Jim Jarmusch

[mikeweil]

I happened to watch Ghost Dog on TV the other night, and liked it a lot. I noticed I always liked his films, and his choice of music is always inspiring.

What do you think, and what are your favourites?

[GregK]

I thought Dead Man was interesting, and he's mentioned that Neil Young is one of his favorite musicians, so he can't be that bad!

[BFrank]

Oddly enough, I think "Ghost Dog" is the only one of his films I haven't seen.

He's always entertaining and his sense of space is VERY refreshing. Where most films try to cram as much action and/or dialog as possible into each minute, he let's everything flow at a much more realistic pace. Great, subtle sense of humor, too.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

[skeith]

I dig him very much, but I didn't like Ghost Dog

My faves:

Stranger than Paradise

Night on Earth

Mystery Train

I am probably forgetting something.

[ghost of miles]

I still love STRANGER THAN PARADISE, and I've probably seen it three or four times. Saw DOWN BY LAW when it came out and kind of lost track of him after that... should catch up on his oeuvre one of these days.

[md655321]

Loved Coffee & Cigarettes (with Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Steven Wright, the Wu-Tang Clan and others) and still need to see Broken flowers.

Down By Law is also great.

Considering so much of his work is an exporation of boredom, his movies sure are interesting.

[Jazzmoose]

Gotta admit, I've never heard of him or any of these movies...I guess they haven't made it under my rock yet.

[Alexander]

I've seen most of his films. I love "Mystery Train," "Night On Earth," "Down By Law" and "Stranger Than Paradise" best. The only ones I haven't seen are "Dead Man" (no real reason...just never got around to it) and his current film "Broken Flowers" (which I very much want to see). I always enjoy Jarmusch's films. "Coffee and Cigarettes" had some very funny bits. My favorite bits included Tom Waits and Iggy Pop, The White Stripes (with Jack's Tesla Coil), Alfred Molina, and Cait Blanchette (playing herself and a deadbeat relative).

[BFrank]

I forgot about "Night On Earth". That one has a lot of interesting bits, too.

[Quincy]

I love "Mystery Train," "Night On Earth," "Down By Law" and "Stranger Than Paradise" best. 

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Me too. I own a copy of "Dead Man" mainly because I got it cheap. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it too and it has good replay value. I guess it must as I recall years ago a bar in Tampa used to play it every Tuesday or Wednesday night for months.

As far as Jarmusch being a Neil Young fan he certainly is. Check out "Year of the Horse." It contains a very funny scene involving a small fire in a hotel room.

Still haven't seen his latest. Shame on me, but I suppose it will be out on DVD soon if it hasn't snuck past me in that format too.

[Swinger]

Are we talking about the same guy who directed the recently released Broken Flowers?

If the answer is yes,then I must say I really loved the movie! Saw it about two weeks ago.

I'm definitely going to watch those movies you've recommended so far.

[mikeweil]

There was a box set recently issued containing 9 DVDs - all of his films (except the most recent one, Broken Flowers) including the documentary on Crazy Horse; Coffee and Cigarettes is a collection of short films made over the years on the same theme (the first one with Roberto Benigni is hilarious).

There is a number of fansites with interesting information; I found this one rather nice and useful:

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/dir...3/jarmusch.html

This is a list of his films as a director taken from there:

Permanent Vacation (1980)

The New World (1982) short

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Down By Law (1986)

Coffee and Cigarettes (1986) short

Mystery Train (1989)

Coffee and Cigarettes II (1989) short, also known as Coffee and Cigarettes: Memphis Version

Night On Earth (1991)

Coffee and Cigarettes III (1993) short, also known as Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California

Dead Man (1995)

Year of the Horse (1997) documentary

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002) short

Coffee and Cigarettes IV (2003) short, also known as Coffee and Cigarettes: Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) feature

Broken Flowers (2005)

Edited November 6, 2005 by mikeweil

[couw]

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ice cream?

[mikeweil]

The first Jarmusch film I ever saw was Stranger Than Paradise but wasn't too impressed except for John Lurie's impressively tall figure, but found Down By Law great.

Night On Earth is very poetic and full of empathy for the characters, but the one that made me think he's one of the greatest was Dead Man. Johnny Depp was an ideal casting, Neil Young's lonely guitar roamings were perfect (I'm rather not a fan of his), and that Indian played by Gary Farmer is hilarious. It's pretty radical to make a whole movie about the process of dying, isn't it? All the more in the context of cowboys and Indians .....

Edited November 6, 2005 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

Seems like that 9 DVD box set is available in Europe or Germany only; Zweitausendeins sells ist for € 64,99 - a tempting offer - Amazon wants twenty more for it.

Amazon USA, BTW, announces Broken Flowers as scheduled for DVD release on December 31, 1969 (link) .....

[king ubu]

Oh ice cream hellyeah!

Love that one! Night on Earth is great as well. But several others I haven't seen yet.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Too much coffee, man!

[J Larsen]

Stranger than Paradise is one of my favorite movies, period.

Down by Law is very good, but the style to substance ratio is a bit high, IMO. However, it is a very cool style.

IMHO, Mystery Train and Night on Earth are pretty much crap. There are a couple of fun bits in Night on Earth, but he pretty much lost me with these two.

Dead Man was okay.

Ghost Dog was friggin' embarrassing.

[sal]

I'm surprised that nobody has seen "Broken Flowers". Its one of the best American films of the year. Its great how these smart directors (Jarmusch, Sophia Copolla, Wes Anderson) are seeing and extracting greatness from Bill Murray with these excellent roles that he is born to play.

Anyways, aside from "Broken Flowers", I've only seen "Ghost Dog" and "Dead Man", and I loved them both. I think that Jarmusch is an acquired taste, but once you get it, you'll be hooked forever.

[BFrank]

I saw "Broken Flowers". While I don't think it's necessarily one of his best, it's still miles ahead of most of the junk that gets released to the theaters every week.

[Guest akanalog]

i saw "broken flowers" and i thought it sucked.

jarmusch is all style and no substance.

it seems like he has just cultivated some rich old friends with his new york wearing black smoking cigarettes drinking coffee friends with tom waits etc persona and can get them to give him money to make whatever crap he wants to and they feel like they are part of some fictional new york hip art scene which disappeared with the mudd club.

[BFrank]

it seems like he has just cultivated some rich old friends with his new york wearing black smoking cigarettes drinking coffee friends with tom waits etc persona and can get them to give him money to make whatever crap he wants to and they feel like they are part of some fictional new york hip art scene which disappeared with the mudd club.

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I compeletely disagree. But if that's the way you feel, go nuts. Your loss.

[7/4]

I saw "Broken Flowers". While I don't think it's necessarily one of his best, it's still miles ahead of most of the junk that gets released to the theaters every week.

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I thought it was great, maybe I still see it in theatres before it comes out on DVD.

Big fan here. But I only saw Dead Man recently.

[7/4]

it seems like he has just cultivated some rich old friends with his new york wearing black smoking cigarettes drinking coffee friends with tom waits etc persona and can get them to give him money to make whatever crap he wants to and they feel like they are part of some fictional new york hip art scene which disappeared with the mudd club.

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I compeletely disagree. But if that's the way you feel, go nuts. Your loss.

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I think we should vote akanalog off the island.