It's a sad and beautiful world: the Jim Jarmusch poll.

sayin

I hated Only Lovers Left Alive so much it almost put me off Jarmusch completely, largely because it was so serious and portentous but had basically nothing to back it up, idea-wise.

This worked for me bc it was self aware of how inessential it was imho, just sort of a collection of vignettes & variations on a theme. The Jarmusch film I'd compare it to the most would be Mystery Train - nothing really going on intellectually, but just an enjoyable collection of actors & scenery. I can see being disappointed if you expected more or thinking that its a good cast wasted etc, but I don't think it would have been improved by giving any of the actors a chance to really show their chops or anything.

Similarly, I took the politics and social commentary stuff as basically just being in there as a superficial nod to genre tropes. Like obviously he hates trump & global warming and stuff but I dont think theres much to unpack there tbh

Paterson was NOT a phone-in.

saw Dead Don't Die yesterday and i think it's interesting to think about, but not exactly recommendable as a movie to watch. it doesn't work very well as a horror-comedy (for me) - it's never scary, and the laughs, even the arch ones, are rare. but that seems to be the result of deliberate choices to create this dry, unhurried tone. less a nightmare than one of those unpleasant and boring dreams that loops back on itself and never goes anywhere. i think the idea is that's where we're at in the anthropocene, etc. ironic 80s/90s listlessness (personified by murray) arrives to the 2010s and finds more of the same; his cliche-spotting hipster descendants are equally doomed. BUT some hope still rests with the self-motivated, boundary-refusing teens. optimistic, if in an oldster "i guess we failed, but maybe you kids will succeed" sort of way. anyway i think this is why the juvenile offenders vanish/escape from the movie.

the more overt touches of wackiness may unfortunately act as red herrings, giving the impression wants to be an over-the-top zany thing and is just failing at it. which isn't as interesting so i'd rather not dwell on it.

with the exception of the expenditure on decent zombie makeup, it might be one of the laziest movies I've ever seen

if it wasn't Jarmusch I'd say it'd take a lot of effort to *appear* to be that lazy

The only big lol besides tiny car i had was those Sturgill Simpson cds being 12.99 when they had one song on them

just saw Dead Man for the first time, I liked it but it not nearly as much as Stranger Than Paradise or Down By Law

it was beautiful as all of his films are, but it didn't seem as inspired to me. maybe I need to see it again in a couple of years

I wasn't expecting much from Mystery Train or Night on Earth as short story anthologies, but I loved them both

this was great until it was bad but i dont think ill let the swing to the latter affect my enjoyment of the former

Dead Don't Die was about as ill-conceived as a movie could be: a meta Romero homage with designs on trenchant social commentary about as deep as the "This is fine" dog cartoon that mostly exists to give a director I once loved license to indulge in all his worst tics. I guess it looks like everyone involved is having a good time but man, I was mostly just bored. It's definitely the kind of movie designed so that everyone walks away with one singular chuckle, mine was the surprisingly nerdy shot across the bow at "Farmer Frank Miller".

saw Limits of Control yesterday and really liked it, though it would have worked even better with less dialogue imo (esp. the awful Swinton scene)

As I posted on the ILF thread

I just saw "the dead dont die" and I cant work out if I hated it, or it was really clever and dryly witty. I mean I'll happily watch Adam Driver drly remark "this is gonna end badly" on a loop for 2 hours, and the reviews make me think I missed something, but... enh?

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, September 2, 2019 10:00 AM bookmarkflaglink

That's how i felt

sturgill simpson. good song.

just saw Dead Man for the first time, I liked it but it not nearly as much as Stranger Than Paradise or Down By Law

saw it in a smaller room of a multiplex with surprisingly great sound, loved it & told my friends on the way out I would probably never see it again bcz it would be so underwhelming not being surrounded & shaken by the guitar

have no interest in Young as a musician otherwise either

(I’ve mostly seen Jarmusch on VHS or broadcast TV otherwise. Night On Earth, Ghost Dog, and either the Joie & Cinque Lee or the Tom & Iggy Coffee & Cigarettes were big screen too afair, maybe one or two others.)

re: the Dead Man soundtrack, I hope to see it on a theater screen at some point

finally saw The Dead Don’t Die. I don’t really know zombie movies so it’s hard for me to evaluate it outside of the context of Jarmusch films

would have thought having recently watched the others again I would like this less, but I really enjoyed it

It was dull

First half good

I think maybe being immersed in Jarmusch films but not zombie films made me like it more

Could be. I am very zombie filmed out

good song

it's the theme song.

I lasted about 20 minutes with The Dead Don't Die

you didn't miss anything

You missed a lot of references to Sturgill Simpson

made Paterson look like a masterpiece in comparison

that's a movie that's stuck with me despite not thinking much of it at the time - I bet it'll be the consensus late career pick for him when all is said and done.

Paterson was a better film, but I thought this was funny and I liked the way it looked. Was reminded that Amy Taubin spoke about the ‘radioactive’ quality of Frederick Elmes’ cinematography in the night-time scenes. The soundtrack by Jarmusch and Carter Logan was good too.

Elmes' cinematography in Paterson was also great

There were a couple Paterson jokes in TDDD! Even if the execution fell flat, it's pretty clear Jarmusch felt like doing a film of lazy riffing after doing a "serious" movie

So wait theres not actually a ghost dog here or what

Am I the only person who was disappointed that Ghost Dog used a gun and not a samurai sword?

Several aging mafiosos also id say

Just watched Only Lovers...I enjoyed it well enough. It may grow on me in the next few days as I think about it. There's a cue in the score after Marlowe's death that I'd swear is a variation on the Stooges' "No Fun."

on Criterion?

Yeah, there's a new Jarmusch bundle with new arrivals OLLA and Coffee & Cigarettes, and Ghost Dog and Dead Man back for short engagements, plus the permanent library stuff.

In the last week i rewatched Mystery Train and Dead Man, partly out of curiosity because I hadn’t seen either in forever but loved them when they came out. I have to say Mystery Train didn’t really hold my attention. Maybe it’s a victim of its own influence, but the hipster riffs and in particular all the Elvis references felt a little rote. I did love the depiction of Memphis itself, and I didn’t dislike the film but it felt kind of pat.

Dead Man still rules, though. Just gorgeous, for one thing, and I think it’s grounded enough to carry all of its pretentions. The relationship between Blake and Nobody remains one of my favorite “buddy film” pairings.

I had the same reactions to both flicks, tipsy.

having a little mini-early-jarmusch fest this morning while working, rewatching stranger than paradise and down by law.

stranger than paradise holds up great and lurie's score is fantastic. so much great footage of the scuzzy parts of america in the early 80s. it's a bit slight but the three characters are a fun hang.
down by law i remember loving when i first saw it, this time i feel like it takes too long to get to the prison and benigni, which is when it really kicks off. waits and lurie are basically playing the same guy so they need someone different to bounce off of. but benigni is so funny and the movie looks so much better than stranger than paradise, thanks to robby muller.

dead man and mystery train are my favs. love the dumb zombie movie too though i think it beefs the ending even within the looser parameters of the anti-comedy farce it's doing

I loved the new one. I don't know if Father Mother Sister Brother is great Jarmusch, but what does great Jarmusch look like? How can we tell? Is this one better or worse than Mystery Train, Dead Man, Ghost Dog, or Only Lovers Left Alive? A lovely triptych, especially the Charlotte Rampling-Cate Blanchett-Vicky Krieps section.

Parts of Dead Man have stuck with me in ways no other Jarmusch film did.

idk Down By Law is perfect to me pacing wise. before prison and after prison. both parts cook.

i've rewatched dead man and ghost dog in the past few years, but i should go back to some of the other older ones. it's been a long time since i've seen mystery train.
i remember enjoying paterson a lot.

i guess the question is, has he ever made a bad movie? the only one i've seen that i disliked more than liked was the stooges documentary, but there are several i've never seen (broken flowers, limits of control, coffee and cigarettes, night on earth, the dead don't die, father mother sister brother)

Broken Flowers was dreadful and not even in a bad taste sort of way.

I thought the new one was extremely middling and kind of shallow, but a) I recently developed an aversion to scenes where two people converse while driving so I started off rooting against the film, and b) I acquiesced to my friend's desire to see this, which means I ended up missing out on seeing The Secret Agent while it was in theatres and I'm still mad about that.