But.was.it.Curated ?
8
People love Bill Murray for films like Caddyshack and Ghostbusters, where he was off the hook. His last several movies show him subdued and wry. Who wants that? Why don't directors let him be funny anymore?
2
I loved this film. Just saw it Amherst Cinema in Amherst, Massachusetts.
4
Kind of a non-committal review, isn't it?
26
The trailer made me repeatedly laugh, so much so that I stopped watching it halfway through, lest I spoil any remaining humor when viewing the film. With what feels like the majority of America's movie industry bloated with marvel hero action films, I'll happily go sit in a darkened cinema, eat popcorn, and relish Bill Murray as MY hero any old day. (And Mr. Scott? I live just outside Sylva, NC, where Three Billboards was filmed; we have any number of fast food chains and yes, even a library, and a downtown area peppered in the evenings with a few of those that just might want to pass as hipsters, smoking clove cigarettes and showing off their latest tattoos.)
8
Saw it last night. I really wanted to like it, because of the director, the cast, the inside jokes...but it’s hard to like. At one point I tried to tell myself, “Wait! This is a metaphor for Trump’s America!” But I was reaching. It is extremely laconic and gets very meta. It is not a zombie movie...the zombies could just as well have been a heatwave or a violent biker gang. I guess I would say, it has something for no one. Except if you’re feeling nihilistic.
24
I do so wish I had never stumbled upon the apparently now
famous scene in The Brown Bunny which, in graphic detail, shows how Chloe helped Vincent Gallo relax.
I cannot see even just her name without thinking of that scene.
To me Jim Jarmusch is da man!
6
"possible proximity to Pittsburgh or Cleveland — where the hipsters might come from"
Have you ever been to Pittsburgh or Cleveland? Let's make a bet, you count as many hipsters as you can in Pittsburgh and Cleveland combined, and I'll go to Brooklyn.
I'll take the same bet with LA, Austin, Portland, Chicago, Seattle, and Raleigh. Big city folks always try to make it seem like the hipsters are from the rust belt or middle America. Everyone knows they spawn on the back room floors of "upscale vintage" stores.
10
"locally sourced" is perfect. A.O. Scott's reviews are the highlight of my week.
4
I've never watched a zombie movie and I've been around since Night of the Living Dead. Jim Jarmusch on the other hand? If the movie ever makes it up to my non hipster area, I'm in.
13
For those who did poorly in reading comprehension at school, Mr. Scott is saying the movie is enjoyable enough, thanks to the cast and the amusingly laconic mood. But those same qualities keep the stakes low, and make the film not very exciting or urgent.
55
@Dominic those commenters who did not understand the review most certainly do not know the definition of the word laconic.
23
So, did you LIKE it?
I think the unironic use of « hipster » is more common in America’s Heartland™ than in the Big City these days.
6
@Jaze
As someone who lives in Smalltown, USA -> You are exactly right. The use of the term is more likely indicative of the fact that Jarmusch has his finger on the Middle American pulse and is taking a playful crack at the cultural divisions our country is facing.
I've been on the receiving end of the term "hipster" plenty of times, and I'm the kind of guy who wears khakis to work. Not. Very. Hip.
Excited to see Jim tackle this genre. Also, Bill Murray is the man.
7
I'm getting the sense from reading this piece that A.O. Scott is working very hard to say something positive about this movie and redeem the obligatory hipster icon and darling of certain "au fait" circles that is Jim Jarmusch. Well done. I'll wait for the Netflix showing.
23
I can't stand Zombie movies. They're all the same and boring. But I'll watch this one only because of Adam Driver is in it. Better to be bored than watch something like the updated "Shaft" wherein characters can't even speak proper American English like "wit cha" and all that baby talk which is supposed to be proper dialogue.
5
@Gert Sorry, is this a critique of badly crafted dialogue or are you suggesting something else? What do you mean by "proper American English"?
12
@Gert If your complaint with Shaft is that the characters use AAVE, then I might point out that it's a very real dialect and any linguist worth their salt will tell you there's no such thing as "proper" American English. All that matters is that other speakers of the same dialect have an adequate understanding of the speaker's intended meaning. I might also add that I, as a speaker of "proper" American English (so much as any such thing can be said to exist), was able to adequately understand the intended meaning of your comment, despite the use of the ungrammatical phrase "because of Adam Driver is in it".
26
Geez. Is it funny or not, good or not? As to "hipster," methinks thou dost protest too much.
11
It seems like Zombie movies/shows are a dime a dozen today. Some good, some not so. But the one that started it all, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, is the gold standard. He didn't have fancy special effects, but used his active imagination to create a documentary style horror movie, with unknown actors, (lending even more believability to the movie), that scared the bejeezus out of me when I first saw it on television as a kid.
10