Anticipate "Limits of Control", the new Jim Jarmusch film starring Isaach de Bankolé, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Gael García Bernal, and John Hurt.

have filmmakers forgotten how to title things? LIMITS OF CONTROL! Sounds like a straight-to-cable Eric Roberts movie.

ok, the "The" makes it sound more like John Updike (still not nec a good thing).

It's called context, Mr. Roeper.

COLD

^^ good film title

it will probably have a good soundtrack.

haha

Dude, Eric Roberts is hot again. Who else ya got? Michael Pare? Andrew Stevens?

I loved "Coffee and Cigarettes" though, and "Broken Flowers" is among his three best movies, so I'm still looking forward to this.

^^ blistering insanity

What do you mean?

he means you are insane

and covered in blisters

goole OTM

Ghost Dog rules

Otm. Forrest Whitaker >>>>>>> Bill Murray.

According to IMDb this movie is already in post-production, but it's hard to find any information on it. Besides the stuff on the IMDB page, all I could find is this very vague Tilda Swinton interview:

Apparently this was shot by Chris Doyle, which sounds promising. And Jarmusch is still the best living American movie director, so my expectations are quite high.

information does seem to be pretty scant, which suits me, but in general jarmusch matters, the guy who ran the great old tripod site with all jim's picks and various film stuff to read through has updated it, http://www.jim-jarmusch.net/, and has a jarmusch blog here. i'm pretty jazzed to see the new one; isaach de bankole is one of my favourites; the rest seem quite a strange mix, and generally something new with it being in spain, but i'm definitely curious.

i'm keen to see the chris doyle effect on this - i'm assuming it'll be more a la paranoid park, as i can't imagine any of his other styles jiving with jarmusch's aesthetic. i thought broken flowers was pretty strange, as it was jarmusch moving towards embracing things like the (slightly-closer) close up, real titles, and other un-austere things he's long rejected.

i find it pretty hard to get excited about a new jim jarmusch movie these days.

Did you Broken Flowers?

haha

im excited no prob

(actual answer to what i assume is the question: i couldn't rouse myself to see it)

u didnt see broken flowers - it was pretty good

You should see Broken Flowers, it's the best thing he's done in ages.

omg so not true

Well, I did enjoy it more than any film of his since Night on Earth. Not that Dead Man and Coffee & Cigarettes weren't both good movies (and Ghost Dog had many good things in it too), but BF was simply better.

so u liked night on earth better than dead man and ghost dog

okay no way is broken flowers better than dead man crazy crazy crazy talk

broken flowers was ok i guess

dead man is pretty much my favoritest movie

so u liked night on earth better than dead man and ghost dog

Yes. I thought DM and GD both had interesting themes, but they ran with them for a bit too long, so they stretched kinda thin. Jarmusch seems to be at his best when he does episode films, or at least episodic films, like Broken Flowers is.

coffee & cigarettes is like 90% terrible. night on earth is like 40% terrible.

dead man is pretty much awesome.

ghost dog is pretty bad too

Okay, if you thought Coffee & Cigarettes was terrible, I don't think we'll ever agree on Jarmusch. I thought a couple of the episodes were not that good (especially the one with White Stripes), but most of it was quite good. The Cate Blanchett episode and the closing episode were among the best things he's ever done.

cate blanchett & alfred molina ones were great, the rest was pretty half-assed

omg! bill murray and the rza are talking!!! isnt that lolarious

ive never seen dead man but ghost dog was pretty c-o-r-n-y

u better take that back and see dead man asap

coffee and cigarettes is good but with strange forays into meditations on fame, ie white stripes cate blanchett etc. the good parts - alf molina, taylor mead, renee, lees and buscemi - are awesome though. and yeah, can not understand how anyone is criticising dead man. jonathan rosenbaum's book on it's excellent reading too - the intertextualities and sorta native american in jokes (the tobacco bit) are worth reading about.

broken flowers just seemed slightly unsuccessful to me. i like it, and think it's in parts - the hippie girlfriend, skewering carrots, visiting the grave - excellent, but i guess it's the downside of how his stuff's so often good in a very slight, almost lucky way: like i can't think of an explanation for how a lot of mystery train works, or could be written confidently envisaging its translation to film, because it's so sketchy and funny and unconventional. and i guess sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. it didn't seem to with the lolita bit for me.

the next one seems as if he's going for a genre movie, a kind of heist thing maybe, which goes back to the dead man thing of using the framework of a genre/western for other purposes.

screening in may, at cannes i guess

http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/thelimitsofcontrol/

looks hot. <3 chris doyle

I love Bankole.

"Soundtrack contains music by SUNN O))) & Boris, Boris and Earth." hahaha

RATED R FOR GRAPHIC NUDITY AND SOME LANGUAGE

this is an interesting film

variety review ripped this apart lol at flagrant hipsterism

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117940105.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

Worst of all, it just feels tired and recycled -- the referencing of Rimbaud and Blake, the flagrant hipsterism that here falsifies rather than refreshes, the self-conscious plunking down of all manner of foreign actors in unlikely contexts, the above-it-all attitude toward connecting on a human level. And then there's the music, mostly by a Japanese electronic noise outfit called Boris, that drones on ultimately to congeal into a state of undead rigor mortis.

is flagrant hipsterism a five-yard or a 10-yard penalty?

All these reviews keep saying it's mediocre but describe it in a way that makes me really want to see it.

I watch Jarmusch films no matter what. Except Coffee and Cigarrettes (so far.)

I like his post-Dead Man work better than his pre-Dead Man work.

Stranger than Paradise is the only movie of his that I like

OMG this trailer is a horrible mess

Stranger than Paradise is his most likable movie, but not necessarily his best

"Ghost Dog" could have been better - where did he get the idea that a samurai would use a gun as his weapon of choice? Give Forrest Whitaker a sword and you have a good movie.

uh.

ghost dog is on par with dead man. it's got a better lead at least.

i haven't seen the last few but i will see this and try to leave, as per AO Scott, before Bill Murray shows up

it's got a better lead at least.

all johnny depp films can be tv guided as johnny depp plays a wide-eyed eccentric innocent in-, but dead man is the one good fit i think. kinda like bankole in the new one, he's like a blank canvas.

ps this is probably a frustrating watch if you're hanging in to see your favourite actor cut loose and strut their stuff for a while but bill murray excellent and inventively cast

how many new ways can gabbknob be ass

The reviews make this one sound like Ghost Dog, which I think is a bad sign, since that one was one of his weakest films. I like the humanist Jarmusch (Down By Law, Mystery Train, Broken Flowers, Night on Earth, the better episodes in Coffee & Cigarettes) more than the "I'm so cool and hip" Jarmusch (Permanent Vacation, Dead Man, Ghost Dog). Unfortunately this movie might be in the latter category. Still gonna see it anyway.

I like the humanist Jarmusch (Down By Law, Mystery Train, Broken Flowers, Night on Earth, the better episodes in Coffee & Cigarettes) more than the "I'm so cool and hip" Jarmusch (Permanent Vacation, Dead Man, Ghost Dog)

excepting Broken Flowers, you mean you like/perceive as 'humanist' the Jarmusch that leans further toward the life-is-mysterious-and-beautiful side but don't like/perceive as 'humanist' the Jarmusch that leans further toward the human-beings-are-sad-violent-and-fail-to-communicate side.

Pretty much so, yeah. Dead Man is actually has some good things going in it, but I thought Ghost Dog had more empty hipster posturing than any profound examination of human failure in communicating with each other (despite Forrest Whitaker's undeniably great performance). Ditto for Permanent Vacation. I thought Broken Flowers actually did the failure-of-connection thing much better, on a more mundane level it's easier to relate to (how many people can really relate to a gangsta hitman with samurai ethics?), and without trying to score so much coolness points.

Whoop, there's an extra "is" after "Dead Man", scratc that.

I didn't have that reaction to Ghost Dog at all in terms of hipsterism or coolness points. I think lots of people can relate to the desire to nostalgically live by a masculine code of ethics from the "days of old", where people "had ethics", that frankly never existed but now is mythical. You know, compared to the so-called messed-up days we live in now/always live in the present. It's a pretty commonplace feeling, I think.

Not to attack unjustly, but I find it strange that you see Ghost Dog as too hipster, but you're totally cool with Coffee & Cigarettes which is probably the worst thing he's done in that regard? (Disclaimer- I actually like Night on Earth, Dead Man, Ghost Dog pretty equally well, C&G is a mixed bag, the best parts were the Blanchett and Molina bits).

it is a bit recycled but i enjoyed it anyway in no small part due to the soundtrack.

i did think for the first time, tho, about the role of women in his films.

how many hipsters will ask whether they are being told off in this btw?

I feel like Dead Man was his apex, everything before it was good to great, and everything after has been a horrible fall. I hated Broken Flowers, so I'm not really looking forward to this.

this is somewhat formally similar to dead man and ghost dog, but it's not as rich as either - more merely attractive (not that there's anything wrong with that), on the level of night on earth (and coffee and cigarettes?)

Violence, some crude language and Ms. de la Huerta in various states of undress.

just watched this. Was pretty caught up in the visuals/editing. Ms. De La Huerta's derriere >>> Alicia Keys' derriere.

this made someone's 10 of the decade list

was it rosenbaum?

not that i've seen -- one of the TimeOutNY guys

I would love to thank you for reviving this thread right now, because I really wanted to see this film and it never played locally, but I did not watch for it to be released on disc.

yeah the idea that this is purposively flagrantly hipster is kindof blowing my mind. i dont think it is, and if it is, it is not a good idea nonetheless (b/c it makes me so confused among them)

I never revisited this thread, it seems. Thoughts:

The Limits of Control is like a cinematic tone poem for some sort of off-screen work. I thought it was a success in terms of being evocative of moods and forms, while not necessarily ideas. The dialogue is completely inconsequential. I could buy arguments that it's trite, but it's used so sparingly that there's enough space for the ideas to breathe.

If nothing else, it is a beautiful music montage with Christopher Doyle cinematography and a Boris soundtrack.

(I actually was thinking about the film this morning after rewatching most of it yesterday, mostly the framing of shots and visual progression. I got partway through the thought "I wonder who the..." then realized, of course, the cinematographer was Doyle.)

Liked this, didn't love it; my first JJ. Wish I'd seen it on a big screen, in a theatre.

I somehow randomly saw like 15 mins of this without knowing what it was, and I was into it. I generally dig nicely shot films involving solitary male characters not talking for long stretches of time.

'Only Lovers Left Alive' is great, much funnier than I expected. Glad I saw it in a theater too (I don't really care about this sort of thing but it was a showing on 35mm).

his best film

hell no

hell yes

after years of aridness he finally wrote a good script and cast it shrewdly

It's on the very short list of JJ movies I'd ever be inclined to revisit, and that includes the ones I respect very much.

it's about vinyl geekdom, so surprise surprise

ha I forgot that was even in the movie

alfred i hope it is in some sense reassuring to know that seeing a terrible opinion with your name underneath at least feels fresh, unfamiliar, unsettling to me.

i liked this fine, & thought it had some very sweet passages, but it compares pretty unfavourably with a couple of the films he made like ... twenty, thirty years ago, according to very similar templates, with a better kinda gestalt-y cohesion of elements. the sober variety of mystery train, say - inhabiting dilapidated urban plazas at night, mapping lovers' trajectories while zigzagging into these little offshoot, genre-y subplots - just feels so much stronger (admittedly, with the benefit of some distance), more convincing & panoramic & unique. jarmusch still hasn't totally figured out working inside digital, yet, i don't think, & there's something just so concrete & strong about the grammar of those earlier films. the deadpan tone feels real. there's a kind of awkward, echoing lack of consideration to some of this film, i think - the sincerity of one of the character's deaths, late in the film, of fully celebrating Guys In Shades, of slipping into kinda brash concert footage at the show they visit - that makes me miss his evenness. it's a lovely film, & its romantic peaks are really memorable, but i can't see how it beats like, dead man in detuned originality, mystery train in singularity, down by law in fun, &c.

schlump otm

also we have a goddamn general Jarmusch thread

i can't see how it beats like, dead man in detuned originality, mystery train in singularity, down by law in fun, &c.

I think it does, especially in precisely what you said – beautifully – inhabiting dilapidated urban plazas at night, mapping lovers' trajectories.

but i can't see how it beats like, dead man in detuned originality, mystery train in singularity, down by law in fun, &c.

yeah these are top 3 for me, perplexed at prospect of him bettering any of those this late in his career but I guess its possible

feelin kinda Jarmusch-y lately, Limits of Control is the only one I haven't seen so far, I should get on that

Watched Ghost Dog last night for the first time in eons - it's pretty good but a bit clunky in places and feels like a step down (or an awkward sidestep?) from Dead Man, which I unabashedly adore. That Rosenbaum book is worth getting? I didn't even know there was one.

yeah it's really interesting, & nerdily kinda really added layers to my understanding/appreciation of the film. lots of just very satisfying dialogue w/ JJ, too, cool stories & stuff.

i remember having that experience rewatching ghost dog, thinking the broad mafia humour was kind of almost televisionish, & sometimes couldn't quite hold the weight of its like ... flava fav dialogue, while still being fun nonetheless. so many other satisfying strands of the film, though -- isaach de bankole, the little girl, gratuitious rza cameo & beautiful rza score, cool mysterious woman watching cartoons in limo, devestatingly probably the most recent use of forest whitaker's meditative quietness, &c&c&c

there's enough little bits in it to make it worthwhile, many of which I'd forgotten - the guy building a boat on his roof, for example. Or Forrest coming across the rednecks who have killed a bear. Gangsters always watching cartoons. All the stuff between de Bankole and Whittaker is classic Jarmusch.

my heart is warmed just remembering bankole/whittaker exchanges in that movie

haha yes all the repeated dialogue

wow LoC was terrible

yeah! it might be his absolute nadir.

the vampire one is pretty good! return to form, i guess.

though i tend to think stranger than paradise renders the rest of it fairly redundant.

as mh says upthread: it was a success in terms of being evocative of moods and forms, while not necessarily ideas.

it's just so ... empty. the style is there and it is gorgeous to look at but it's all in service of a script/plot that is woefully underdone and paper-thin, it's a bunch of gestures that add up to nothing, which is usually the opposite of how Jarmusch's best material works.

all of the "stars" getting their one-scene walk-ons felt like the hackiest way possible to give it any structure, and since we don't know or care about anyone involved in the exchanges (incl the nullity at the center of the action, about whom we never learn anything) they just feel cheap and pointless.

and the gestures feel pretty received and rote by this point.

jarmusch's films have always been about attitudinizing (jonathan rosenbaum's claims for "dead man's" profundity notwithstanding) and that kind of thing walks a thin line between indulgent and charming.

xpost

Rewatched this today. Only this time through I recognised the Stalker reference.

I have this image in my head of a room full of sand. And a bird flies towards me, and dips its wing into the sand. And I honestly have no idea whether this image came from a dream, or a film.

Really enjoyed it this time through.