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  EW review: 'Flowers,' Murray brilliantBy Lisa Schwarzbaum  Bill Murray in "Broken Flowers." YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(Entertainment Weekly) -- The bebop cadences of actor Bill Murray and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch are in such key-of-cool sync in the deadpan-tender who's-your-daddy drama "Broken Flowers," it's a wonder that the two hipster silverheads haven't jammed together more often. In "Flowers," Murray plays Don Johnston, he of the slippery, almost-celebrity name, a low-affect commitmentphobe with a host of fed-up ex-girlfriends on his romantic resume. As played by Murray with seemingly effortless stillness, Don gives off a hum of masculine self-containment that's equally alluring and exasperating to women, and when first encountered, the determined bachelor has just been dumped by his latest had-it-up-to-here lover (Julie Delpy). The only ''tell'' that Don isn't perfectly happy with his no-strings lot as a homeowner in AnyJarmuschTown, USA, is the obvious bang he gets out of visiting his neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), a family guy with a passel of kids. So when he receives an unsigned letter from an old flame informing him that he is the father of a 19-year-old son who may now be searching for his dad, Don consults with Winston, an amateur gumshoe who'd never be confused with Columbo, and takes his friend's advice to travel the country calling on long-ago girlfriends who might fit the description of Anonymous Mom. That's the setup. The joy is in the journey, as this most reluctant of possible papas makes an all-American road trip around the country, dropping in on ladies who, in their profound differences one gal to the next, reflect different aspects of Don and Bill Murray and the America of quirk and querulousness that Jarmusch has loved so eccentrically, and so independently, since "Stranger Than Paradise." You can't get much more of a variety pack of mature sexuality than in Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton as Don's exes, yet much of the warm cool of "Broken Flowers" comes from the director's underplayed ability to find equal off-kilter loveliness in the blatant siren call of, say, Stone (with the actress having a whooping good time caricaturing her own famous brassiness) and the librarian-tigress secrets of "Six Feet Under's" Conroy. And with each, Murray adjusts his bearing with the tiniest of calibrations, obviously made comfortable by Jarmusch's richly evident confidence in his own shaggy-dog storytelling. (The two had a previous salubrious working experience in the ''Delirium'' segment of Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes" in 2003.) It's the rare former "SNL" comedian who can get ardently appreciative applause simply for the way he looks balefully at a plate of carrots, but at this high point in his acting career, following "Lost in Translation" and his work with Wes Anderson, Murray has boiled off all extraneous chaff in his representation of American men astonished to find themselves caring, about someone or something, when they least expect it. It is perhaps not so surprising to find that Jarmusch cares too; most followers of the filmmaker's well-established brand can easily identify the vein of gentleness that runs through even his most downtown-cynical of comic scenarios, however disguised by irony. But what is surprising is how "Broken Flowers" blossoms, as Don Johnston's past meets up with his present, into a movie of uncommon sweetness and delight. EW Grade: A 'Junebug'Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman There's a moment in Phil Morrison's marvelous "Junebug" that is so pure and moving, in such an unexpected way, that it's as if the world were opening up before you. Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), a Chicago art gallery owner who is tall and angular, with a posh transatlantic accent, has arrived in North Carolina with her new husband, George (Alessandro Nivola). The two are staying with his family, who could modestly be described as truly, madly, deeply Southern. We're primed for a ripely funny culture clash, and the movie doesn't disappoint, as Madeleine, with her Euro double kisses, does her best to mingle with the unvarnished members of George's moody, polite, yet barely welcoming middle-class clan. For a while, George himself, a sexy Southern boy-turned-urban professional (he looks like a financier, though it isn't specified what he does), appears nearly as alien to his family's taciturn, Formica-and-wood-paneling style as his glamorous wife is. Then they attend a church supper, and George, reuniting with old friends, stands up to lead a hymn. As he sings about Jesus calling him home, his voice is suffused with reverence, and Madeleine stares at her husband in shock, as if seeing him for the very first time. In a sense, she is. There have, by now, been so many strenuously cute indie comedies about ''quirky'' dysfunctional families and what it takes to overcome them that as you watch "Junebug," you may find yourself caught entrancingly off guard by the conflicting shades of love, suspicion, tradition, and mystery that infuse this tale of lost innocence, deep roots, and what it means to come from the world of the South. Morrison, in his debut feature, views George's family with serene comic grace: the gruff father (Scott Wilson), a putterer who speaks in affectless monosyllables; the mother (Celia Weston), a plump chain-smoker whose contempt keeps pricking the surface of her ''hospitality''; and the brother (Benjamin McKenzie), a surly screwup stunted with rage. Madeleine, so wary yet eager to please, is our catalyst for getting to know these folks, and she forges her most surprising bond with the brother's pregnant wife, Ashley, a gloriously arrested chatterbox -- she's like Scarlett O'Hara with ADD -- played by Amy Adams in a performance as deep as it is delightful. She's the film's heart and also its flaky, wonderstruck soul. EW Grade: A '2046'Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum Just as memories of lost loves defy logic, so Wong Kar-Wai's alluring "2046" resists order: As a movie with a beginning, middle, and end, Wong's askew sequel to his voluptuously sad 2001 romance "In the Mood for Love" is a head cracker, but as a cinematic bath for the senses, it's a rush, a swoon. Nobody does repressed, yearning misfits in exquisitely tailored costumes better than this Hong Kong director, who loves the look of beautiful people making hopeless romantic choices. And no other connoisseur of musical accompaniment (Wong always knows the right tune for the right variation on a theme of emotional distance) would choose to mark the passing of years in a run-down Hong Kong hotel, circa the 1960s, with a sexy mix of Dean Martin, bel canto opera, and Latin nightclub riffs. The title of his immersive, imperfect reverie refers both to a year in the sci-fi future as well as to a room number in a seedy flophouse where Chow Mo Wan (the essential Tony Leung) wastes his talent and buries his feelings: The aspiring writer and faithful husband attracted to Maggie Cheung's married woman in "In the Mood for Love" has become a hardened gossip columnist and pulp fiction scribbler whose heart is no longer available for the plucking. And so Chow, now a callous roue and literary hack, recalls his stingy relationships with a series of unsatisfied beauties. And I mean beauties: Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, Faye Wong, and Cheung herself appear in turn, each glowing like moonlight for her director, each a vision of wounded femininity in a luscious wardrobe. Indeed, Christopher Doyle's sumptuous cinematography emphasizes tactile sensuality with such passion that we can practically feel the silk and satin. Chow imagines the year 2046 as a concrete science-fiction destination -- a haven to which anyone can travel for the recovery of one's lost memories. As the address of a tatty room in a Hong Kong that no longer exists, on the other hand, it's a site of stasis, loss, trembling sadness. There are many places a visitor may go astray in "2046" -- places where the filmmaker appears to be a bit at loose ends too. Still, Wong's invitation -- ''Let's get lost'' -- is irresistible. EW Grade: A- 'My Date With Drew'Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman A movie that would scarcely deserve a place on the bottom shelf of reality TV, "My Date With Drew" is an act of petty self-promotional chutzpah disguised as self-mockery. Its featured putz, Brian Herzlinger, is one of those charmless gasbag hustlers who fill up the background of every third party in L.A. Armed with $1,100 and a video camera, Herzlinger spends 30 days trying to penetrate the walls of showbiz flackery so that he can get a date with Drew Barrymore, his lifelong celebrity crush. Along the way, we're expected to find this ''nice Jewish boy'' adorable as he pesters his industry contacts, gets his blackheads squeezed by a facialist, and sings ''Walking on Sunshine,'' all the while stealing looks into the camera so we can see how funny he finds himself. (At least someone's laughing.) "My Date With Drew" is stupefyingly tedious and annoying, since even Herzlinger's fixation on Barrymore comes off as a quasi-sham. What he really craves is a date with fame, a mistress destined to stand him up. EW Grade: F 'Saint Ralph'Reviewed by Gregory Kirschling Sometimes Campbell Scott fans have it tough. Like any great actor, he seeks out different material. Like a renegade, he avoids the mainstream. But it's starting to feel like for every "Roger Dodger," a movie he singlehandedly turned into a mini-classic, there's a misfire like "Saint Ralph." Here he plays Father Hibbert, a buttoned-up man of the cloth who coaches Ralph (newcomer Adam Butcher), a big-eared Catholic ninth grader convinced that if he wins the 1954 Boston Marathon, it'll be the heavenly miracle that'll jolt his mother from a coma. At first, Ralph and the movie have moxie -- the kid even gets busted for pleasuring himself in the public pool. Then Ralph starts asking us to take this cornball mission seriously. By the end, the beanpole is logging 4:25 miles and impossibly chugging slo-mo through rainy Boston on race day, helping Father Hibbert get his faith back. It's as if Max Fischer from "Rushmore" turned, mid-movie, into Billy Elliot. EW Grade: C 'Tony Takitani'Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman I'm normally not the biggest fan of movies conceived as tone poems, but "Tony Takitani" is a rare exception. It's a quiet dream of a movie, a vision of loneliness giving way to love, then to loneliness again; it's like "Vertigo" remade in a sedately haunted style of Japanese lyricism. Adapting a short story by Haruki Murakami, the director, Jun Ichikawa, has evolved a technique, a mood, of visual meditation that's at once literary and startlingly cinematic. For much of the film's 75 minutes, Ichikawa moves his camera slowly, almost imperceptibly, from left to right, tracking like a voyeur through key moments in the life of Tony Takitani (Issey Ogata), a pensive illustrator who has drifted into middle age without a lasting human connection. As Ryuichi Sakamoto's lilting piano chords caress our eardrums, Tony, with his unusual gaze of silent sadness (he suggests a morose Jackie Chan crossed with Tommy Hilfiger), meets Eiko (Rie Miyazawa), who is sweet and beautiful and 15 years his junior. He embraces her as a path out of his isolation, and the movie becomes a vision of contentment. There's one issue, though, with Tony's object of affection: She's obsessed, to the point of addiction, with shopping for designer clothes. That sounds like a joke, a caricature of marital foible, yet as it balloons, with a nearly psychic sense of fate, into romantic tragedy, Tony becomes every man who ever killed his chance for love without knowing that he was doing it. EW Grade: A Click Here 
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