All cinema is art, as is art, theater, SOME music, paintings (obviously), TV, and many other things. One reason why its art is that it doesn't try to be art, it's just a painting, trying to tell a story or emotion, a song or a play trying to do the same, as does movies or cinema. Even bad movies, like House of Wax, are art, bad art but still art. However, the worst form of art is art trying to be art. The best example of that can be seen in movies, when people coin the phrase 'artsy.' Well the best example of a bad movie trying to be 'artsy' can be Jim Jarmusch's painful attempt at humor in the movie Broken Flowers. Broken Flowers is a movie that has many little laughs, two cute scenes, and a whole lot of art trying to be 'artsy.'

Bill Murray (Life Aquatic) is Don Johnston, a wealthy computer guy who is an eternal bachelor going through woman like underwear. After his most recent girlfriend leaves him, he gets a letter in the mail from a former girlfriend that he hasn't seen in 20 + years and she tells him in the letter that he is a dad and that the son is looking for him. The girlfriend told nothing about Don to her son but suspects that he will find Don anyway so she wanted to give a warning that he might be coming. The letter is unsigned and has no post mark that is readable.

Don's next door neighbor Winston, played by Jeffrey Wright (Manchurian Candidate,) convinces Don to hunt down all of the women who could have been the mother 20 years ago and visit them, look for clues, to see if they are the mom, and to see if it is true. So Don goes on an adventure to four different places to try and find out if he has a son and who the mom is and try to re-connect.

I tried to find some reason to watch this movie and I came up with damn few. Bill Murray is great, again proving he provide a quality character even in a bad movie. He makes what little humor, or attempted humor, somewhat funny. His delivery is the key to his performance. He was very entertaining when meeting the daughter of his first visit, named Lolita, played by Alexis Dziena (Thirteen.) Actually the whole scene was written very well and probably the best in the movie. Murray does some wonderful physical stuff playing on the name Lolita. Plus Dziena came up in one scene with no clothes on and acting very casual on the phone, very nice body.

The music was quite good too and entertaining. Winston acts like a private detective for Don tracking down his past loves and when Don goes on the search, the music is taken straight from a 50's detective drama, and it's great. Overall the music is one of the pleasing things from beginning to end.

However, none of this makes up for the horrible directing by Jarmusch. I don't know why he had to have every scene fade to black. Not only was it fading to black, but usually they ended with Bill Murray either standing or sitting for at least 10 seconds. There were also three or four scenes were Jarmusch just has Murray sitting in his house, or car, or airport and just staring, for 20 seconds, and then fading out again. Why? Plus the direction he gave Murray most have been something confusing because Murray's expression always looked like he was confused to the point of saying "F*ck it! I'm out of here." I can just imagine the direction Jarmusch gave Murray was something along the lines of, "Look like you just walked into a room and you see a hooker having sex with a sheep….action!" This stuff is what I talked about 'artsy' movies, the pointless staring out into oblivion as if there is a higher plain to contemplate. Just f*cking asinine.

So anyway, by act three, I am just watching the movie because I want to see Murray meet his son. Don is back home and telling Winston what happened when he sees a kid wandering around looking lost. He goes out to talk to him, and long story short, scares him off. Then another kid comes by in a bug that looks just like him, receding hairline and all, and drives away. Then there is the 10 second scene where Murray stares at oblivion and…..the story is over. What a crappy ending! Nothing is resolved and it was the icing on this wonderfully created sh*t filled cake.

I can't recommend this movie and I certainly hope that Jarmusch is forced to pick up soap in every prison for the next year for this painful display of art. For those of you who think this sort of thing is good, take your pants off, then your underwear, and bend over and look in a mirror. What you are looking at has the same level of art as this film, looks just as nasty, and smells just as bad.

Brian - the Naked Gun