Director: Nisha Ganatra
A solid comedy with a strong cast, even if it is one that is fairly predictable.
Emma Thompson plays Katherine Newbury, a late night talk show host who, while an icon of immense achievement, has seen her popularity and relevance fade for about a decade. When word comes down that her show will be cancelled after the current season, Newbury and her all-male writing staff go scrambling for solutions. Newbury's knee-jerk is to hire a female writer, quickly tapping Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), a motivated and aspiring but vastly inexperienced young woman who has been working in a factory. Despite her lack of writing chops, Patel has enough new ideas to inject a bit of life into Newbury's late show.
Late Night is a decent enough dramedy, even if it doesn't offer many surprises in terms of overall plot, character development, or interpersonal dynamics. It does, however, offer the requisite amount of laughs, which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the charming Kaling and the immensely versatile Thompson. These two, along with nearly all of the supporting cast, wring the most from the script (written by Kaling) - a script which has some good comic moments but also has its share of somewhat flat or predictable gags.
The overall themes are what one might expect, with the primary focus being on empowering women. Fortunately, this element is never too heavy-handed, despite it clearly being a subject that Kaling wanted to address. There are a few secondary stories, such as the obligatory slow-burn love interest tales (which are actually done well) and a marital strife tale involving Newbury and her terminally ill husband (John Lithgow) that never fully materializes completely.
I don't know that I'll ever feel the urge to watch this movie again, but it was fun enough. Fans of Thompson or Kaling will enjoy themselves, even if this is hardly a life-changing work of cinema.
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Rather disappointing, but not a completely unexpected letdown.
As a fan of Jim Jarmusch, it was very easy to get excited about the prospect of a comedy zombie movie starring Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, and a slew of other great actors. Jarmusch has written and directed some wonderfully unique and stylish films which I absolutely love, but he's also made a few which did not resonate with me at all. And when I saw the rather lukewarm reviews pour in, I wasn't stunned that The Dead Don't Die fell far short of what I consider his very best films.
The story is set in the fictional town of Centerville, where local sheriff Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and his two deputies Ronnie and Mindy (Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny) start seeing bizarre murders and other grisly behavior in their otherwise sleepy town. As they try to deal with the increasing death toll, it becomes clear that the earth is being overrun by a global rise of zombies. The three officers try to deal with the horror the best that three easy-going, small-town cops can.
I'll give Jarmusch credit for taking some big, off-beat swings in this movie. Attempting to present a zombie apocalypse in such a slow, lazy way is certainly a different approach. And it's actually charming in moments. But there are times when is really just drags with overly long, repetitive gags and just a tad too little happening at certain moments. There's also the character of Zelda Winston (Tilda Swinton), the oddball mortician in town whose little tale begins as highly intriguing and then ends in a turn so bizarre as to feel like a cop out.
At the other end of the creative spectrum is Jarmusch's unispired choice to have Adam Driver's character go completely "meta" by making references to the "theme song" and the "script" of the movie. Such things were funny back when they were fresh - many decades ago - but it ceased being funny long ago. Maybe if Jarmusch had done something novel with the gag, it would have worked better, but he didn't do anything with the idea. It was one of several elements that hinted at bigger, funnier, and more creative developments which never emerge.
It's obvious that I was underwhelmed by this movie. Still, it had some laughs, and it never takes itself very seriously. That helps, to be sure, even if it doesn't much redeem the film. Fans of any of the actors or of zombie flicks will certainly find a few things to like about it. Just don't expect any consistency or anything particularly ground-breaking here. I still love Jarmusch, but this won't go down as one of my favorites of his.
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