Jim Jarmusch

Even if it is, it doesn't change a thing. Down by Law is a modern fable/allegory as well, but it also some emotion in it. Even if you make an allegorical film, you need to have a good plot and good characters. Otherwise people will just admire the cleverness of you allegory, but not the depth of your film.

non-exclusively, some stabs, mostly remembered from or inspired by Rosenbaum's review...

the alienation of the underclass/outcast (you don't talk to no one and you ain't got no friends)?

the ways in which identity and communication/language are changing and the relevance or lack thereof to understanding among different peoples (communication in english, french, spanish, even where those languages aren't spoken; failures of communication in the same language)?

the presence of violence in the modern (this ain't no ancient culture, mister; sometimes it is)?

the difficulty with which institutional status quos (i'm probably doing something horrible to latin there) yield (so i guess you're going to become the new boss now louie; it's not like that, ghost dog)?

a love song to hiphop, in particular its highly-skilled and creative practitioners (taking the couple's clothes at gunpoint; ok, getting the guy's suit fits the story, but why does he steal the woman's clothes; Wu-Tang = "We Usually Take All Niggas Garments")?

i didn't think about this until now, but perhaps every character is defined best by the way in which he or she relates to ghost dog. maybe a way of starting to look at the movie. a rashomon thing. what does ghost dog represent, then? or is this just a formal wrinkle?

If you think it's just a gangsta/samurai/mafia style thing, consider that I have near-zero interest in any of these genres/memes, and ghost dog is one of my favorite movies. I don't know how you miss emotion in it. It's far more pervasive in Dead Man, admittedly, but it's definitely there.

A quote from the beginning of this review:

Jim Jarmusch's seventh narrative feature, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which I've seen three times, may be a failure, if only because most of its characters are never developed far enough beyond their mythic profiles to live independently of them. But if it is, it's such an exciting, prescient, moving, and noble failure that I wouldn't care to swap it for even three or four modest successes.

And from the end:

Jarmusch daringly uses Whitaker for the most part as a hulking silent presence, going about his business in purposeful and dedicated mime, but whenever the movie requires the character to be something more than a mythic icon, we don't know quite what to make of him.

...which is more or less what I've thought of the film. As I've said, I don't hate Ghost Dog, not at all, it is simply inferior to other Jarmusch films (with the exception of Permanent Vacation). Like the quoted reviewer, I appreciate Ghost Dog as a stylistical/mythical/cross-cultural (perhaps even allegorical) exercise, but it doesn't really touch me. An interesting failure indeed.

The scene where all of the old Italian mobsters are sitting around the shop and the landlord comes and gives them grief for not paying the rent was pretty funny. I liked the way he went character for character in the room in the sequence, it is a funny lineup of old tough guys.

"Why am I here?"

Jarmusch: "I don't think you should drive?"
Lurie: "Huh? You don't think I should drive? Why? What?"
Jarmusch: "I’ll drive."
Lurie: "You wanna drive?"
Jarmusch: "No."

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/jim_jarmusch_vampires.html

Saw this dude at apple soho today. Grew about 3 chins

I just saw "the dead dont die" and I cant work out if I hated it, or it was really clever and dryly witty. I mean I'll happily watch Adam Driver drly remark "this is gonna end badly" on a loop for 2 hours, and the reviews make me think I missed something, but... enh?

I know it wasn't loved by most, but some of my favorite people really liked this and I'm looking forward to it

It was very Cohen Bros dry. I should have paid it a bit more attention (I didnt see it in a cinema, but at home *coff*)

More discussion here Veg: It's a sad and beautiful world: the Jim Jarmusch poll.

erm, Trayce, derp

Ha yeah I didnt realise I'd posted this on ILF whoops!