Bill Murray's Best Movies
Oct. 9th, 2008 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
syndyfrellaby RT:
15. Meatballs (1979)
14. Mad Dog and Glory (1993)
One of Murray's more unusual (and lesser-seen) roles came in this love story/dramedy hybrid, which found both Murray and Robert De Niro playing against type: Murray as a Mob boss (and aspiring stand-up comedian), and De Niro as the meek, bottled-up police detective who saves his life and "earns" the temporary, uh, use of a prostitute named Glory (played by Uma Thurman). As you might imagine, Mad Dog and Glory had a bit of a balancing act to pull off, and according to most critics, it wasn't always successful. Although many writers expressed pleasant surprise at the suddenly commercial turn from director Richard McNaughton (then best known for his work on Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), and praised the typically sharp dialogue in Richard Price's script, ultimately, most critics felt that Mad Dog's many shifts in style and tone were too much to completely overcome. Still, its stars earned high marks for their out-of-character performances; Time Out's Derek Adams, for one, noted that "De Niro seems committed to the part of the sensitive loner, while Murray all but succeeds in mixing smooth and sinister, heartfelt and hot-tempered."
13. Caddyshack (1980)
12. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
11. What About Bob? (1991)
Bill Murray has always excelled at playing unflappable slackers, while nobody can handle the role of an uptight fussbudget with quite the aplomb of Richard Dreyfuss -- which meant that pitting them against each other in 1991's What About Bob? was virtually a guarantee of critical and commercial success. Fortunately for fans of progressively over-the-top comedy, the movie basically delivered on that guarantee -- although it's perhaps not as consistently hilarious as some of Murray's truly classic comedies, it went down as easily one of the funniest films of the year. What About Bob? boasts some of Frank Oz's lightest direction, which is truly saying something, but it makes sense; all he had to do, really, was let the cameras -- and Murray and Dreyfuss -- run with their characters. Murray's Bob is a well-meaning soul whose many phobias prevents him from living a normal life -- or from allowing his psychiatrist to take the vacation he's been craving. As that psychiatrist, Dreyfuss is at his sputtering, bug-eyed best, and together, the duo transcends what was by then already a very tired plot (and, it must be said, a patently ridiculous final act). What it boils down to is a very funny film -- one, in the words of FulvueDrive-in's Chuck O'Leary, "made even more amusing by the fact that Murray and Dreyfuss couldn't stand each other in real life."
10. Quick Change (1990)
9. Rushmore (1998)
The second act of Murray's career, in which he pivots from playing sleepy-eyed shysters into more finely nuanced dramatic roles, starts with this film, which broke director Wes Anderson through to a larger audience, essentially redefined the quirky high school movie for a new generation and reaped scores of awards and nominations for its trouble. Though it was never anything close to a box office hit - its gross stalled at just over $17 million, below its $20 million budget - Rushmore has grown into a certified cult classic. The movie rests on Schwartzman's shoulders, and a good deal of the critical acclaim rightly centered on his turn as the troubled Max Fischer - but for a not-inconsiderable number of critics, Murray's performance as the dissatisfied executive who befriends, then spars with Schwartzman was a revelation. While lauding Schwartzman as "the best underdog since Cusack in Better Off Dead," eFilmCritic's Brian McKay saved his highest praise for Murray, deeming this "the finest, funniest, and most deadpan performance of his career."
8. Broken Flowers (2005)
By this point, Murray was becoming just as famous for his hard-to-decipher real-life antics as he was for anything he did on screen -- at least partly because anyone who wanted to hire him had no agent or manager to go through, and was forced to deal directly with Murray, supposedly through an oft-neglected personal voicemail box. True to form, for Broken Flowers - and a part which director Jim Jarmusch said he wrote more or less specifically for his star - Murray agreed to sign on only if he could stay within 60 miles of his home. Ironically, Flowers is a movie about traveling - Murray's character visits former flames in an effort to determine which one sent him an anonymous letter informing him of the nearly 20-year-old product of their relationship. As much as his character spent the film in motion, Murray kept his performance close to home, delivering a quiet, minimalistic turn not terribly dissimilar from his work in Lost in Translation. The similarity was noted by more than one critic, and although Flowers didn't attract the same sort of attention as Translation, but most scribes agreed with Sight and Sound's Liese Spencer, who noted, "After a career of deadpanning, Murray's impassive performance is still fresh, funny, sympathetic and restrained."
7. Tootsie (1982)
6. Stripes (1981)
5. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
4. Ed Wood (1994)
It's a biopic about one of the least talented filmmakers in history, it was scripted by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the duo behind the Problem Child movies, and director Michael Lehmann (Hudson Hawk) was originally attached to direct. Yes, things could have turned out very differently for Ed Wood, but when Tim Burton walked away from Mary Reilly and took an interest in directing Alexander and Karaszewski's script, the project took another turn. (Lehmann, undaunted, went on to direct Airheads.) The final product represented a departure for many of the parties involved: Burton scaled back his signature visual style, filming in black and white and letting the story do the talking, and much of the cast - Sarah Jessica Parker, for example - found itself in uncharted territory. Appearing as Bunny Breckinridge, the flamboyant star of Plan 9 from Outer Space, Murray continued the string of smaller, occasionally offbeat roles he'd occasionally sought out since taking a break from acting following the failure of The Razor's Edge in 1984. It also presaged a period in which Murray would begin choosing scripts seemingly at random, but in Ed Wood he picked a project that, in the words of Time Out's Geoff Andrew, "certainly succeeds as a funny, touching tribute to tenacity, energy, ambition and friendship."
3. Ghostbusters (1984)
No film makes it to the screen as it's originally envisioned by its writers, but Ghostbusters took a particularly circuitous journey: Originally, Dan Aykroyd planned to assemble it as a project for himself and John Belushi, with all sorts of big-budget shenanigans, and supporting roles for Eddie Murphy and John Candy. It was only after a ground-up rewrite by Aykroyd and Harold Ramis that Ghostbusters became the box office behemoth it was destined to be, racking up an an astounding $238 million tally throughout 1984 and 1985. Though it's very much an ensemble comedy, many of the film's best lines are stolen by Murray, perhaps helping create the legend that he didn't really read the script, and improvised most of what his character said onscreen. This story is probably apocryphal, but no matter who put the words in his mouth, Murray's deadpan delivery was perfect for the role, and cemented his status as the thinking man's preeminent smart-aleck of the '80s; it also helped sway begrudging critics like the Chicago Reader's Dave Kehr, who summed up Ghostbusters as "not at all a bad time, thanks mainly to...Murray's incredibly dry line readings."
2. Lost in Translation (2003)
Thanks to her much-derided appearance in The Godfather III, Sofia Coppola was still the butt of many film fans' jokes when she helmed Lost in Translation - but all that changed once the glowing reviews started pouring in, capped off with her Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. But Coppola wasn't the only one who earned praise for this quiet little picture; Murray received some of the best reviews of his career (not to mention a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award) for his softly melancholic portrayal of a movie star whose crushing ennui has set him adrift in a sea of unfulfilling relationships and paycheck projects. He's oh-so-gently jolted from his reverie by a fellow unhappy traveler played by Scarlett Johansson - and who can blame him? - but that's pretty much all that happens here, something pointed out by the handful of critics who gave Lost in Translation unfavorable ratings. For the 95 percent of critics who loved it, though, Translation was something special; Variety's David Rooney spoke for many when he said its "balance of humor and poignancy makes it both a pleasurable and melancholy experience."
1. Groundhog Day (1993)
For a modest little comedy that failed to break $100 million at the box office during its theatrical run, Groundhog Day has done pretty well for itself in the 15 years since its release: It's been added to the United States Film Registry, ranked in the top 40 of the AFI and Bravo "100 Funniest Movies" lists, the top 10 of AFI's fantasy list, and lauded by Roger Ebert in his "Great Movies" series. The film catches Murray in transition, navigating between the arch, manic style of his earlier films and the more minimalistic, restrained humor of later projects -- and he's aided capably by a smartly funny script from Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, the latter of whom provides some of his best, lightest direction here. Much like the day Murray's misanthropic newscaster is forced to relive in the movie, Groundhog Day benefits from repeated viewings, and this is largely due to Murray's deft performance; in the words of TIME's Richard Corliss, he "makes the movie a comic time warp that anyone should be happy to get stuck in."
15. Meatballs (1979)
14. Mad Dog and Glory (1993)
One of Murray's more unusual (and lesser-seen) roles came in this love story/dramedy hybrid, which found both Murray and Robert De Niro playing against type: Murray as a Mob boss (and aspiring stand-up comedian), and De Niro as the meek, bottled-up police detective who saves his life and "earns" the temporary, uh, use of a prostitute named Glory (played by Uma Thurman). As you might imagine, Mad Dog and Glory had a bit of a balancing act to pull off, and according to most critics, it wasn't always successful. Although many writers expressed pleasant surprise at the suddenly commercial turn from director Richard McNaughton (then best known for his work on Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), and praised the typically sharp dialogue in Richard Price's script, ultimately, most critics felt that Mad Dog's many shifts in style and tone were too much to completely overcome. Still, its stars earned high marks for their out-of-character performances; Time Out's Derek Adams, for one, noted that "De Niro seems committed to the part of the sensitive loner, while Murray all but succeeds in mixing smooth and sinister, heartfelt and hot-tempered."
13. Caddyshack (1980)
12. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
11. What About Bob? (1991)
Bill Murray has always excelled at playing unflappable slackers, while nobody can handle the role of an uptight fussbudget with quite the aplomb of Richard Dreyfuss -- which meant that pitting them against each other in 1991's What About Bob? was virtually a guarantee of critical and commercial success. Fortunately for fans of progressively over-the-top comedy, the movie basically delivered on that guarantee -- although it's perhaps not as consistently hilarious as some of Murray's truly classic comedies, it went down as easily one of the funniest films of the year. What About Bob? boasts some of Frank Oz's lightest direction, which is truly saying something, but it makes sense; all he had to do, really, was let the cameras -- and Murray and Dreyfuss -- run with their characters. Murray's Bob is a well-meaning soul whose many phobias prevents him from living a normal life -- or from allowing his psychiatrist to take the vacation he's been craving. As that psychiatrist, Dreyfuss is at his sputtering, bug-eyed best, and together, the duo transcends what was by then already a very tired plot (and, it must be said, a patently ridiculous final act). What it boils down to is a very funny film -- one, in the words of FulvueDrive-in's Chuck O'Leary, "made even more amusing by the fact that Murray and Dreyfuss couldn't stand each other in real life."
10. Quick Change (1990)
9. Rushmore (1998)
The second act of Murray's career, in which he pivots from playing sleepy-eyed shysters into more finely nuanced dramatic roles, starts with this film, which broke director Wes Anderson through to a larger audience, essentially redefined the quirky high school movie for a new generation and reaped scores of awards and nominations for its trouble. Though it was never anything close to a box office hit - its gross stalled at just over $17 million, below its $20 million budget - Rushmore has grown into a certified cult classic. The movie rests on Schwartzman's shoulders, and a good deal of the critical acclaim rightly centered on his turn as the troubled Max Fischer - but for a not-inconsiderable number of critics, Murray's performance as the dissatisfied executive who befriends, then spars with Schwartzman was a revelation. While lauding Schwartzman as "the best underdog since Cusack in Better Off Dead," eFilmCritic's Brian McKay saved his highest praise for Murray, deeming this "the finest, funniest, and most deadpan performance of his career."
8. Broken Flowers (2005)
By this point, Murray was becoming just as famous for his hard-to-decipher real-life antics as he was for anything he did on screen -- at least partly because anyone who wanted to hire him had no agent or manager to go through, and was forced to deal directly with Murray, supposedly through an oft-neglected personal voicemail box. True to form, for Broken Flowers - and a part which director Jim Jarmusch said he wrote more or less specifically for his star - Murray agreed to sign on only if he could stay within 60 miles of his home. Ironically, Flowers is a movie about traveling - Murray's character visits former flames in an effort to determine which one sent him an anonymous letter informing him of the nearly 20-year-old product of their relationship. As much as his character spent the film in motion, Murray kept his performance close to home, delivering a quiet, minimalistic turn not terribly dissimilar from his work in Lost in Translation. The similarity was noted by more than one critic, and although Flowers didn't attract the same sort of attention as Translation, but most scribes agreed with Sight and Sound's Liese Spencer, who noted, "After a career of deadpanning, Murray's impassive performance is still fresh, funny, sympathetic and restrained."
7. Tootsie (1982)
6. Stripes (1981)
5. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
4. Ed Wood (1994)
It's a biopic about one of the least talented filmmakers in history, it was scripted by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the duo behind the Problem Child movies, and director Michael Lehmann (Hudson Hawk) was originally attached to direct. Yes, things could have turned out very differently for Ed Wood, but when Tim Burton walked away from Mary Reilly and took an interest in directing Alexander and Karaszewski's script, the project took another turn. (Lehmann, undaunted, went on to direct Airheads.) The final product represented a departure for many of the parties involved: Burton scaled back his signature visual style, filming in black and white and letting the story do the talking, and much of the cast - Sarah Jessica Parker, for example - found itself in uncharted territory. Appearing as Bunny Breckinridge, the flamboyant star of Plan 9 from Outer Space, Murray continued the string of smaller, occasionally offbeat roles he'd occasionally sought out since taking a break from acting following the failure of The Razor's Edge in 1984. It also presaged a period in which Murray would begin choosing scripts seemingly at random, but in Ed Wood he picked a project that, in the words of Time Out's Geoff Andrew, "certainly succeeds as a funny, touching tribute to tenacity, energy, ambition and friendship."
3. Ghostbusters (1984)
No film makes it to the screen as it's originally envisioned by its writers, but Ghostbusters took a particularly circuitous journey: Originally, Dan Aykroyd planned to assemble it as a project for himself and John Belushi, with all sorts of big-budget shenanigans, and supporting roles for Eddie Murphy and John Candy. It was only after a ground-up rewrite by Aykroyd and Harold Ramis that Ghostbusters became the box office behemoth it was destined to be, racking up an an astounding $238 million tally throughout 1984 and 1985. Though it's very much an ensemble comedy, many of the film's best lines are stolen by Murray, perhaps helping create the legend that he didn't really read the script, and improvised most of what his character said onscreen. This story is probably apocryphal, but no matter who put the words in his mouth, Murray's deadpan delivery was perfect for the role, and cemented his status as the thinking man's preeminent smart-aleck of the '80s; it also helped sway begrudging critics like the Chicago Reader's Dave Kehr, who summed up Ghostbusters as "not at all a bad time, thanks mainly to...Murray's incredibly dry line readings."
2. Lost in Translation (2003)
Thanks to her much-derided appearance in The Godfather III, Sofia Coppola was still the butt of many film fans' jokes when she helmed Lost in Translation - but all that changed once the glowing reviews started pouring in, capped off with her Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. But Coppola wasn't the only one who earned praise for this quiet little picture; Murray received some of the best reviews of his career (not to mention a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award) for his softly melancholic portrayal of a movie star whose crushing ennui has set him adrift in a sea of unfulfilling relationships and paycheck projects. He's oh-so-gently jolted from his reverie by a fellow unhappy traveler played by Scarlett Johansson - and who can blame him? - but that's pretty much all that happens here, something pointed out by the handful of critics who gave Lost in Translation unfavorable ratings. For the 95 percent of critics who loved it, though, Translation was something special; Variety's David Rooney spoke for many when he said its "balance of humor and poignancy makes it both a pleasurable and melancholy experience."
1. Groundhog Day (1993)
For a modest little comedy that failed to break $100 million at the box office during its theatrical run, Groundhog Day has done pretty well for itself in the 15 years since its release: It's been added to the United States Film Registry, ranked in the top 40 of the AFI and Bravo "100 Funniest Movies" lists, the top 10 of AFI's fantasy list, and lauded by Roger Ebert in his "Great Movies" series. The film catches Murray in transition, navigating between the arch, manic style of his earlier films and the more minimalistic, restrained humor of later projects -- and he's aided capably by a smartly funny script from Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, the latter of whom provides some of his best, lightest direction here. Much like the day Murray's misanthropic newscaster is forced to relive in the movie, Groundhog Day benefits from repeated viewings, and this is largely due to Murray's deft performance; in the words of TIME's Richard Corliss, he "makes the movie a comic time warp that anyone should be happy to get stuck in."
