The Dead Don't Die (Jim Jarmusch, 2019)

Bill Murray and Adam Driver in The Dead Don't Die

Cast: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tom Waits, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swinton, Eszter Balint, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Larry Fessenden, Maya Delmont, Rosie Perez, Carol Kane, Iggy Pop, Selena Gomez, RZA. Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch. Cinematography: Frederick Elmes. Production design: Alex DiGerlando. Film editing: Affonso Gonçalves. Music: Sqürl.

I suppose that having made a vampire movie, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Jim Jarmusch may have felt he had to make a zombie movie, but I wish he hadn't. The Dead Don't Die might have become a cult film if there weren't so many good Jarmusch films to choose from: It has all the earmarks of a guilty pleasure movie, like cheeky dialogue and a trendy horror movie trope, the zombie apocalypse. And I have to admit that it's not as bad as most of the zombie fare, and that it's not even Jarmusch's worst film -- I'd have to rank it above The Limits of Control (2009) for that dubious distinction. But there's something dispirited about it, a feeling that having latched onto the idea for the movie, Jarmusch grew bored with it. That reflects itself in the gimmick that gradually creeps into the film: that the cops Cliff (Bill Murray) and Ronnie (Adam Driver) know they're in a movie. It first surfaces when the song "The Dead Don't Die" keeps reappearing on the radio and Ronnie refers to it as "the theme song." Then, in the middle of some byplay between the two of them, Cliff asks, "What, are we improvising here?" And eventually, after Ronnie says, "Oh man, this isn't gonna end well" one time too many, Cliff objects, and Ronnie admits that he's read the script. Cliff is incredulous: "Jim only gave me the scenes I appear in," he fumes. These "meta" moments are amusing, but they counter any involvement a viewer might have in the fates of the characters, predictable as the genre makes them. Still, I liked some things in the film, especially Tilda Swinton's eerie undertaker, who speaks with a Scottish accent and wields a mean samurai sword. I still think Jarmusch is a wonderful writer-director -- Paterson (2016) was clear evidence that he hasn't lost his touch -- when he's got the right subject in mind, but I think he needs to edit himself more, and not just make movies when an idea strikes his fancy.

Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018)

Tessa Thompson and Lakeith Stanfield in Sorry to Bother You

Cassius Green: Lakeith Stanfield
Detroit: Tessa Thompson
Salvador: Jermaine Fowler
Mr. ______: Omari Hardwick
Sergio: Terry Crews
Diana DeBauchery: Kate Berlant
Johnny: Michael X. Sommers
Langston: Danny Glover
Squeeze: Steven Yeun
Steve Lift: Armie Hammer

Director: Boots Riley
Screenplay: Boots Riley
Cinematography: Doug Emmett
Production design: Jason Kisvarday
Film editing: Terel Gibson
Music: The Coup, Merrill Garbus, Boots Riley, Tune-Yards

Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You inevitably got compared to Jordan Peele's 2017 hit Get Out because both were satiric fantasies with sci-fi overtones made by black filmmakers with black stars. But while Get Out was a direct confrontation with racism, Riley's film seems more concerned with adding race to the mix of an assault on capitalist exploitation of all working people, regardless of race. It's a scathing but funny look at economic inequality and the illusion that upward mobility remains possible. The setting is, appropriately, Oakland, where the high and low of economic status can be glimpsed in the very geography. What keeps the film from descending into angry agitprop is Riley's anarchic wit -- you never know what improbable means he will use, from puppets to horse people, to keep you off balance. There are bad jokes -- a character named Diana DeBauchery, pronounced "de beau cheri" -- and near-subliminal puns -- the central character, played with finesse by Lakeith Stanfield, is Cassius Green, i.e., "cash is green." Armie Hammer's slick megacapitalist is named Steve Lift, an almost perfect evocation of the celebrity CEOs of our time, like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Some critics have voiced disappointment that Riley's satire starts out in something so old-hat and so frequently satirized as telemarketing, but in his hands it becomes a good vehicle for debunking the myth of upward mobility, as Cassius finds himself almost shoved up the ladder, betraying his old co-workers despite his better intentions. Sorry to Bother You goes out of focus sometimes, and there's really nowhere for what plot the film has to go at the end, but an enormously skilled cast and some very incisive jokes keep the energy high.

Saw (James Wan, 2004)

Ned Bellamy and Danny Glover in Saw

Adam Faulkner-Stanheight: Leigh Whannell
Dr. Lawrence Gordon: Cary Elwes
Det. David Tapp: Danny Glover
Det. Steven Sing: Ken Leung
Kerry: Dina Meyer
Paul: Mike Butters
Mark: Paul Gutrecht
Zep Hindle: Michael Emerson
Brett: Benito Martinez
Amanda: Shawnee Smith
Diana Gordon: Makenzie Vega
Alison Gordon: Monica Potter
Jeff: Ned Bellamy
Jigsaw: Tobin Bell

Director: James Wan
Screenplay: Leigh Whannell, James Wan
Cinematography: David A. Armstrong
Production design: Julie Berghoff
Film editing: Kevin Greutert
Music: Charlie Clouser

My daughter was shocked to see James Wan's Saw in the DVR queue, but hey, a movie-watcher can't just limit himself to Rossellini and Renoir. So when I saw this coming up on the schedule, I decided to record it. After all, it's a prime example of an independent filmmaker's breakthrough into success and of a trend in horror movies, spawning numerous sequels. So what if it does have a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? There were actually some reputable critics like David Edelstein and Owen Gleiberman who reviewed it favorably. And anyway, film critics are typically hard on genre pictures. So maybe I'd like it. I'm not averse to horror: I watch Hannibal and Penny Dreadful on TV, and anyway, I know all that blood is corn syrup and food coloring. The truth is, however, that Saw is neither as good as I'd hoped nor as bad as I feared. The central plight -- two men trapped in a grungy bathroom, one tasked with killing the other in order to spare the lives of his wife and daughter -- is a compelling one, much better than those old teenagers-who-must-die-because-they-have-sex slasher movie plots. Gradually, with the help of good actors like Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, and Michael Emerson, the plot thickens. But then it goes haywire: Screenwriter Leigh Whannell (who plays one of the trapped men) and director Wan seem to think that if one plot twist is good, then half a dozen will be great. The result instead is incoherence, and the ending is such an obvious attempt to provide an opportunity for sequels that it feels like a cheat. It's also a measure of how far we've gone in 11 years, too, that the violence seems tamer than what's routinely presented on even commercial television, where the serial killer has become a weary character trope. The only characters for whom I felt much empathy were the bound-and-gagged wife and child played by Monica Potter and Makenzie Vega, clinging together in terror. I'm always uneasy when I see children performing in films that they should under no circumstances be allowed to watch. On the other hand, it seems to have done Vega, who made Saw when she was 10 years old, no great harm: She now has a recurring role on the TV series The Good Wife.