Broken Flowers

[kostgard]

I've only seen a few of the reviews, and they are all good. I hope they expand the release - it has Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton, and I love them both.

[bakaney]

You know, every time I completely write off Sharon Stone, up pops a movie where she really impresses me. Damn her persistence. Why can't she just suck in perpetuity?

I saw this and I thought it was really good. Now if only this movie could get the attention and hype that "Lost In Translation" got, as this is far and away the better movie of the two. I was never a fan of the "Bill Murray World-Weary, Listless Character" that he seems to be pulling out in anything he does now, but for this movie, it really worked.

[shopgirl6]

I must say, I went to see this movie on Saturday, and after 35 minutes my boyfriend and I walked out. I am a huge Bill Murray fan, but the first 30 minutes could have been consolidated in about five, retaining the flavor.

Maybe we were cranky (there were two idiots in the audience laughing so loudly), but sheesh!, this movie just dragged. I had to watch Lost in Translation again yesterday to wipe the memory of BM in Broken Flowers.

[Deleted]

I think Sharon Stone is very underated. She always gives a good performance. I just think she never really gets any good parts anymore.

Bill Murray plays the same character in every movie he's in.

The movie was ok. A little bit draggy and ultimately pointless.

[Deleted]

I really really wanted to like this movie, but ultimately I was underwhelmed. This was the first Jim Jarmusch movie I've seen; maybe I just don't understand his style? Anyway, Lost In Translation was the same movie, basically, only loads better.

[sjankis630]

Anyway, Lost In Translation was the same movie, basically, only loads better.

Does not bode well for me. I had the same reaction to seeing Lost in Translation as Shopgirl6 had to this movie except I toughed it out and stayed for Lost and felt worse off for it.

[megjac]

I wanted to like this movie more then I did. I left there thinking it might have made an interesting one act on stage. It seemed to be more of the actors and the director indulging in really rich, detailed charactor studies that sadly never made it to screen. Subtext is nice and all, but text is better. I know each one didn't have a lot of screen time, but I should have cared more about them, and I never felt that Don cared about them at all, except maybe the one, but she couldn't talk to him.. I still love Bill Murray though.

[cleangenie]

It's not just that you don't know who wrote the letter, it's that you don't care. At least I didn't. There was no one to really root for, except in the general sense of wanting them to be happy. Also, the life philosophy Bill Murray asserts at the end is exactly wrong for him. It is why he is at the point he is in his life and it's turned out so sad. I really think the director did not think this movie through at all.

[workgeordie]

Here my post again. Sorry but although I rate myself with the computer I can hardly get the search engine of this forum to work

I finally saw Broken Flowers over the weekend and I really liked it. I always respected and liked Jim Jarmusch as a master of understatement, very much in the mould of one of my favourite directors - Aki Kaurismäki.

I thought that Bill Murray did a great job but since Lost in Translation he seems to be cast in very similar roles.

The soundtrack should also get a mention but Jim Jarmusch is always selecting good artists to appear on it.

It is probably an unpopular opinion but I found that Sharon Stone and Jessica Lange looked freakish thanks to plastic surgery.

I will rate Broken Flowers as No. 3 on my Jim Jarmusch favourite films list with Night on Earth being No. 1 and Mistery Train No. 2

[kafka]

I rented this movie the other night and I'm still pissed off. A few loose ends are fine but to have the WHOLE story and plot be so unbelievably and irritatingly..... Arrrggghh.

All I'll say is that I shut my eyes at the final scene, thinking, "No. No, they simply wouldn't dare. They simply COULDN"T make this the end of everything. I don't F**** believe it!!!!"

A friend called me up to psychoanalyse all the different aspects, not to mention the plot holes, but the more he talked, the more I got agitated and pissed off at the very memory of it all. What a complete waste of time. Frankly, the best parts were Winston (and his adorably precocious daughter who kept insisting about the tobacco. "No, no, don't worry. It's not Tobacco, it's Ganja!" Or WTTE).

The film could have been tightened enormously but the biggest problem was the serious holes in the plot. And, while I like Bill Murray, the chap seriously needs to stop picking roles where is he a phlegmatic, world-weary, cynical, emotionally-shut-off, frozen hermit who is forced by others to interact, but fails dismally at the end to get out his rut. One movie, fine, but I count 3 by now.

As for Jessica Lange, is it just me or did her character turn into a lesbian who was having an affair with the Chloe Sevigny receptionist?

Sharon Stone looked painfully tight around the nose but -- strangely enough -- STILL very old around the eyes at the same time. Snideness aside, I think she's a much under-rated actress.

And Tilda Swinton looked a lot like Anne Heche's character in Nip/Tuck, only in a black wig and with heavy eye makeup. Plotwise, I think she was the real mother all along, and not just because of the pink typewriter or motorcyle, but mostly because she punched Bill Murray. A woman angry at her lover, who has their child in secret and raises it by itself, then is suddenly confronted by the man asking about his son... well, the first thing I thought of was her fear of trying to get parental rights or force his way into her son's life. That could piss off someone who's last memory of the spermdonor/lover was bitter misery.

Damn. I've fallen in to the trap of analysing this movie. WHich is probably just what the bastard directors and producers wanted when they did their complete cop-out by intentionally leaving the whole thing up in the air. Not just one or two things,but the WHOLE thing!

I hate, hate, HATE people who think that being artsy means that everything has to be hidden, elusive, enigmatic and confusing. Sorry but creating a confusing, unresolved movie is NOT a sign of genius. It's a sign of laziness, arrogance, smugness and delusions of psuedo-intellectuality if you're going out of your way to be smotheringly oblique, JUST for the sake of it.

BAH, a pox on them!