Friday, January 05, 2007

Movi Review

So I watched Broken Flowers on DVD last night and can I say, the fuck?

First off, who thought that was a plot?

Who thought those were characters?

All right, the neighbor, Winston, he was *sort* of interesting. I *kind* of grew interested when he came on screen. And the woman who was an animal communicator -- vaguely interesting, in a marginal way.

But everyone else? First of all, not real human beings. Second, boring.

This reminded me, more than anything, of workshop fiction. The main character has to be surprised! We must have reversals! He must be on a Journey!

And, of course, always written (almost always written) by twenty-nine year old males who have never spent a solid week with an actual woman, so they write about MEN who FUCK women non-stop and leave them behind and women who LOVE this behavior in REAL MEN (as of course REAL WOMEN would...on planet REAL MEN...), well, good shit.

I knew when we met Lolita, bouncing about offering Bill Murray a popsicle -- and ten seconds later parading back into the living room stark naked -- because, yes, fifteen year old girls ALWAYS do this when they meet fifty year old ex-boyfriends of their mothers --- that the movie was fucked. Nor was I wrong.

The main problem, though, beyond the hideous misogyny of the movie, was the utter emptiness of the main character. Someone tell me why we're supposed to care about this guy? Why was I meant to watch this movie? Toward the end he squeaks out a tiny bit of Buddhist philosophy, but, come on. Buddhism doesn't make you an empty horndog, which is what this boy is. This is a depressive loser, not a Buddhist.

Give me Howl's Moving Castle any day.

4 comments:

zelda1 said...

I hated it too. Murray's character was a total bore and not true to life. I knew it was going to be a crappy movie from the beginning, hello, he is an old fart and a young chick is leaving him. Let me guess, that is how life really is, hot men get young hot chicks? That bit about the child coming in naked, well, that was some perverts fantasy and it's a shame they felt compelled to put it in the movie. I only held on thinking it might get better and the only good thing, when Murray's character got his ass kicked. Yep, pretty much liked that part.

zelda1 said...

Well, I need to make an ammendment, not hot men, but old assed men.

delagar said...

The kid coming in naked, offering him popsicles, that's when it jumped the shark for me too. An obvious male fantasy of what a teen girl "ought" to be or "really" acts like.

Diane said...

I didn't bother to see it because it sounded so incredibly boring and empty. My instincts were correct, I see. I am really tired of contemporary, "hip" films--Sideways, We Don't Live Here Anymore, Closer--in which there is no main character I can like. I particularly hated Closer because of the extreme misogyny.

Speaking of Bill Murray, I think I missed the point of Rushmore, too; that one bored me almost to sleep.