Year 12, Day 295 - 10/21/20 - Movie #3,680
BEFORE: I faced another dilemma today, with Bill Murray carrying over from "Zombieland: Double Tap", because there's a film on Netflix called "Bill Murray Stories", and it's promote with an image of Mr. Murray's head on the body of a Sasquatch, implying that he's some kind of mythical creature rarely seen in the wild, or perhaps just maintaining an air of mystery about what film he's going to pop up in next, or what film set will be graced with his presence (I've heard that he's hard for directors to contact, you basically have to know somebody who knows Bill if you want to hire him, or pass along a script).
There's an opportunity to drop this documentary, "Bill Murray Stories", right here in-between, which would also create a triple-play, thus guaranteeing him a spot in my year-end breakdown. But that would break up the flow of the horror chain, right? I've done it before, with "Listen to Me, Marlon", so there is some precedent, but I'm going to hold off and reschedule the doc for next year, I think. He's in a new movie now with Rashida Jones called "On the Rocks", which may hit streaming in the next few months, I could put the doc between that and "City of Ember", or maybe "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" will come out in March as planned, who can say? I'd be more inclined to watch "Bill Murray Stories" if my count for the rest of the year was short, but it's not, I'm right on target, so no extra slots.
Besides, how can I pass up linking between two zombie movies that have Bill Murray in them? You can see how me knowing that this great comic actor has been in exactly three zombie movies, and I have a chance to say I've seen ALL of them, that's a very dangerous thing. I have to make that happen now.
THE PLOT: The peaceful town of Centerville finds itself battling a zombie horde as the dead start rising from their graves.
AFTER: Finding out that Jim Jarmusch made a zombie movie is a bit like finding out that Alfred Hitchcock once made a musical, or that Walt Disney made a pornographic cartoon - it seems very off-brand. I first became aware of Jarmusch's films back in college, I was in film school a few years after "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Down by Law" came out, though I think I got turned on to those films by my roommate, they weren't part of the curriculum at NYU, but I think they should have been. Then I didn't encounter another one of his films until about twenty years later, when I started doing this blog and I caught "Coffee and Cigarettes", then "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai". Last year I watched his film "Paterson" (also starring Adam Driver), and now here comes a whole wave of Jarmusch, two films this week and a third one planned before the end of regulation play this year. I was in the same room as him, one time in Rafik, which was a film supply and video-dubbing store favored by indie filmmakers, on Broadway in Greenwich Village, up a VERY long two flights of stairs. Surely that place must have gone out of business at some point. (Jesus, apparently not, though it seems they may have moved up to E. 39th Street, and they have dozens of terrible Yelp reviews...)
And after a 35-year career, this became the first Jim Jarmusch film to get a wide release - way to go, Jim! See, if you do something long enough, eventually people realize that you might also be really good at it - very inspiring!
The thinking man's zombie movie - because somebody took a minute to realize what the effect would be if bodies started rising from their graves in an average small town. Namely, that's a place where everybody knows, or knew, everybody - so the living humans would probably recognize some of the formerly alive zombies walking around. If you saw your dead grandmother again, would you be able to shoot her in the face? There would be a lot of, "Hey, I know those people, but didn't they die? Oh, right..." and then as your close friends got turned, you'd have to chop their heads off, too - and it's probably a lot easier to chop somebody's head off if you hate them. Right?
Also very deadpan - there are surprisingly few freak-outs among the characters in this small town, most people just continue to do their business, at least until the zombies are within striking distance, the police still go out "on patrol" - not to kill zombies specifically, although if that becomes necessary, they will - but their JOB is to go out on patrol, and also maybe work on solving the first couple of murders seen in the film. Once they see the town is full of zombies, though, there's just a feeling of "Oh, THAT'S what happened..." Most other citizens who find themselves in a hardware store or supermarket just start killing zombies because, well, it's something to do, I guess, and one farmer kills zombies not because their zombies, but just because they're trespassing on his land.
Also very self-aware, two of the characters in particular make reference to "reading the script", or "Hey, that song is also the opening theme music!" Along with this comes a thousand little in-jokes and Easter eggs, like the three kids from Cleveland are driving the same model of car that was seen in "The Night of the Living Dead", and Adam Driver's character has a little Star Destroyer on his keychain, because of course he does. RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan has a cameo as a delivery driver, but he works for WU-PS! Other actors play thinly-veiled versions of themselves, like Rosie Perez as news reporter Posie Juarez.
The film also doesn't fall back on the usual "viral" excuse for the zombies attacking, so this didn't start for sure in any Wuhan exotic meat market - instead there's a news report that something called "polar fracking" has caused the Earth to tip off its usual axis, therefore the daylight and nighttime schedule is all mixed up, it stays light until 8 pm, or is that just the Daylight Savings time? Then there's a weird glow coming from the moon, so perhaps it's toxic moon radiation? Does it really matter, when dead people are climbing out of their graves? Or was the director trying to make a point about the dangers of fracking here, though it could have just as easily been global warming or too much plastic in the oceans, because here nobody has quite figured out the direct cause and effect relationship. Plus, this may come across as some kind of liberal propaganda here, we either get together and stop fracking and other earth-damaging practices, or we'll eventually have a zombie attack, or worse, to deal with.
According to this film, first our cell phones will all stop working, then our pets will all suddenly leave us, and only THEN will the zombies rise up. And they'll all sort of gravitate toward the things they used to do in life, like if they used to play baseball, then as zombies they'll go hang out on the ball field. If they used to hang out in coffee shops, then that's where they're headed as zombies. Great, now they're going to be up ALL NIGHT eating human flesh.
Jarmusch really painted himself into a corner with this script, it seems he didn't realize that he might need a viable ending. Just having a character that says "It's probably going to end badly" several times doesn't really count as an ending. When you get your characters into a situation, it's maybe a good idea to not consider the script done until you also have a way out, that's a pro tip. It's kind of telling that Jarmusch comes from the world of indie film and usually doesn't have to worry about such things - just having characters talk about interesting stuff around a table has worked for him in the past, and those are cases where things didn't really have to be resolved. Or I guess the film needed to stick with a downer of a message, because if the good people triumph over the zombies, then the environmental anti-fracking message loses its bite? Is that what we're dealing with here?
Meanwhile, one of the political parties apparently is denying that polar fracking is what caused the Earth to tip off its axis, and that party is probably also denying that there IS a change in the Earth's rotation, and will ultimately deny the zombie attacks, too. You probably can guess which party I'm talking about, Righttttt?
Also starring Adam Driver (last seen in "The Report"), Tilda Swinton (last heard in "Uncut Gems"), Chloe Sevigny (last seen in "Beatriz at Dinner"), Steve Buscemi (last seen in "Paris, Je t'Aime"), Danny Glover (last seen in "Sorry to Bother You"), Tom Waits (last seen in "The Old Man & the Gun"), Caleb Landry Jones (last seen in "American Made"), Selena Gomez (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"), Austin Butler (last seen in "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"), Luka Sabbat, Rosie Perez (last seen in "Birds of Prey"), Eszter Balint, Iggy Pop (last seen in "We Are Twisted Fucking Sister"), Sara Driver, RZA (last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Carol Kane (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Larry Fessenden (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), Rosal Colon (last seen in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"), Sturgill Simpson, Jodie Markell, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Maya Delmont, Taliyah Whitaker, Jahi Di'Allo Winston (last seen in "The Upside").
RATING: 5 out of 10 missing cows
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