catapult magazine

I was looking through the quicktime movie trailors and noticed that this movie had: Bill Murray, Iggy Pop, Steve Buscemi, Cate Blanchett, Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright and Tom Waits.
I was intrigued.
I watched the trailor and I have no idea what it’s supposed to be.
I’m even more intrigued.
Anybody know anything about this movie?
http://www.apple.com/trailers/mgm/coffee_and_cigarettes/large.html

it does look interesting. i hadn’t heard of it. this is from the website:

coffee and cigarettess is a comic series of short vignettes that build on one another to create a cumulative effect as the characters discuss things as diverse as caffeine popsicles, Paris in the twenties, and the use of nicotine as an insecticide all the while sitting around sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes. as jarmusch delves into the normal pace of our world from an extraordinary angle, he shows just how absorbing the obsessions, joys, and addictions of life can be.

I just read about this, too. Jim Jarmusch and Richard Linklater just had some sort of panel discussion about their films and JIm talked about “Coffee and Cigarettes”. I think it’s going to be a lot like “Night On Earth”, one of his earlier films, which I really like a lot. Tom Waits did the soundtrack…hope he does for this one as well!

Here’s the article. The discussion was at the SXSW film festival…

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/entertainment/2454499

And here’s another article about it.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/17/1063625093370.html?from=storyrhs

From the SMH article:

[i:13a0cccac7]“The reason I made that is, when you’re watching movies, the guy’s girlfriend calls him, she’s having something bad happening, and he says, ’I’ll take a cab. I’ll be right over.’ Cut to him getting out of the cab,” Jarmusch said in an interview with The Associated Press. "And my brain always says, what about the cab ride? The incidental thing, the thing that’s not the destination?

“So this is like little breaks in your day that are not part of the structure. It’s not like, what did you do today? I had a coffee break. That’s the last thing you think of. So I love the idea of the thing you’re not drawn to dramatically becoming the essence of the whole thing. It’s very contrary, but my brain works that way a lot.”

[/i:13a0cccac7]

“man, that don’t sound too good, bill murray.”

this line alone makes me want to see the movie. though i did really like “night on earth,” which could also influence my decision.

Jim Jarmusch is sort of an off-beat director that has no real “hits” but a lot of little cult classic kind of films. Dead Man with Johnny Depp is a classic example of his style and influence. I believe Criterion released one of his works, Down By Law, which is a humorous portrayal of three eclectic men and their attempted prison break. Jarmusch said it forms a loose trilogy with his films Stranger than Paradise and Mystery Train. Stranger than Paradise, by the way, was really an amazing breakthrough for american indie filmmakers. The black and white deadpan style of the film brought to light new and innovative ideas about how someone can use black and white, not only to render a film as emotionally raw, but also as a character in of itself. My favourite film of Jarmusch’s is, and always will be, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. There is no better film than a “gansta” twist on the traditional codes of the Japanese Samurai and Warlords of the era. So, what about Coffee and Cigarettes? Well, I think that Jarmusch is about to overdo the idea of black and white in film. This looks like it will have a good comedic effect, but I believe that it will lack in many elements that he has been slipping in lately. He does seem fairly confident about it’s acceptance among american indie film fanatics, so I hope it works for him. I just believe that he may be overdoing the plot devices which he is so famous for. Good look Mr. Jarmusch, I hope it works out for you, and I will most certainly be seeing and probably owning when it makes the great leap from the silver screen to my humble television screen.

Since it’s been almost a year since the last post, I thought I’d add a bit. I enjoyed the film a lot, and thought most of the shorts worked really well. Jarmusch always paces his films in such a way that it feels “perfect:” never too slow but not at a breakneck speed. This is no exception, and in the end the whole thing works well.

Any other thoughts?

I wasn’t very excited about this movie. I enjoyed a couple of them more than the others. I really liked the Jack and Megan White one and the one between the two brits (I forget their names). Oh, and the last one with the guy who can hear music. That kind of pulled the whole film together. But I was bored much of the time.