Broken Flowers - semi-spoilers, not that you're ever going to see this

Broken Flowers....what went wrong?

Mistake #1: Going to see a movie in the theater.

I thought I'd be alright since I wasn't seeing Land of the Dead or The Day After Tomorrow, but apparently my boycott of movie theaters should have been a blanket one. I was the only person in the theater under 60, which meant no annoying teenagers texting each other during the movie, but presented a whole new set of problems. The man behind me snored (I wanted to sleep during the beginning too), while the woman next to me kept telling he friend that she didn't understand why everyone was laughing. Then there was the woman in the front who I'm sure thought she was whispering, but sounded like she was trying to talk to those of us in the back personally. Of course there was the insanely large amount of ads and crappy previews (and even a special note from Paul Reiser and Peter Falk imploring me to see their upcoming movie at an AMC theater). No more movies in theaters. And I mean it.

Mistake #2 (and it's a big one): Jim Jarmusch.

Jim Jarmusch used up all of his strikes (and then some) with Coffee and Cigarettes. What a waste of time that was. This isn't to say that Broken Flowers was anywhere near as bad as Coffee and Cigarettes (because really, what could be?), but the name alone should have told me to have lowered expectations. I think it's time to get my vision checked. With all the red flags I've been missing, I wonder if I'm starting to go colorblind.

Mistake #3: Putting too much stock into Bill Murray.

Strike 1 was The Life Aquatic, and Broken Flowers is strike two. Why do I get the feeling that Murray's direction for this movie was "Remember Lost in Translation? Yeah, do that again." Murray played pretty much the same role he did in Lost, with the melancholy, and the blank look followed by a deadpan remark. Murray didn't do a bad job, he just did the same job. And I don't buy him as a Don Juan with all these young women still throwing themselves at him. Bill Murray the actor, maybe, but not Bill Murray as the regular guy.

Broken Flowers wasn't terrible, it just wasn't great. It was really slow in the beginning, but it did eventually have its moments - some funny ones involving his exes or his neighbor, and one very surprising one involving a teenager named Lolita. I get the ending, and that the movie is supposed to be about the journey and not the destination, but it still felt a bit unfulfilling. I like it a little better the more I think about it, but the overall feeling I got from this movie was just sort of blah. Maybe I would have liked it better had I not spent $9 on it. Paying full price for movies sucks, but I figured using a college ID from a school in Virginia during the middle of the school year might raise a few eyebrows (why I have that much faith in the 16 year olds that sell tickets, I don't know).