Broken Flowers
According to Bill Murray, he considered retiring after doing this film because he felt that it was the best acting performance he could ever give.,As can be evidenced by the symbols on the airport signs (the letters A, B, and C, individually, are in the center of rounded triangles, designating sections of the airport) Newark Airport (NJ) was used for each of the airport scenes, although Murray's character was supposedly going to many different places in the US.,Don Johnston: [to Lolita] That was quite an outfit you weren't wearing earlier.,Unusually, bit part players with no spoken lines in this movie are listed in the credits. Normally only speaking parts are listed.,Featured in Siskel & Ebert: The Island/November/Last Days/The Devil's Rejects/Hustle & Flow (2005),There is an End
Written by Craig James Fox
Performed by The Greenhornes with Holly Golightly
Appears on the CD/LP 'Dual Mono'
Released by Telstar Records, Hoboken, NJ,Broken Flowers is a departure for Jim Jarmusch, and not an altogether successful one. This film is decidedly more mainstream than anything Jarmusch has directed before. He inserts product from mapquest.com, Sharp, and Ford Taurus; shoots in color; and writes a character being admonished for smoking for starters. This isn't as radical a shift to mainstream as George Lucas going from THX-1138 to Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. It's more like the Cohen brothers going from Blood Simple to Intolerable Cruelty.

Broken Flowers is highly structured and deliberately paced (i.e. slow), with an episodic format. Murray's character, Don Johnston, tries to reveal the identity of the woman who alerts him to the existence of his son, awkwardly reuniting with a succession of old flames. Murray's portrayal is fun to watch, and Sharon Stone is still magically delicious. The film has interesting things to say about the suburbs, the path not taken, bachelorhood, and the banality of travel. But it says little and hardly engages. It is the Odyssey with no reason to return home.,