Coffee and Cigarettes
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Movie Reviews of Coffee and Cigarettes
Movie Review: Would you like coffee with your cigarettes?
Summary: 4 Stars
I just saw the latest Jim Jarmusch film "Coffee and Cigarettes" today. I was intrigued bythe film when I first saw the trailer for it when I saw "Dogville" a couple of months ago. I thought it looked very interesting. The film centers around the notion of smoking cigarettes while drinking a cup of coffee. In the film there are a slew of celebrities including Steve Buscemi, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Wu Tang Clan's Rza and Gza, and Alfred Molina. The film is shot in entirety in black and white so it has this grainy feel to the film which really worked out for the best. I couldn't imagine seeing this film in color. There are approximately a dozen vignettes (or close to a dozen) with two or three different celebrities discussing the finer points of smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee or just having a pointless conversation. Steve Buscemi was quite funny as this annoying waiter in a Memphis diner. The only vignette that didn't have more than one celebrity was in "Cousins" with Cate Blanchett who played both herself and her cousin Shelly. That was one of my favorite vignettes. I had a good laugh at the "Cousins?" vignette starring Alfred Molina and Steve Coorgan. It wasn't all comedy until the final vignette where the moviegoer catches some glimpse of bleak and despair where two elderly men are on a coffee break. The dialogue in most of the vignettes were hilarious. I loved the two old Italian men who got into each other's faces over their bad habits, one drank too much coffee and the other smoked too much cigarettes. There were moments in the film that did get on my nerves like the "No Problem" vignette but overall I enjoyed this movie. There may not have been much of a plot but it was refreshing to see a group of actors and musicians be themselves rather than try to pretend to be someone other than themselves.Movie Review: excellent
Summary: 4 Stars
love it or hate it.
Oh well typical in a pop-art sort of way we find a DVD here that gives you back about as much as you put into it. While some people enjoy the wierd minimal off setting feel of the whole movie, other trash it, becuase it didn't grab them by the balls and tell them what they should be thinking about. It's a very subtle, The beginging is very slow paced and often "dry" leaving you to focus on subtle things like the many ways the Twin are actually different, much like the ways each scene relate/differ. The end speeds up a bit and you get some less subtle moments like meg-and jack .. and the lovely scene between Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan. The high light of the entire "collection in my opinion didn't even come from any of the people I knew before hand "No Problem" was the one that sticks out the most for me.
I mean the movie just has a kinda of vibe to it all and its stitched together with certain dialog keys and of course the overall style. I found myself either constantly offset by the mixture of unrealstic dialog mixed with people playing themselves in a fictious enviroment where they end up playing charactures of themselves. It's like the minor joys and flaws of each ofthese people on display, some times your kinda confused at the way people are portraying "themselves", but its all very human.
The Cate Blanchett peice is extreamly well done. Since you see this very odd side of her playing herself probably overly shallow, and Like myself most people didn't realize that she was also playing her "fictious" broke cousin.
Its a love it or hate it kind of thing, the movie fits the title. very well. And I hate Coffee and I don't smoke. (go figure),
Movie Review: Killing Me Softly With These Things...
Summary: 4 Stars
"Coffee and Cigarettes" (2004) written and directed by Jim Jarmush is a very simple movie shot in B/W. It is a collection of eleven shorts where famous actors, comedians, rock-stars, and musicians played themselves. They drink coffee (lots of it), smoke, and talk. While each segment is short, we still can learn a lot about human nature.
Whether you like the film or not, does not even depend on whether you like coffee and cigarettes. I quit smoking many years ago but I love coffee (I prefer it strong, hot, no sugar, thanks) and I still remember that it was fun to sit over a cup of coffee and cigarette with the friends and talk about movies, books, plays, music, art, life...
Of eleven shorts, six were wonderful. I read some comments and was surprised that there are so many negative opinions. Some viwers think that the movie was slow - I did not even notice how the time flew. After I finished watching it, I started all over and watched the ones that I loved for a second time. The best, IMO are "Somewhere in California" with Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, "Cousins" - (Cate Blanchette plays a dual role - herself and her not so successful cousin); "These Things Will Kill You" (Joe Rigano, Vinny Vella, and Vinny Vella, Jr), "Cousins?" - easily the best in the bunch (Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan), "Delirious" - the funniest (RZA, GZA, and Bill Murray), and the final one, the elegiac "Champagne" - (Bill Rice and Taylor Mead)
Movie Review: A couple of the vignettes may make it worth your time
Summary: 4 Stars
Coffee and Cigarettes is not for everyone. It most certainly is not an action film. Did you perhaps see the fabulous 1981 production, My Dinner with Andre? If so, you should get the general idea. Some parts of this film are very boring. The interaction between Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright, for instance, didn't work for me. Is Director Jim Jarmusch trying for the existential angst crowd? Are we all supposedly insane in a world which doesn't have any meaning? Oh well, Cate Blanchett is at least superb playing both sisters, Cate and Shelby. Blanchett once again proves that she is one of our most brilliant actresses. It wasn't until I read the credits after the movie ended when I even realized that she was performing both roles! One sister is a success in the eyes of the world and the other is deemed a loser. They have little in common but their bloodline. It is hauntingly beautiful. The vignette staring Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan is also provocative dealing with the theme of snobbery and the desire to belong to the elite class. There's enough here to warrant buying the the eventually released dvd. You will then be able to decide which vignettes grab your attention while skipping over the others. As a matter of fact, many viewers may prefer avoiding the theater experience altogether. Your living room TV screen may be deemed more than sufficient for your viewing pleasure. Coffee and Cigarettes earns four stars.
Movie Review: An Off-beat, Hilariously Dry Study of Human Interaction
Summary: 4 Stars
If you can only laugh at slap-stick comedic films, you will not like this very much. If you enjoy dry comedic films where the jokes come from the characters' personalities, facial features, and witty dialogues, then you will enjoy most, if not all, the sketches of this film. The comedy comes from what I mentioned before, but it's a better experience watching this movie if you know almost every actor involved. Don't get me wrong, even if you didn't know any actor in the sketches, you would still find this enjoyable due to the excellent interactions between the characters.
As the title I gave for this review suggests, this film is a simple observation of how incredibly hilarious ordinary conversation can be. Irony and awkwardness are prominent themes throughout each of the sketches, and you will want to find out how exactly each conversation ends. None of the sketches run too long because even the few minutes where the characters' are seemingly staring into space trying to figure out what to talk to each other about is completely essential to establish the realism of the situation.
If you find ordinary conversation amusing especially when the talkers are so involved in the conversation, then you will enjoy the sketches in this film. There are no explosions, nudity, scary moments, or even color, just great writing and characterization.