One Word Movie

The Squid and the Whale

Poor old Bill Murray, he is trapped into a nightmarish situation where he must continually remake Rushmore. Unlike Groundhog Day, I think he started off enjoying it, but it must be getting quite tired by now, especially when he made The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, his 493rd remake of Rushmore in the space of 6 years. Unfortunately this peeved tiredness probably added another layer of authenticity to the role, and Murray's protests were misinterpreted as merely laudable.

So, Murray adopted a new tack with The Squid and the Whale. He signed up to be in it, but after Rushmore remake #494 (Dead Flowers) he decided he could not take any more goddamnit, so he didn't make the picture. Which gives us Rushmore remake #495, only without Bill Murray in it. Jeff Daniels takes the Bill Murray role, and he is very good. There is a Baldwin in it too, and a funny tennis fixation like in The Royal Tennenbaums.

The film is good, and I enjoyed it. I was ready to feel radically uncomfortable, because it's very similar to a lot of things that happened in my life in the 80s. And his parents got divorced in New York, whereas mine got divorced in Charlton, his fucking divorce was a lot more cooler than mine. But I really liked it because all the people were really horrible, so you could laugh at them. And there were loads of moments where you just squirmed at how terrible an arsehold the people were being. So when I got out of the movie my divorce envy had totally evaporated, which was nice.

I think the next stage for Bill Murray will be for him to appear in a ninja-assasin movie, that's the only way to stop Rushmore becoming the viral mastertext of Western Civilisation, with Wes Anderson as its Bertrand Russell.

I am sorry I have not been blogging by the way, I have turned into a jock.

posted by Chairman Peyote @ 1:33 PM