Undiscovered

It's really bad news when a studio decides to cancel advance screenings for a movie, and it even worse when it also cancels press screenings, as it means that they don't want anybody at all to watch their movie before it comes out because the bad word will kill it.
All that happened with Undiscovered, though there was no way this could be any good when you have Ashlee Simpson on the poster. It was meant to be bad from the beginning, and it is bad. The question though is how bad, and how's Ashlee's acting, the only reason to go see this movie.

Ashlee's Clea is not the star of the movie, instead she plays best friend to the two leads, and she's in a lot of scenes throughout all the movie, but she doesn't have much to do other than to deliver cheesy lines like everybody else, or sing. Her acting is not good, but she wasn't the worst in the movie (more on that later) and the singing is not bad, actually enjoyable, as it is Steven Strait's singing. He plays the male lead. And the singing overall is the only actually high point of the movie.

Strait's acting is good, the only good acting part in the movie. The guy can act as he showed in Sky High (he was Warren Peace) and he'll surely become a star for young girls soon. He plays Luke Falcon here, a singer/songwriter to moves to California to change scenes and try his luck there. He's later accompanied by his brother Euan played by Kip Pardue.
But before they go, Luke meets the love of his life in a train station, they just look at each other for a while through the train's window, but he's in love. He still goes to the West Coast and doesn't see her again.
Well, he eventually does, as Brier played by Pell James, the girl in question, is a model who wants to try acting in California after learning that her rock star boyfriend is cheating on her while on a tour in Japan.
And so she goes to Los Angeles too, and they meet thanks to Clea, a young girl who is also trying acting and so she meets Brier in an acting academy, and she also sings with Luke every now and then at the local clubs.

And so Luke and Brier connect, it's love at first sight again, but Brier says she's still with her rock star boyfriend and doesn't want to be with another rockstar so nothing happens between them at that point. Instead, knowing how much Luke wants to make it in the business, she and Clea create fake publicity about Luke, making him look like a huge rising star so an agent that frequents the club would sign him. And from there lots of stupid things happen as Luke is signed and changes, Brier thinks she loves him but doesn't anything about it, and they all say and do stupid stuff courtesy of John Galt's script.

So Ashlee is bad, Strait is ok, and the rest are all horrible, starting with Pell James. She's a disaster from start to finish. And she's not even that hot to be a model.
Then Kip Pardue, who I loved in The Rules of Attraction (and I hear he's great in Loggerheads), he's embarrassing here. At one point he's doing karaoke wearing a thong and in the next scene he's about to get in bed with two girls. And his lines are so cheesy.
Also horrible is Shannyn Sossamon (who was in The Rules of Attraction too) as Josie, a Brazilian model hired to pose as Luke's girlfriend. At first she tries to fake the accent but after a few scenes she just talks normal and every now and then she switches back to trying the accent which is really bad.
Carrie Fisher is also here as Brier's modeling agent Carrie (that's her real name too! Very clever) and she looks so bad and old that she should just retire. Finally Fisher Stevens (from the Short Circuit movies) plays the music agent mentioned before and he's a disaster too.

The movie is not as bad as Hillary Duff's Raise your Voice though, just because the music here is actually good. But the acting is terrible save for Strait, and the idea of the story while good, is very hurt by the dreadful dialogue.
John Galt should just stop making movies (this one was his debut) and the same goes for director Meiert Avis, who loves to film his actors talking while moving the camera around them non-stop for minutes, making Undiscovered more unwatchable than it should. For some reason, I have a thing for this young stars, and despite the debacles in her singing career, I still have hope for Ashlee, and I'm willing to give her one more chance. Probably just one though.

The Brothers Grimm

The fantastic mind that is Terry Gilliam is back after 7 years (his last effort was the trippy and excellent Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) to direct The Brothers Grimm, the adventures of the legendary duo of folklore collectors who travel from little village to little village in a French occupied Germany performing fake exorcisms pretending to save the villagers from non-existent witches and other enchanted creatures.
After a very problematic preproduction (specially over the casting of the main actress, Gilliam and Damon wanted Samantha Morton but the Weinsteins went with Lena Headey), filming (Gilliam's right hand cinematographer Nicola Pecorini was fired by Miramax for being too slow) and final cut of the movie (the most expensive scene in the movie was cut), the final result is mixed, with a very big mess of a first hour, and a last hour that works once the story comes together and the FX get better.

Matt Damon and Heath Ledger play Will and Jake Grimm, full of wigs, big costumes and weird accents. Will is the womanizer and the one that makes Jake go on to these the villagers and scam them for all they have. Jake on the other hand is a believer, he loves his fairy tales and all the fantasy about them. A fantasy geek you could say.
Damon and Ledger are fine in their performances, with the former taking the lead during the first half of the movie in which they are shown traveling saving the villages. There's lots of special effects here but they are not great. Also, the story cuts every now and then to show a fairy tale (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, there's also Jack and the Magic Beans at the beginning of the movie) always about little girls who end up being captured. The problem is that those tales have nothing to do with the main story of the movie at point and so it's all very confusing.

The movie comes to life once our heroes get to the village of Marbaden to discover the mystery of 10 little girls that have disappeared in the enchanted forest. They are sent by General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) and are accompanied by his right hand, the terrible Cavaldi (Peter Stormare), both delivering horrible accents and pretty bad performances all around. Here's where they meet Angelika (Lena Headey) and while investigating the forest they discover the tower of the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci) who may have something to do with the little girls.
Besides adding these new characters, and the story coming more together, this second part works because Ledger's Jake takes command (he was very weak during that first half) as he accepts in these fiery tales they're being part of, while Will still does not believe nor care much for what's going on, but eventually does.

The special effects are excellent in this second part too, specially during the sequences with the Mirror Queen. And the costumes are also great in the movie, though the one for the Mirror Queen does not showcase Bellucci's spectacular body.
With the support of a great score from Dario Marianelli, the movie is hurt by that first half when it doesn't work at all because of the mess of a script by Ehren Kruger (The Ring movies, The Skeleton Key). Overall though, The Brothers Grimm is not bad, but I'm sure is not even close to what Terry Gilliam had in mind.

My Date with Drew

Brian Herzlinger brings us his story in this documentary, that of a broke and with no job 27 year old Jewish young man from New Jersey who after winning $1100 on a game show, saw it as a sign that the winning answer was Drew Barrymore, whom he's had a crush on ever since he saw her in E.T. back in the second grade, that he decided to get his friends Jon and Brett, get a videocamera from Circuit City, go to California to pursue his dream in less than 30 days, and document everything in My Date with Drew. Why 30 days? because that's when the return policy from Circuit City will end for the camera they bought, and so they'll get their money back. Note for all those out there thinking about doing the same as Brian though, you'll have to buy a camera this time because Circuit City changed their return policy ever since the movie got released.

Brian and his friends do everything they can to meet Drew Barrymore, a huge movie star unreachable for the common man, so they decide to use all of their contacts and using the six degrees of separations, get to her or someone who can get Brian to her so he can ask her out on a date. She's dating someone though, and during the movie we learn (through the tabloids of course) that she's also getting married, but Brian doesn't want a relationship with her, he just wants a date.
The six degrees of separation take the 3 friends to people who know people who know Drew, but also to people that have actually in contact with her like her stylist, and even bigger like John August who wrote the Charlie's Angels movies, and Corey Feldman who dated Drew a long time ago. And they all think Brian can do it and encourage him to continue his quest.

Brian is very enthusiastic and energetic, and just a normal good guy. He does make sure that he doesn't come out as a stalker though, so nothing like go driving around her house or go knocking on her family's door. He does meet one of Drew's first cousins who's met Drew in then past cause they're family, but she doesn't know her at all.

It's great because we really get compenetrated in the journey, and I found myself smiling happy whenever he was would get closer to meet Drew, and even when he hired a Drew look alike so he could see how would the date be in case it ever happened. And it does eventually, and I think is no spoiler to say so because the movie wouldn't have been released if they hadn't met.
But yes, emotions are high and I was almost crying when Brian finally meets her at the Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle after party, and what they do to get to that party is great.
And so Brian meets her, but just a 'nice to meet you' as if he were a nobody of course, because Drew doesn't know anything about Brian's documentary, and he doesn't have the camera at the party of course, so we just to the meeting on the cell phone. Brian can't mention anything about it either because that could freak her out.
So there's a lot more after the party, all ending with Brian and Drew finally having a date at which point I was so happy for him as if he were my best friend in the world.

Drew Barrymore once said "If you don't take risks, you'll have a wasted soul.", and those words inspired Brian to make this crazy attempt to fulfill his dream, it's great that he succeeded. My Date with Drew is very fun, engaging and full of good hearted people. And is inspiring too, so maybe I'll try it myself to make my dream come true of meeting Julia Roberts one day.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

Judd Apatow and Steve Carell, we'll be seeing their names for a long time, but right now, after highly praised but little seen cult TV Series (Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared for Apatow) and supporting roles in big comedies (Brick in Anchorman, The Daily Show for Carell), they team up to write, and one directs and the other stars in The 40 Year Old Virgin, the Best Comedy of the Year. And yes, I loved Wedding Crashers too.

Like that Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson laugh fest, the movie is rated R and thank God they're making a comeback after way too many PG-13 stuff. Rob Schneider's Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo didn't make money but at least it made great use of its rating, and Apatow and Carell do too.

Carell stars in the as Andy, a middle age electronics store clerk who's never had sex. Ever. He tried when he was younger, but after some disastrous attempts he just gave up. It was less humiliating to just forget about it than to keep his hopes up that it may actually happen one day. So he now runs from women and spends his nights watching Survivor with his old neighbor, playing online video games or playing with his many, many toys. He also never learned how to drive a car so he drives a bicycle to work everyday.
Paul Rudd (Brian Fantana in Anchorman), Romany Malco and Seth Rogen (he's been in everything Apatow) costar as Andy's coworkers who find out about his situation. How they find out is great, during a night of poker they are telling each other's sex stories and when it's Andy's turn he gives one of the most pathetic tales ever told, and they quickly catch that he's a virgin. They love it though, and decide it's their new job to get him laid. Of course, they tell everybody they know about it.

I won't give out the rest of the story away because there are lots of hilarious situations including a kinky library worker from next door played by Elizabeth Banks, Katherine Keener is also there as Andy's potential love interest Trish (don't worry, the love story doesn't get cheesy) and there's also David Koechner (Anchorman's Champ) who shows up for a scene in which Andy takes Trish's daughter to a sex clinic of some kind for kids who have answers about sex, and it ends up with Andy asking more questions than her.

But one of the absolutely funniest scenes ever is the waxing scene shown briefly in the trailer. You could tell that it was all real pain because his screams were so authentic and you could see it in the other actors' faces that they were not in character, they were really laughing at the situation. And then the blood on his chest. It was really great.

Apatow is a genius and he knows how to write comedy. The situations in the movie are real and the dialogue is hard core, and at times it sounds like it's too much, but is not, that's what those characters would say in those situations. And lots of stuff besides the waxing scene was improvised and so everything looks very natural and so the laughs are truly non-stop.
Steve Carell almost stole the show in Anchorman, rules The Office and after this role, he's sure join the elite group of movie comics that Will Ferrell currently tops. Sadly, Ferrell doesn't make an appearance here so there's no Channel 4 News Team reunion but the movie doesn't need it, because again, The 40 Year Old Virgin is the Best Comedy of the Year.

Gus Van Sant's Last Days

Kurt Cobain escaped from a rehab facility and disappeared for a month. He was found dead from a shotgun to his head in the green house of his stone walled mansion in the middle of the forest.
Gus Van Sant show us the Last Days of Blake, a Seattle rocker who's apparently escaped from a drug facility, and is now spending the days of his life in his stone walled mansion in the woods. Blake is not Kurt Cobain, and it is him at the same time.

Blake is a young man who spends his time, be it day or night, silently, contemplating nature, thinking, but at the same time he's walking aimlessly, mumbling every word, avoiding the few people that are around him, supposed friends that only want him because of what he has. What he has we don't know though, or we do, because we know who Kurt Cobain was. And if you don't know who he was then this is not a movie for you.

Michael Pitt plays Blake, and he channels Kurt perfectly. From the dirty blonde hair to the trademark voice that accompanied the grunge sound of Nirvana. The look is incredible and it's great because we don't get a close up to Blake's face up until the final scenes of the movie. Before that we always get his face covered by hair of filmed from an angle that doesn't let us see it.
And there's something worth noting that could decide if you go see this movie or not: as I mentioned Blake mumbles a lot in the movie, and it's not just a lot, is all of it. There are no fully understandable sentences coming out of his mouth during the entire movie.

There are two classic scenes featuring Nirvana's sound (not music though, there's none of that in the movie). First there's a scene in which Blake plays instruments, guitar, bass and drums, no lyrics though. Van Sant shows us this scene from outside the house through a big window, and you can just see Blake's mind functioning, creating music.
The second scene is excellent, in which one of the guys that's staying in Blake's house comes to him for help on a song. He talks to Blake, and even gives him a tape, but Blake just nods and watches, he's lethargic and has no energy it seems. The guy leaves, and Blake grabs a guitar and starts playing and singing. Pitt's (or whoever it was, though he plays in a band in real life so it could've been him) voice sounds just like Kurt's, and the music is the perfect underground grunge sound of Nirvana.

This is not a traditional movie, it doesn't follow any of the classic steps. It's literally a following of what happened to this rocker, and to Kurt (Van Sant even uses MTV's original broadcast of the news of Kurt's death) in his Last Days, filled with nothingness, probably just thinking who he is and what he means, though maybe not. And just like with Kurt, there's no explanation or reasons of his death, just Blake's last words put on paper: "I can't keep going. I can't be part of this machine. I'm sorry.". This is not the movie I was expecting to see about Kurt, it's better, and I salute Van Sant for his beautiful work with it.

Four Brothers

John Singleton gave us Boyz n the Hood in the early 90s, and it was just so good and real that his career should've been gold, but it wasn't. Shaft, Baby Boy and 2 Fast 2 Furious sucked in very different levels, but overall they were not good. Now he brings us Marky Mark, Tyrese, Andre 3000 and a white kid that is sure to be the first character to die in Four Brothers, also featuring the raising star that is Terrence Howard.

The movie opens with a robbery of a grocery store in Detroit. The store clerk gets killed, and a sweet old lady that was there is killed too. The title characters are the sons of the old lady in question and so they come back to the city for her funeral, and soon find out that it wasn't an accident that their mom was killed. They also know that the cops won't be any help, so they take it into their own hands to avenge their mother's death.
In case you didn't realize yet, Mark Wahlberg and Garrett Hedlund are white, and Tyrese and Andre Benjamin are black, but yes they are brothers, as they were adopted by Evelyn Mercer (played by Fionnula Flanagan) when they were kids. She used to run a foster home, but these 4 kids were very problematic, and so nobody ever took them, so she did. Still, they grew up to be very tough and near criminals, but not as bad as they would've been without her.

When they start investigating their mom's death, they find out that one of them may have been involved in it, as well as the mob led by Chiwetel Ejiofor's super badass Victor Sweet. They don't care who they are facing though, they just want to kill them, and they do.
Eliofor is terrific in the role. A real motherfucker who everybody is afraid of, and the littlest mistake can get you eating food from the floor, and killed of course.
Bobby Mercer is the coolest and toughest guy and he's not afraid of anybody, and Wahlberg pulls it off perfectly with great charisma and leadership. He never gets any respect but he's a great actor and definitely the best here.
Tyrese is Angel, the joker of the group and also the ladies man. Sofia Vergara plays his love interest but she's very annoying most of the time, and thumbs down to her for not even showing her breasts.
Garrett Hedlund, who was previously seen last year in Troy and Friday Night Lights, the younger brother who they all protect. His Jack Mercer gets little to do compared with his brothers but he does his part very well.
Finally Andre Benjamin from Outkast plays Jeremiah, the older and wiser brother. He's the voice of reason in the group, mostly because he has a family of his own to protect and he can't be running around killing people like his siblings. After a small role in Be Cool early this year, this is Andre's first showings of an acting range, and he delivers.
Terrence Howard plays the good cop in the movie. The part is very small and he's good in it.

John Singleton gives us very great and real looking gunfights, with lots of bullets and blood and it's great. There's also a very cool chase scene in the middle of the night on a snowy road that is very well done. And the playful relationships between the brothers is played off great here. Singleton also pulled it off in 2 Fast 2 Furious between Tyrese and Paul Walker.
Four Brothers is not a big movie and is not a classic or anything like that, but is very cool and definitely a good movie.

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Rob Schneider is not for everybody. You either love his movies or hate them, I think they're genius. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was his first big movie after SNL and funny cameos in various movies, and then came classics like The Animal and The Hot Chick. Yes, classics and I'm not joking. Deuce rocked. It was really funny, and it had heart. And that's the problem with Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, it's funny and gross, but the man-whore does not care for the women as much as in the original, and his solution to their problems is always a boob job.

The he-bitch is once again played by Schneider who's getting old (he's going to be 42 this year) and it shows. He doesn't have the same energy as before but he's still funny. Eddie Griffin is also back as TJ Hicks the pimp playing a bigger role now in the sequel. He's in Amsterdam this time, where prostitution is legal, and so he owns a floating pimp house where he conducts his business.
Deuce is in America, and he's a widow now after his wife was eaten by a shark, and so all he has left is her orthopedic leg. After some trouble though, he ends up going to Europe to visit TJ and that's when bigger problems start as the prostidudes of the old country as being killed one by one by a mysterious assassin known as The Man-Whore Killer. TJ is being accused of being the murderer (and of being gay too, which he's more concerned about) so it's up to Deuce to find out who the real killer is. The only way to do it is by using Diego Verga's (the last man-whore killed) journal, and visit the women he was seeing to try to find out if one of them is the killer. The clientele includes the Big Ear Girl, a huge woman, and Katrina, who was in a accident where her brother was killed in and she lost her nose. Her brother's only living organ was put in place of her nose and now it erects if she gets excited. Truly one of the funniest and grotesque jokes I've ever seen. It was awesome. There's also the Girl with a Hole in her Throat which is really a problem she smokes or drinks.
Besides all that there's the other he-hos, a whole secret society of them actually. They are all friends and don't like Deuce or TJ. They're also very scared of the Man-Whore Killer but that doesn't stop them from moving forward with the 73rd Annual Man-Whore Awards which serve as the climax for the movie.

Rob is funny, the women are crazy ugly with the very hot one of course too who ends up with Deuce. This time is Eva (played by Belgian beauty Hanna Verboom), a girl with around 130 obsessive compulsive problems. Griffin also brings some very funny moments, and the walking failure that is Norm Macdonald too playing one of the European gigolos.
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is not as good as the first one, but is still funny, and with man-whore names like Heinz Hummer, Enzo Giarraputo and Mariolis Assapopoulos, and the so many offered services they provide like the Mongolian Sticky Bun, the Portuguese Breakfast and the Turkish Snow Cone, this comedy doesn't miss, unless you don't like Rob.

The Dukes of Hazzard

Welcome to Hazzard County, GA, where hillbilly cousins Bo (Sean William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) drive their '69 Dodge Charger as fast as they can always running from the law and getting women. Well, at least Luke because Bo seems more in love with the General Lee as they call the car than with anybody else. They also sell moonshine for their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), and that's what mostly gives them trouble with the authorities led by Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (M.C. Gainey) and the town's commissioner Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds).
There's also Daisy (Jessica Simpson), their beautiful long legged, short shorts wearing cousin, who must use her sex appeal to get them out of trouble all the time.
These are The Dukes of Hazzard, based on the '80s sitcom of the same name, a very entertaining movie that much like The Longest Yard remake earlier this year (which also featured Reynolds), succeeds in the fun department, but it'll be gone from our memories in no time. In fact, I watched this one a week ago and I've already forgotten some stuff.

What I do remember is Jessica Simpson's body, she's super hot of course, but her acting is not. It's a very small part, it even looks as if it's been shortened or something because she's really in just a handful of scenes. And while she does look good, her accent is way too exaggerated, and she's from the south, so I don't know why she 'acted' the accent instead of talking as she always does. And Daisy is supposed to be the girl next door, but Jessica wears so much make up that it hurts the part.
Knoxville is very good as Luke, though there's not much development for the character, as the movie puts more focus on Scott's Bo, who besides loving his car loves to race. He's been winning the town's rally for 4 years straight now, and winning the upcoming 5th would be a record. He's also star struck when local star and current NASCAR champion Billy Prickett (played by James Roday) comes back to town to compete in the rally too. It's a very good performance by Scott and he's the only one you can care for in the movie.
Another funny character is Cooter (played by Anchorman's David Koechner), the town's mechanic who fixes the General Lee and leaves him like new all the time.
There's also Kevin Heffernan who plays Sheev, the town's idiot who thinks someone is watching them and there's a conspiracy everywhere. Another funny performance there by the Broken Lizzard member.

Speaking of which, all Broken Lizzard members make an appearance in the movie, small roles though, with one of them, Jay Chandrasekhar directing the movie. The music is also good in the movie (except for Jessica's awful cover of Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walkin').
There's a could taken as offensive scene in which the boys go to Atlanta (though it's nothing like it cause the movie was filmed in Louisiana) and after a wrong turn face a gang of black men who attacks them after noting the Confederate Flag on top of the General Lee. The cops arrive but they're black too so they end up in jail.

Overall, The Dukes of Hazzard is a very dumb, but fun movie, good only to waste time watching cars jumping onto highways and crushing other cars, and to watch Jessica in a bikini. There's a scene in a college the boys visit that is fun, though as with the whole movie, it would've been much better if it were rated R. Oh well, there's hope for the DVD.

Red Eye

Wes Craven leaves the horror genre behind to make Red Eye, a small thriller with a couple of sure to be big actors and just a few locations too. There are no boring parts in the 85 minutes of the movie and it sounds short, but is just enough to keep you entertained the whole time.

My favorite actress at the moment Rachel McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a young hotel manager currently in Dallas, TX for her grandmother's funeral. She's going back home to Miami where her divorced father Joe (Brian Cox) lives. While in line to board the plane she meets Jackson Rippner played by Cillian Murphy, a young and charming man with whom she makes an instant connection. The plane gets delayed and they learn the airline has arranged for them to take the Red Eye a little bit later, so Jackson goes for a drink at the airport's bar and after some hesitation she follows. They talk and drink, some sparks fly, and then they're called to board the plane. Lisa finds her seat and it turns out that Jackson is seated right next to her.
It could've been the beginning of a beautiful relationship, only that a few minutes later Jackson reveals why he's really there. He's been following her for weeks as he's part of plot to kill the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, who's that day going to stay at Lisa's hotel as always and so they need Lisa to make the arrangements to change his room (she's the only one who can do it) so they can have an easier target. If she refuses to help, there's a killer outside her father's house waiting for Jackson's call to kill him.

Nothing big happens that threatens the entire plane or anything like that, instead, we get a cat and mouse game as Lisa delays the plane call to make the arrangements and also tries to find a way to let somebody know what's going on without Jackson knowing, though he's very smart and always messes up her attempts.

Very good work by Wes Craven here keeping us on the edge at all times and great performances by Rachel who looks beautiful and it seems that she had very little makeup, and Cillian which is pronounced Killian, probably because he's British. The rest of the small cast is good too from Brian Cox to Jayma Mays who plays Cynthia the Assistant Manager at the hotel. There's also a very small part for Survivor's Colby Donaldson who plays a Secret Service Agent in charge of the Deputy Secretary and his family.

With likeable actors playing likeable characters (even though one of them is a killer) and a smart script where there are no classic stupid teens in danger hiding in the wrong places and always taking the worst decisions, Red Eye is a very good movie making the great comeback that Wes Craven should've had instead of that piece of shit he made earlier this year.

Broken Flowers

Bill Murray stars in Jim Jarmusch's artistic and very quite Broken Flowers, about Don Johnston, a retired man who, right after his girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) leaves him, receives a pink letter from a former flame telling him that he has a son she raised all by herself, but now he's 19 and he left home maybe in search of his father. The letter is anonymous though, and so Don, after getting convinced by his neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), embarks in an adventure to his past to find the women he was with 20 years ago in search of the mother of his possible son.

Jarmusch's films are the love or hate type. Coffee & Cigarettes was good, though it was more interesting to see all those actors and singers interact than what they were actually talking about. I liked it, most of it. Now Broken Flowers is more of a normal movie, with a normal plot and just one central character. There's a lot to like, or hate, depending on your mood when you see the movie.
The pace of the movie is very slow, mostly because of the transitions between scenes. The movie is 2 hours long, but there are around 25 minutes of Bill Murray just driving his car, looking at the street from his hotel's porch or even just staring at nothing sitting in his house. Those 25 minutes are not all at the same time of course but still, they feel like they're just there to fill the 2 hours. Or is just a very artistic style that didn't work at its fullest for me, but might for other considering that the movie won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes this year.

The acting is very good though, excellent actually. Or it could be taking as just sitting in front of a camera, because that happens a lot. I loved it, starting with Bill Murray's numb performance as Don, not Johnson, a recurrent joke in the movie. Murray looks very old here, but he's still great. Even when stuff is happening (his non-stop talking neighbor, a naked teen walking around him, dinner with one a former ex and her husband) all he does is be still and quite, but you can see him 'mind-acting' if you like, just moving his eyes a little bit maybe and you know he's giving an excellent performance. Is it award worthy? I don't know. I think that any more normal acted performance would beat him though we haven't had many this year except Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man.

The award worthy performance of the movie goes to Jeffrey Wright (from HBO's Angels in America). He plays Winston, Don's neighbor and a man with 3 jobs and big family. Still, he finds time to play Sherlock Holmes with the help of his beloved internet which still amuses him. And I say still because is set in today's world, though it has an early 90s feeling. And that we have not idea where it takes place doesn't help, as the letter Don receives shows his address as somewhere in a state abbreviated 'NT'.
But anyway, Winston loves to investigate stuff, whatever it is, and so he grabs the pink letter, asks Don to give him a list of his girlfriends from 20 years ago, and thanks to the magic of the internet he finds where they all are, and how to get to their houses. He also books hotels and cars and plane tickets. All Don has to do is go and show up at their houses with pink flowers, and look for clues (pink stationary or a typewriter with red ink like the letter) Winston tells him.
Winston is not very much in the movie, maybe 15 minutes tops, but Jeffrey Wright rules all that time. It's a comedic performance but it feels so natural and real that is just perfect.

The women are all good though they are there just for a couple of minutes as the movie is all Murray really.
Sharon Stone plays Laura, Don's first stop. She's recent widow after her car racing husband died in a race some time ago. She lives with her daughter Lolita (Alexis Dziena), the aforementioned naked teen who flirts a lot with Don when they are waiting for her mom to get home. After Laura comes Frances Conroy as Dora, a real estate agent living happily married to her husband Ron (Christopher McDonald) who is also a real estate agent. Third is Jessica Lange as Carmen, an animal communicator who is also married now, but may be having a lesbian relation with her assistant (Chloe Sevigny). And finally comes Tilda Swinton as Penny, the only one who still hates him even though it was her that left him.
I shouldn't say finally though because Don makes one final stop to cemetery where his fifth girlfriend from that time is buried as she died a few years ago.

*SPOILERS*
Don never asks if she's the one that sent him the letter, he just looks for clues, mostly pink stuff, and they all have something that Winston would say it was her. Penny has a pink typewriter though, and she screams when he asks her if she ever had a son. But Dora has pink stationary in her business cards, it could've also been her. I don't think it was Laura or Carmen.
After Don comes back, he receives another pink letter, different envelope size notes Winston, though he would like to investigate the writing to see if it matches the original letter. This letter is not anonymous though, it's from Sherry, telling him that she still likes him if he wants to try again. And this opens a new possibility, as the first letter might have been an attempt from Sherry to shake him up, and there's no son at all.
But then there's an encounter with a traveling kid in search of something, it could be the son, but Don just scares him away when he acts fatherly without even knowing if its him or not. And just as the kid runs away from Don we see this other kid who passes by in a car and stares at Don. It could also be him only that we'll never know, because that's when the movie ends.
Broken Flowers makes us care for Don's quest but then it leaves us not knowing anything at all. It's not for everybody, and I was not sure how I felt about it at first. It's slow, mostly uneventful, and again, very quite. It's beautiful.