p e n g u i n d e v i l

I do not have a lot of chances to go “out”. I have limited time during the week, limited baby sitter options, and limited wherewithal to arrange anything. That said, last month I did the arranging and actually went out to see a movie. A movie that I didn’t know much about, but had seen the preview and it looked rather entertaining… The Dead Don’t Die.



Heading into it was a bit of a mixed bag. Of course, Zombie comedies are a mixed bag on their own… Most are bad, but Shaun of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead are timeless classics, so there is certainly potential.

And I don’t really like Jarmusch’s movies. The ones that I’ve seen (Down By Law, Mystery Train, Night On Earth, Coffee and Cigarettes) have basically felt like boring movies that have a few interesting scenes (most notable was the unexpected thrill of seeing Screaming Jay Hawkins show up in Mystery Train). Coffee and Cigarettes would be the only one that I would have an interest in re-watching. So I wasn’t exactly excited about it being a Jarmusch movie, but I figured that might make for an interesting zombie movie.

Anyway, so this movie… It stars Bill Murray (who I love but who has been known to do some questionable things), Adam Driver (who I only know as Kylo Ren and was interested in seeing him do something else), Chloe Sevigny (who I generally like and respect her typical take no crap attitude), and a number of other people of merit who I assume are doing this just for kicks (Danny Glover, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swinton, Iggy Pop, RZA, etc etc). I enjoyed Adam Driver’s dry frankness, Bill Murray was fine as Bill Murray, and I liked RZA’s Wu-dropping appearance as a delivery driver.

But, beyond that, it was rather annoying. Way way too much breaking the forth wall (in ways that felt dull, trite, and totally unneeded), Chloe’s girlie girl role was too girlie girl for Chloe to play (it just came off as insulting or a weird joke), Tilda Swinton seemed as if she was just here passing time between takes in some other movie (through she was pretty refreshing at times compared to many of the others), Iggy Pop’s parts were silly, Tom Waits part is, sadly, forgettable. A lot of the “angle” was overly contrived and got a bit hard to bear at times. Obviously it is intended as a political and social satire, but that is made way too obvious. Yes, Jim… We get it… Over and over again. People are robots, society is stupid and trite, politics is a ridiculous scam. Yes, thanks. Anyway, just not my cup of tea… I think I would have preferred it as a 20 minute short.