2012 comedy
Rating: 8/20
Plot: A graphic designer, the titular guy, tries to get his life straightened out after his latest girlfriend breaks up with him.
Wes Anderson collaborator Roman Coppola wrote and directed this. It's got an almost Anderson feel, maybe because it has Murray and Jason Schwartzman in it, and it takes place in the 70's which might have tricked me into thinking I'd like it. Definitely a case of silly-over-substance here though. I never could figure out what Coppola or anybody else involved wanted to say with this thing, a movie stuffed with so many ideas that it doesn't really seem to have any ideas at all. There's a scene with a marionette that I almost enjoyed and an animated look at Swan's brain early in the movie. Schwartzman is pretty good as Swan's folksinging pal while Murray seems to be phoning things in as a John Wayne-ish sort of cowboy whose belly just barely squeezes into his shirt. I was almost convinced early on that Charlie Sheen was going to be pretty good in this, but the performance was so static and devoid of anything that seemed like actual human emotion that the character was flat and tedious. And since this is a surreal character study, a flat and tedious character isn't going to help a movie's chances at being enjoyable at all. Roman Coppola could probably make a good movie, but this isn't as clever or as funny as he or anybody else involved thinks it is. Check out a scene with a Charlie Sheen stand-in dancing in a graveyard. I think that was supposed to be both clever and funny, but it managed to make me just want to turn the movie off. And I might have if this wasn't Bill Murray Fest and all. I hadn't even gotten to the Bill Murray part at that point! I did like the music provided by a guy named Liam Hayes (who apparently performs as Plush) though. That guy's songs should be in better movies. Seriously, if I'm not the audience for this movie, I don't think it's for anybody.
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