Broken Flowers

the new Jim Jarmusch movie, starring Bill Murray, is good, with a necessarily unsatisfying ending. Also good is the soundtrack with Holly Golightly and cool 60's-sounding Ethiopian jazz-rock.

I also liked Hustle and Flow which is a perfectly-made film in the mode of the old Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let's put on a show!" movies, except it's about a pimp/drug-dealer who raps (Beat that Bitch? No, people might not like that. Slap that Ho? No, I don't think so. How 'bout Whoop that Trick? Perfect!) The guy who plays the lead is incredible. I've read reviews that complained about misogyny (sometimes on the part of the pimp, which shouldn't be surprising, but also on the part of the filmmaker), but they're poor, uneducated women who are doing their best to live with what means they have, and they're mostly pretty complicated characters. They're not just dumb hos. The movie is almost cheesily perfect, in creating and releasing tension,and pulling the old heartstrings, but it works really well. I'm not such a big fan of that soundtrack, though I did chant "Whoop that trick--Get 'im!" as I left the theater.

I like Taxi Driver a lot too. And also All the President's Men and The Candidate and Three Days of the Condor and I suspect anything else that Robert Redford has ever been in.

Blogger's spellcheck doesn't know "Jarmusch," "Ethiopian" or "Condor."