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Jeff wrote:There's going to be a Bill Murray Christmas special directed by Sofia Coppola. No word on Shields and Yarnell or Sid and Marty Krofft puppets.

That sounds great.

Rolling Stone: 10 Things We Learned After A Weekend With Bill Murray.

Jeff wrote:There's going to be a Bill Murray Christmas special directed by Sofia Coppola. No word on Shields and Yarnell or Sid and Marty Krofft puppets.

So... anybody heard any more word on this? I can't find anything more recent than the mid-October announcements indicating that this was happening and some very typical Bill Murray comments like "I guess I'll do it." I guess not?

Maybe it'll be for next Christmas.

Anyone else enjoying A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix?

Watched it. Didn't enjoy it. Even the sublime Maya Rudolph couldn't breathe life into it.

loved it

I liked it quite a lot, although I seem to be oddly in tune with Coppola's taste for slick weirdness, and I do agree that Rudolph was the most disarming and impressive presence in the whole show. There were a few solid laughs -- the phone call from Murray's sister and Chris Rock's under-duress performance, for instance -- and the air of off-kilter melancholy was certainly welcome. I'm too young to have really grown up with the kind of specials which it's parodying (or to which it's paying homage) but I felt it did a good job of prodding the whole enterprise with affection. Like pretty much all of Coppola's work, it's a bit showbiz-inside-baseball, so I could understand completely hating it... but it was a nice, breezy break after a rotten work day.

My favourite moment was the Jason Schwartzman/Rashida Jones duet on Todd Rundgren's I Saw the Light, though it's not a Christmas song at all. Miles Cyrus made me cringe - a couple of years ago, that would have been a Lady Gaga spot.

terabin wrote:Anyone else enjoying A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix?

Ah, something promising to watch. Thanks for the heads up.

This Wikipedia article has quite the list of films Murray was considered for. Some of these really would not have worked anyway, in my opinion.

Almost all of those are headscratchers, and for some reason the Harrison Ford roles are not even the standouts...

LOL Han Solo. Is that what inspired his SNL bit? "Star Wars...beautiful STAR WARS...."

His Garfield story is hilarious. The way HE tells it (i.e. take it with a grain of salt), is that he got pitched the project, was told one of the screenwriters was Oscar-nominee Joel Cohen, and Murray said "oh yeah, the Coens, they're good! I'll do this!" Then when he goes in to record, NONE of it's good, and he's like, "what the hell, what's going on here?" before realizing he mixed Joel Cohen up with Joel Coen.

Iron Man must have been Jeff Bridges' role

I do remember his proposed casting in People Vs. Larry Flynt. It would've been interesting for sure, but Harrelson is spectacular (and naturally has the same cottonmouth vocal cadences
as Larry Flynt, which probably helped). Murray hadn't yet had much success as a dramatic actor by 1996, either.

On the topic of Bill Murray roles it's worth noting that a film Murray DID appear in has all but disappeared.

Big Ben wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:20 pm On the topic of Bill Murray roles it's worth noting that a film Murray DID appear in has all but disappeared.

There is a terrific book about that film and its director Tom Schiller called Nothing Lost Forever. It's *there* (Warner Bros. has it), but it can't be released on DVD due to some of the footage spliced in it from films of the 1930's/40's. Schiller had to pressure the Directors Guild of America to make a new print, so once you can go to a repertory theatre again, beg them to screen it.

Murray LOVES it, and has called it his favourite of all the films he has appeared it.

TCM has played Nothing Lasts Forever in the past (that's how I saw it). The forum also has a thread dedicated to the film.

Worth seeing for the Sci-Fi project?

therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:21 pm Worth seeing for the Sci-Fi project?

I think it falls within the same retro-futuristic, dystopian comedy mold as Brazil.