Coffee and Cigarettes

[modage]

4/5

c'mon, you're kidding right?  on what scale?

[El Duderino]

4/5

c'mon, you're kidding right?  on what scale?

i thought it was good. on a scale from 1 to 5?

[modage]

Citizen Kane is a 5 and Coffee and Cigarettes is a 4?  okay, i cant argue an opinion.  but i really didnt see this as much of a movie.  it was a series of almost unrelated 1 act's, some of which were badly written and acted and assembled together into a film which was not cohesive or consistent.  there were a few shining moments of comedy, but they were all pretty slight.

[Finn]

I think this is more like a collection of short films (which it is) than an actual full-length movie.

[El Duderino]

I think this is more like a collection of short films (which it is) than an actual full-length movie.

and.....

[Pubrick]

Citizen Kane is a 5 and Coffee and Cigarettes is a 4?  okay, i cant argue an opinion.  but i really didnt see this as much of a movie.  it was a series of almost unrelated 1 act's, some of which were badly written and acted and assembled together into a film which was not cohesive or consistent.  there were a few shining moments of comedy, but they were all pretty slight.

u hav to recall duderino's rating system, which used to put Goodbye Lenin in the same category as Magnolia..

Well I think the point he's getting at is you're giving Goodbye, Lenin the same grade you're giving Magnolia. You're giving Goodbye, Lenin...the same grade...as Magnolia.

that's back when he was using letters. i think numbers are even harder cos u can only hav 2 levels per number. without having seen this i'm pretty sure it'll be a 3.5/5 at best, or a B-. i can assign these ratings cos they're completely meaningless.

[Finn]

I bought the dvd and watched it tonight. I thought it was very good overall. Some of the shorts were better than others. But it was rewarding once the film was over.

[MacGuffin]

but seriously, it's far from his best work

You're so right. Some of the vignettes felt like weak student films; with the cheap production design and no direction (see: progress), plus the simple set-ups and what felt like cutaways. The "Renee" one had some sense of intrigue, with her getting the coffee just right and looking through the Guns And Ammo-type magazines, but there was no payoff. The ones that seemed to work better played away from the whole coffee and cigarettes hook.

[foray]

The last one with Bill Rice and Taylor Mead is the best. Taylor Mead is so delightful and utterly charming.

The rest of the vignettes I felt were riding too much on who the actors were. But I like the leitmotif of the checkered cloth/table/tableware. It was like a reference to a game, how we play verbal/social/etc games over a cup of coffee...

foray

[Gamblour.]

Not to resurrect this messiah, but I just watched it. Also foray, leitmotifs, I believe, refer only to musical motifs, basically they're theme songs for characters. Visual motifs are just visual motifs.

Waits and Iggy, what a hilarious dynamic. I think it's interesting how most every conversation relied on extreme social awkwardness. The best ones did: Molina/Coogan, Blanchett/Blanchett, Waits/Iggy. The White Stripes, well Jack was cool, Meg sucked. The Tesla coil was there to add a gimmick, because there delivery was gonna sound hammy to begin with. I did laugh aloud when the guy from the kitchen (the evil twin from earlier) names what a GFI is and then gets offended.

Molina and Coogan were brilliant. RZA, GZA, and Murray, not so great. I love how Jarmusch attached bits of dialogue from the early shorts to the ending shorts. Made the film almost seem important, when really Jarmusch is just a goofy bastard. The guy with the dice, he was intriguing, as Mac put it with Renee.