Mar. 26, 2004 - 4:16 pm
as Colin and i flipped through my book "Movies of the '90s," we saw images of this film and instantly decided that we had to see it. we basically knew that it was a Johnny Depp film directed by Jim Jarmusch and that it was to some degree a western. it turned out to be a pretty good film in some aspects.
of course, since it's a Jim Jarmusch film it's somewhat odd to begin with. like i told Colin, the director just sees the world differently than most people, so his films have an unusual feel to them.
this one is about a young accountant named William Blake who comes to a western town in order to get a job. he quickly gets caught up in a murder accusation and has to run into the woods to keep from being killed. there's a question though as to whether he might already be dead though because he has a bullet in his chest that keeps making him bleed and the indian (named Nobody) that takes care of him thinks that he is the resurrected spirit of the famous English poet also named William Blake. William is definitely different after his near death experience though and begins to find that he is no longer ordinary and that his distaste for bloodshed no longer exists.
yeah, i'll go along with this being referred to as "Jim Jarmusch's best film." i've liked his other stuff but this is the best one i've seen so far. it also had a lot of comedic aspects that i always forget that his films tend to incorporate. like Iggy Pop in a woman's dress and a bonnet reading from the Bible and being referred to as "Sally." then there's also this hilarious scene where a very grizzled Billy Bob Thornton gets shot in the foot, stands there for about 5 seconds, and then shouts "Good God I'm hit!"
one thing that sort of baffled us about the film is the fact that there are actually quite a large number of actors in the film that were featured in one or the other of the Alien films. these included: Lance Henriksen, Michael Wincott, and John Hurt. weird. each one was in 1 of the 4 Alien films. no, wait...actually Lance Henriksen was in both Aliens (1986) and Alien 3 (1992).
one thing that slightly added but also slightly detracted from my enjoyment of the film at various parts was the incessant guitar picking/strumming of Neil Young as the soundtrack to the film. i absolutely swear that he was doing something with the guitar for every minute of the film. it was more abstract sounds and random notes than actual songs, but it just went on for the entire two hours. sometimes good but sometimes awful. if i had to directly look at Neil Young or think about him all of the time i know i would have hated it. because i hate Neil Young.
very good film though other than its few flaws.