, quirky stories and just slightly off-kilter amblingness of early films, this was equally slow but soulless, inspirationless and bland.

I was thinking about what that's all about, cause I had the same with Wenders. I loved the films of his from the seventies that I saw (Alice in den Städten, Im Lauf der Zeit). What I liked about them was their gentle observantness, keen eye and small stories, the pleasant moodiness of it. I loved Himmel über Berlin too and Paris, Texas was one of its kind.

But later I saw The End of Violence, and it was just ... vacuous. It was meant to be vacuous, I suppose, to reflect the oppressive emptiness of, I dunno, modern life or something, but even then it was, like, top-heavy in intentions and anemic in soul and body. Like it never got beyond the idea, like nobody put their heart in it.

Not to mention Beyond the Clouds, which he did just prior to that with Antonioni, and which was just creepy. It just oozed the suggestion of old directors, all full of themselves, spoiled but empty-hearted, who indulge in stuffing a film full of beautiful women and "oh-thats-so-deep" philosophies and expect to be feted for it.

Anyway. (Sorry, got a bit carried away there). Broken Flowers reminded me of The End of Violence. Meant, I suppose, as a Lost in Translation-like tale of a man of middle age facing the emptiness of his life and having something happen to him that puts it all in a new light. But while Lost in Translation was itense, this was vacant. And there was no new light, really, either. Perhaps that was the point. But if the point was dreariness, then all the pretty actresses and slick design prevented it from getting that across, kinda.

Is that perhaps the price directors like that might pay for getting rich and famous? That the change of lifestyle that comes with that, robs them of the inspiration or empathy, and the movies become as bland as Beverly Hills life must be? Or something? <shrugs>