I was going to post this when news first broke that one of my favorite filmmakers, Jim Jarmusch was going to make an off-beat zombie movie. When I ran the news past Uncle Tim, he emailed me:
A Jarmusch zombie movie somehow sounds desperate to me. Of course, since much of the style of acting he prefers in his movies always struck me as zombie-like, perhaps this was simply a logical progression. When I was a kid, I always found zombies creepy but distinctly un-scarey. After all, they were so slow and physically handicapped, they couldn't catch anyone they chased, and in any event, didn't do anything bad to you if they did. It was George Romero who changed the entire genre. The zombies were still creepy, but now they were lethal and cannibalistic. The zombie-movie has gone from absurd to ludicrous without even brushing up against interesting. But, since apocalyptic horror, thoroughly peppered with blood, inchoate violence, and gratuitous helpings of viscera has become hugely popular and profitable, why shouldn't Jarmusch join the sanguine parade?
Fair points. But now, we have a trailer! It’s funner than his other two off-beat “genre” films, Ghost Dog (1999) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013).
I’m in. Surely this is going to have awkward moments and hit-and-miss humor. But has Jim Jarmusch ever made a bad movie? No. Are his movies super fun? Hell yes. And while now, decades after Ghost Dog, Coffee & Cigarettes and Stranger Than Paradise, all the cool actors want to star in a Jarmsuch film, it hasn’t made him any less cool. So I am in.