SOMEWHERE Doesn't Go Anywhere

SOMEWHERE (Dir. Sofia Coppola, 2010)

"And I thought my life was meaningless!" - Moviegoer overheard coming out of this movie at the Colony Theater opening weekend.

Pampered movie star Stephen Dorff spends his days partying at the famous Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles nursing a broken arm after an unspecified on set stunt.

Dorff lays in bed drunk watching blonde twins poll dance in his hotel room, he drives a race car around a track over and over, he picks up various women; basically he is spiritually wasting away between press junkets.

Then his daughter (Elle Fanning) shows up and his life has meaning. Fanning is a precocious ballet dancing beauty whose face lights up when she sees her father – even though he’s obviously adrift.

There isn’t much of a plot beyond that. Dorff and Fanning drift along together though scenes of sunbathing at the hotel’s pool, playing the video game Rock Band, attending an Italian awards ceremony, and, well, just killing time.

As many of these scenes are without dialogue and have no tension, it’s easy to get lost in, and maybe be lured to sleep by, the spacey imagery.

Dorff plays a familiar yet uncompelling character - a bad boy actor slowly going to seed. At one point he has heavy makeup applied to his head for a shoot and he sits there motionless as the camera slowly pulls closer.

He has little reaction to seeing the finished old man makeup in the mirror in the next shot. It’s just another weird day as an actor in Hollywood.

I had little reaction myself to this movie. I got that Dorff is going through the motions, and that the film is an existential exercise, but unlike Coppolla’s LOST IN TRANSLATION which dealt with a similar situation (i.e. a movie star’s meaningless lifestyle) there’s barely anything to latch onto.

SOMEWHERE doesn’t go anywhere, and, but I know that’s probably the point.

Coppola has an arresting visual sensibility and definitely great taste in music (French alt rockers Phoenix provides the score with tracks by Bryan Ferry, T-Rex, The Strokes, and the Foo Fighters filling out the soundtrack), but the overall empty ambience just sits there.

What there is to take away from this airy tale of a celebrity and his offspring hanging out I really can’t figure. That it’s a very pretty yet unbearably dull experience is all I can muster.

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Former Comedy Superstar Bill Murray Now Hides Out In Indie Films

If you grew up in the ‘70s you most likely know Bill Murray from his 4 year stint on Saturday Night Live.

Murray came on the innovative late night program to replace breakout star Chevy Chase and took a bit to find his place among the “Not Ready For Prime Time Players”, but gradually got a groove going with such popular recurring characters as Nick the lounge singer, the “showbiz reporter” on Weekend Update, and the teenage Todd DiLaBounta– one of the most notable nerds in television history.

If you grew up in the ‘80s you probably know Bill Murray as a comedy movie superstar in such instant classics as CADDYSHACK, STRIPES, GHOST BUSTERS and SCROOGED. In an un-credited cameo he even stole TOOTSIE away from Dustin Hoffman and the rest of the extremely talented cast – such was his comic reign at the time.

If you came to Murray in the early ‘90s you got a puffier even smarmier incarnation of the former SNL schmoozer – this worked like a charm in such films as WHAT ABOUT BOB?, GROUNDHOG DAY, and his only directorial effort QUICK CHANGE, but not so much in such forgettable mediocre work as LARGER THAN LIFE (pair Murray with an elephant and wait for the laughs!) and THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE.

Since the 90's Murray has been in an era in which, with a few glaring exceptions (CHARLIE'S ANGELS, GARFIELD and its sequel, various cameos, etc.), he has eschewed major studio work and worked mainly with directors such as Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, and Sofia Coppola whose LOST ON TRANSLATION earned Murray his only Academy Award nomination.

This anti-big budget blockbuster stance was noted by Roger Ebert In his review of Jarmusch’s THE LIMITS OF CONTROL last year. Ebert remarked that Murray “is appearing so frequently in such films I think it is time for him to star in a smutty action comedy.”

It’s telling that Murray has dismissed talk of GHOSTBUSTERS 3 as “a bunch of crock” because he seems happy where he is now – in small budget indie films like GET LOW which opens this Friday in Raleigh at the Rialto Theater.

In a cameo as himself in another Jarmusch film, COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2004), Murray is recognized by rappers GZA and RZA of the Wu Tang Clan working as a waiter in a dive diner. RZA: “You’re Bill Murray – Bill-Groundhog-Day-Ghost-bustin’-ass Murray!”

Murray replies: “I know that, just don’t tell anybody.”

Seems pretty clear doesn’t it? Murray would rather hide out in the art houses these days than headline at the multiplex. He’s been there, done that.

Back during his post SNL movie star heyday (i.e. the early ‘80s), Murray already had different notions about what to do with his career than what audiences and studios expected.

Murray only did GHOST BUSTERS on the condition that his dream project – an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel THE RAZOR'S EDGE would be made in exchange by Columbia Pictures. The film, featuring Murray’s first dramatic performance, flopped and the actor took 4 years off from show business and retreated to France. His only appearance during this time being a brief cameo in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986).

Another more recent cameo in a major studio picture occurred in last year’s ZOMBIELAND. Murray appeared as himself – albeit disguised as a zombie version of himself for the purposes of warding off real zombies.

He’s accidentally shot by a scared Jesse Eisenberg with a rifle and is asked as he’s dying if he has any regrets.

He ponders the question: “‘Garfield’ maybe.”

In a recently published interview in GQ Murray reveals that the regret actually came from taking the role of Garfield because of a misunderstanding that Joel Coen had co-written the screenplay. Even in such expensively CGI saturated studio circumstances, Murray was looking for indie cred.

However, in that same interview Murray does say: “I want to go make a comedy like the ones I used to like to make. And…well, I think I can do it. I think I probably should direct one, too.”

Until that happens though, we’ll know where to find him – hiding out at the local art house theater away from the mainstream and pleased as punch at the prospects.

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