― slutsky (slutsky), Sunday, 4 May 2003 18:37 (twenty years ago) link
― slutsky (slutsky), Sunday, 4 May 2003 19:02 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 4 May 2003 19:56 (twenty years ago) link
I really appreciate Jarmusch's strivings for something like an All-American Art Cinema, but he still seems a little too indebted to his European models and a little too fond of hipster conceits (which run wild in Ghost Dog, to both my pleasure and annoyance) to break through. Actually I don't think he wants to break through, which is OK, but it limits his films.
I like the performance-art quality of some of his movies, where you just take interesting actors, give them a context to play in, and just roll camera.
― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 4 May 2003 20:04 (twenty years ago) link
This despite the fact that Wenders is considerably older and more prolific.
― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 4 May 2003 20:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 4 May 2003 20:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 4 May 2003 20:23 (twenty years ago) link
Dead ManMystery TrainStranger Than ParadiseGhost DogDown by LawNight on Earth
I haven't seen his Neil Young doc.
― JesseFox (JesseFox), Sunday, 4 May 2003 22:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Leee (Leee), Sunday, 4 May 2003 23:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Andrew L (Andrew L), Monday, 5 May 2003 07:56 (twenty years ago) link
― chaki (chaki), Monday, 5 May 2003 08:09 (twenty years ago) link
"You're not even my brother in law and you shot me."
"Elvis sent me all the way here to give you this comb."
I also liked "Night on Earth", "Smoke" and "Blue In the Face". I couldn't get into "Dead Man" when I rented it a few years back, it put me to sleep.
― earlnash, Monday, 5 May 2003 12:48 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 5 May 2003 13:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 5 May 2003 17:27 (twenty years ago) link
(and I love the opening on the train)
― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 17:33 (twenty years ago) link
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Monday, 5 May 2003 18:49 (twenty years ago) link
― Chip Morningstar (bob), Monday, 5 May 2003 18:51 (twenty years ago) link
― Chip Morningstar (bob), Monday, 5 May 2003 18:52 (twenty years ago) link
― PVC (peeveecee), Monday, 5 May 2003 19:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 5 May 2003 22:10 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 5 May 2003 23:11 (twenty years ago) link
*weeps* Lauren, we were so in sync right up until the moment you posted this.
Night On Earth is the ultimate comfort movie for me - It was the first Jarmusch film I saw, and I chose to view it as a teenage Winona Ryder fan (!) - it's clearly his most flawed and least interesting film, but I love it, just for the incredible atmosphere (and the soundtrack!). It is one film I cannot be objective about. I know it is a pointless, aimless, often poorly acted film, but I love it to bits.
Dead Man is just a great, beautiful, funny, sad film.
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 08:50 (twenty years ago) link
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 08:51 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 12:50 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:32 (twenty years ago) link
Thanks, I'm heading out soon - excited!
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:46 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 17:02 (twenty years ago) link
THE END IS IMPORTANT IN ALL THINGS!
Amateurist - I think that you might really love Night on Earth, about which I feel like Nordicskillz does.
I haven't thought enough about what Dead Man says to a contemporary world, if anything. But if you keep it in it's time period (which requires some suspension of disbelief), it's very effective as a very sad (and occasionally funny) movie.
I find at least the first story in Mystery Train diverting, and Screamin Jay Hawkins is great, but that movie has never done much for me, which confounds me.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Sunday, 18 May 2003 21:43 (twenty years ago) link
Anyone seen Permanent Vacation? Now that is a bad film.
It's a typical first film: very uneven, but also shows some promise.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 19 May 2003 06:58 (twenty years ago) link
― carlos vicente rojas, Thursday, 17 July 2003 01:37 (twenty years ago) link
― carlos vicente rojas, Thursday, 17 July 2003 02:02 (twenty years ago) link
― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 17 July 2003 02:37 (twenty years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 17 July 2003 08:30 (twenty years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 17 July 2003 08:34 (twenty years ago) link
― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Thursday, 17 July 2003 16:46 (twenty years ago) link
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 18 July 2003 05:32 (twenty years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 19 July 2003 17:26 (twenty years ago) link
Even if it is, it doesn't change a thing. Down by Law is a modern fable/allegory as well, but it also some emotion in it. Even if you make an allegorical film, you need to have a good plot and good characters. Otherwise people will just admire the cleverness of you allegory, but not the depth of your film.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 21 July 2003 07:41 (twenty years ago) link
non-exclusively, some stabs, mostly remembered from or inspired by Rosenbaum's review...
the alienation of the underclass/outcast (you don't talk to no one and you ain't got no friends)?
the ways in which identity and communication/language are changing and the relevance or lack thereof to understanding among different peoples (communication in english, french, spanish, even where those languages aren't spoken; failures of communication in the same language)?
the presence of violence in the modern (this ain't no ancient culture, mister; sometimes it is)?
the difficulty with which institutional status quos (i'm probably doing something horrible to latin there) yield (so i guess you're going to become the new boss now louie; it's not like that, ghost dog)?
a love song to hiphop, in particular its highly-skilled and creative practitioners (taking the couple's clothes at gunpoint; ok, getting the guy's suit fits the story, but why does he steal the woman's clothes; Wu-Tang = "We Usually Take All Niggas Garments")?
i didn't think about this until now, but perhaps every character is defined best by the way in which he or she relates to ghost dog. maybe a way of starting to look at the movie. a rashomon thing. what does ghost dog represent, then? or is this just a formal wrinkle?
If you think it's just a gangsta/samurai/mafia style thing, consider that I have near-zero interest in any of these genres/memes, and ghost dog is one of my favorite movies. I don't know how you miss emotion in it. It's far more pervasive in Dead Man, admittedly, but it's definitely there.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 26 July 2003 05:06 (twenty years ago) link
― Girolamo Savonarola, Saturday, 26 July 2003 05:58 (twenty years ago) link
A quote from the beginning of this review:
Jim Jarmusch's seventh narrative feature, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which I've seen three times, may be a failure, if only because most of its characters are never developed far enough beyond their mythic profiles to live independently of them. But if it is, it's such an exciting, prescient, moving, and noble failure that I wouldn't care to swap it for even three or four modest successes.
And from the end:
Jarmusch daringly uses Whitaker for the most part as a hulking silent presence, going about his business in purposeful and dedicated mime, but whenever the movie requires the character to be something more than a mythic icon, we don't know quite what to make of him.
...which is more or less what I've thought of the film. As I've said, I don't hate Ghost Dog, not at all, it is simply inferior to other Jarmusch films (with the exception of Permanent Vacation). Like the quoted reviewer, I appreciate Ghost Dog as a stylistical/mythical/cross-cultural (perhaps even allegorical) exercise, but it doesn't really touch me. An interesting failure indeed.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 28 July 2003 08:19 (twenty years ago) link
The scene where all of the old Italian mobsters are sitting around the shop and the landlord comes and gives them grief for not paying the rent was pretty funny. I liked the way he went character for character in the room in the sequence, it is a funny lineup of old tough guys.
― earlnash, Friday, 26 September 2003 13:26 (twenty years ago) link
― athos magnani (Cozen), Friday, 14 November 2003 19:28 (twenty years ago) link
"Why am I here?"
Jarmusch: "I don't think you should drive?"Lurie: "Huh? You don't think I should drive? Why? What?"Jarmusch: "I’ll drive."Lurie: "You wanna drive?" Jarmusch: "No."
― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 14 November 2003 19:48 (twenty years ago) link
― strgn, Monday, 2 April 2007 20:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Hurting 2, Monday, 16 April 2007 04:15 (seventeen years ago) link
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/jim_jarmusch_vampires.html
― stately, plump bunk moreland (schlump), Monday, 30 May 2011 13:07 (twelve years ago) link
Saw this dude at apple soho today. Grew about 3 chins
― calstars, Thursday, 11 October 2018 19:15 (five years ago) link
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, 2 September 2019 00:00 (four years ago) link
I know it wasn't loved by most, but some of my favorite people really liked this and I'm looking forward to it
― Dan S, Monday, 2 September 2019 00:33 (four years ago) link
It was very Cohen Bros dry. I should have paid it a bit more attention (I didnt see it in a cinema, but at home *coff*)
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 2 September 2019 00:38 (four years ago) link
More discussion here Veg: It's a sad and beautiful world: the Jim Jarmusch poll.
― quelle sprocket damage (sic), Monday, 2 September 2019 00:38 (four years ago) link
erm, Trayce, derp
Ha yeah I didnt realise I'd posted this on ILF whoops!
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 2 September 2019 01:02 (four years ago) link