SIGN UP for the free Indie Focus movies newsletter ». Like other Jarmusch films, “The Dead Don’t Die,” which runs just over 100 minutes, makes a point of defying its genre’s expectations. The initial diner murders are committed by two zombies (Iggy Pop, Sara Driver) - undead characters who are less interested in flesh and more interested in coffee. Directed by iconic indie director Jim Jarmusch, the comedy touches upon timely social issues by exploring small-town drama during a zombie apocalypse, as police officers Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) investigate the murder of two people at a Centerville diner. The Dead Don't Die is as slow-paced and contemplative as Jarmusch's previous work, but it makes sense in light of the movie's feeling of impending doom (something Driver's character alludes to many times over, in one of the film's better running jokes). The MCU's Spider-Man Revealed His Origin Story On YouTube. There are fewer undecided voters in 2020 than there were in 2016. In limited theatrical release and available now on Netflix, “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese,” is exactly what that mouthful jumble of a title promises. We will have some more screening and Q&A events coming up soon. What’s playing at the drive-in: ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ and more. The premise of "The Dead Don't Die" is as basic as it gets. Driver laughs while recalling a particularly funny video Jarmusch sent him of actors in zombie makeup doing tai chi in a graveyard: “People were taking a break and somehow, someone started leading tai chi moves,” he says. It is 103 minutes long and is rated R for zombie violence/gore, and for language. Once the zombies start to outnumber the living, a voiceover sleepily muses on whether the undead brought the apocalypse upon themselves with their mindless consumption during their lives. Commercial radio goes in and out, except when a station plays Sturgill Simpson's "The Dead Don't Die," which, as Ronnie helpfully informs us, is the theme song of the film you're watching. It’s Bill Murray.”, Asked whom he had looked forward to working with the most, Driver immediately names Danny Glover, whose character owns a hardware store in town. If The Dead Don’t Die has a point of view on the whole matter of the apocalypse, it’s the one Ronnie utters several times: “This isn’t going to end well.” And what is he saying? In another film, Zelda might be a villain character; someone who is familiar with the dead and rebels against the living. The cast includes Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Cholë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton,Tom Waits, Selena Gomez and many more. Other Jarmusch favorites — Tom Waits, Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, RZA, Danny Glover and Rosie Perez — join Jarmusch newcomers Selena Gomez, Luka Sabbat, Caleb Landry Jones and Austin Butler in rounding out the cast. The Dead Don't Die is as slow-paced and contemplative as Jarmusch's previous work, but it makes sense in light of the movie's feeling of impending doom (something Driver's character alludes to many times over, in one of the film's better running jokes). She wrote back, enthusiastically accepting the part. In an early scene at the local diner, that cliched emblem of America's ideological crossroads, MAGA Frank unthinkingly insults Hank, a black man ("Keep America White Again," Frank's red cap reads) and although Hank shrugs it off, his weary expression confirms that this kind of thing has happened before. He leans extra-hard into self-awareness. This film is punk rock in slow-motion. Directed by Jim Jarmusch. But Sevigny and Driver couldn’t — and wouldn’t — have resisted the chance to work with the acclaimed indie filmmaker once more. Zombies take over the small town of Centerville (location unnamed, although the film was shot in upstate New York) and commence wandering the land they knew, repeating actions that once defined them, like swinging a tennis racket, or dragging a guitar or lawnmower around. They want, and they want, and they want. They're punk-rock harsh. I’m not hiding that, but that’s not the pure intention of the film. The Dead Don't Die dabbles with tones and themes to varying degrees of success, but sharp wit and a strong cast make … Still, both actors had some doubts. Cliff and Ronnie’s conversations highlight their apathetic acceptance of the doom that awaits us all. Hank Thompson (Danny Glover) locks himself in his hardware store with fellow local businessman Bobby Wiggins (Caleb Landry Jones), who sells pop culture memorabilia at his gas station, including posters for horror movies that Jarmusch probably saw five times in theaters. “Kill the head,” the characters often say in The Dead Don’t Die. "The Dead Don't Die" is far from Jarmusch's best, but there's something to be said for its zonked-out acceptance of extinction. How Chris Pratt became the internet’s least favorite Chris. If that makes sense. In The Dead Don’t Die, Bill Murray and an all-star ensemble wearily fight the zombie apocalypse, The new adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches is incredibly strange and almost offensively bad. Endorsement: The Times endorses Hoffman, Anderson, Henderson and Han for LACCD. She worried the squeamish Mindy Morrison “wasn’t that realized” and wondered how she would make her presence felt on screen, especially considering the towering presence of her male co-stars. ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ Every new film by Jim Jarmusch is a reason to get excited. A drifter named Hermit Bob (Tom Waits) lives in the woods and watches it all. Beyond that, The Dead Don't Die features an impressively eclectic supporting cast that includes Swinton in another memorably idiosyncratic turn, brief appearances by Carol Kane, RZA, Iggy Pop, and Selena Gomez, and character actors like Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, and Caleb Landry Jones playing Centerville's various residents (some more eccentric than others). . Jim Jarmusch's style is so singular and versatile that if you fall in love with it, as some of us did over 30 years ago with "Stranger than Paradise," you'll believe there's no such thing as a bad Jarmusch picture, because you'll judge each new film in relation to Jarmusch's best, not what anyone else might've theoretically done with the same material. The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. Instead of just hankering for brains, the zombies (Iggy Pop, Carol Kane and others) yearn for the petty obsessions of their past lives: “Xaaanax,” one creature moans; “WiiiFiii,” cries another. Zombie children loiter in a ruined candy store, muttering brand names like incantations. But between the two of you, I was very nervous going into this.”. But it’s best when Jarmusch is acknowledging, in that characteristically Jarmuschian way—half resigned, half jubilant—that the world of people, even with all their terrible flaws, is worth preserving.”, At Polygon, Karen Han wrote “There’s a tinge of melancholy to almost everything Jarmusch has ever made, and ‘The Dead Don’t Die’ is perhaps his most hopeless. It’s the end of the world, 2019-style. The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. You can fact-check and debate until you’re blue in the face. That basic template has been reanimated over and over again, in everything from Zombieland to The Walking Dead to Game of Thrones to Get Out, all of which have something to say about how societies of people do, or do not, sustain themselves in the face of imminent threats. The Dead Don't Die's premise simply isn't developed enough to sustain the entire film, even with a great cast and Jarmusch's dark wit at its disposal. But in the end — at least according to this movie — they’re gonna getcha. What will they do when things fall apart News reports say the world has spun off its axis. Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section! If Romero captured the paranoia of the 1960s, Jarmusch just reconfigures it for an era steeped in dread. But of the four weeks they spent together in Fleischmanns, N.Y., a village about 140 miles outside of New York City, the best time has become an anecdote Driver says he and Sevigny will tell anyone who’ll listen: “The joyride with Bill Murray.” The story essentially amounts to Murray driving a police car off set without telling any producers ahead of time, with Driver and Sevigny in tow — “being kidnapped,” she says — all three of them still dressed in their characters’ police uniforms. Hough is a Screen Rant staff writer. From act to act, Driver’s Ronnie Peterson emphatically states that “it’s all going to end badly.” Murray’s Robertson tries to figure out why the end is coming, even though the writing is figuratively on the wall. Swinton’s Zelda is Jarmusch’s wildcard character in The Dead Don’t Die. There are plenty of times when checking out seems not just pleasant but like the only remaining survival technique, a way to remove oneself from a zombie-infested world. Of the lot, though, it's Tom Waits as the forest-dwelling outsider, Hermit Bob, who leaves the strongest impression and has the most to draw from here... which isn't saying much, sadly. A one-stop shop for all things video games. Towards the end, he might be Hermit Bob, hiding in the woods, watching the endgame through foliage. Here’s just a few highlights. Unfortunately, The Dead Dont' Die has a hard time settling on a throughline along the way. In fact, the biggest place in which The Dead Don’t Die’s zombie lore departs from tradition is in what the zombies want to eat in the humans. One area where the film is consistent, though, is in the way it builds up a sense of apocalyptic atmosphere. In fact, within that metaphor, the title of The Dead Don’t Die seems vaguely menacing. Is It On Netflix, Hulu Or Prime? Driver insists to Sevigny that he is closer to 6-foot-3, or maybe a mere 6-foot-2, but confirms Murray is around the same height. She’s weird, yes, but she’s also the most efficient when killing zombies. In Centerville, the zombies emerge because of "polar fracking" and the subsequent shift of the earth’s axis. Mindy might seem more helpless than the bold, strong-willed characters Sevigny has generally chosen, whimpering and emoting while Ronnie and the town’s police chief, Cliff Robertson (Murray), maintain a deadpan typical of Jarmusch’s characters. But again, this is a Jarmusch movie, so there's a sense of ironic detachment to everything that takes place, the more dramatic and serious moments included. “Like when he chops off people’s heads . “I’m no shrimp. With the exception of the town’s sword-wielding mortician (Tilda Swinton), Ronnie is the least fazed by the gruesome happenings. One Good Thing: Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit makes chess mesmerizing. But despite Bobby’s cinematic education - his understanding of contrived worlds - he’s ultimately killed by zombies as well. All the latest gaming news, game reviews and trailers. But it’s not particularly funny when it’s plainly trying to be. I hope the film’s funny and kind of entertaining, too. (The youngest of the town’s residents, kids at a juvenile detention center, are the only ones who express great concern about the planet: “They’re the people who are outside social constructs and the norm,” Sevigny says.) Days last longer than they used to. And of course, there's an on the nose gag involving a certain president's infamous slogan at one point, too. “Outnumbered” co-host Melissa Francis, who recently filed a pay discrimination complaint against Fox News, is off the air and her status is in doubt. “It’s true.”, And then there’s Jarmusch, of course. Marge Champion, a longtime dancer, Emmy-winning choreographer and motion reference for Disney’s “Snow White,” dies at 101. When she initially read the script, Sevigny, who worked with Jarmusch in his segment of “Ten Minutes Older” (2002) and on “Broken Flowers” (2005), could envision Driver and Murray playing their characters but didn’t feel that connection with hers. This, for whatever reason, has brought on the zombie apocalypse. Iggy Pop stars as Male Coffee Zombie in writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die.”, Sienna Miller, left, and Christina Hendricks in a scene from “American Woman.”, the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre for a double bill of “Hard Boiled” and “Face/Off.”, “The Killer,” as part of the Secret Movie Club, Eric Rohmer’s namesake classic of sexy, summertime ennui, “La Collectionneuse.”, “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese,”, The Times also published a reminiscence from Larry “Ratso” Sloman.