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Paterson Review

Excellent

Unpredictable filmmaker Jim Jarmusch ricochets from his artful vampire movie Only Lovers Left Alive into this offhanded comedy-drama. The central theme this time is poetry, as Jarmusch weaves the quiet everyday observations of William Carlos Williams' writings into a movie set in his hometown. It's a whimsical story packed with wry humour, thoughtful emotion and some spicy details in both the people and places.

It takes place in Paterson, New Jersey, but the title is also the name of the central character. Paterson (Adam Driver) is a bus driver who enjoys his daily routine with his girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani). As he scribbles poetry in his journal, Laura longs to be a cupcake-baking country singer. Their days are livened up by their expressive bulldog Marvin, who accompanies Paterson to the bar each night, where he chats with barman Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley) and the locals. Then one day his routine is broken, and a series of small events seem to conspire to change the course of his life.

There isn't actually much plot in this movie, which gently observes Paterson's repetitive days with a sense of sardonic wit. Driver and Farahani are terrific in their roles as dreamers whose lives are coloured with artistic expression. They're so cheerful, even in challenging situations, that we can't help but love them. By contrast, Paterson's boss (Rizwan Manji) has a list of complaints to recite every morning, and a couple in the bar (William Jackson Harper and Chasten Harmon) seem to be fighting about nothing. And then there are three other intriguing poets Paterson encounters over the course of the film: a rapper (Cliff Smith), a young girl (Sterling Jerins) and a Japanese tourist (Nagase).

Continue reading: Paterson Review

Paterson Trailer


A week in the life of Paterson (Adam Driver); a bus driver who happens to live in Paterson, New Jersey to the amusement of everyone he meets. He's also a talented poet, who writes based on his simple daily observations and is never found without his notebook. He lives his life on a strict schedule; he goes to work, goes home, walks his English bulldog Marvin, grabs a beer at the local bar and returns home to his wife. He is married to a woman called Laura (Golshifteh Farahani), whose life isn't quite as routine as Paterson's everyday schedule. She dreams of becoming a country singer and encourages her husband to go out and publish some of his work. But is he ready to share his mind with the rest of the world?

Continue: Paterson Trailer

Jim Jarmusch attends the 26th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards held at Cipriani Wall Street, New York, United States - Tuesday 29th November 2016

Jim Jarmusch

Gimme Danger Trailer


As the trailer begins, you hear Jim Jarmusch announce that he's "in an undisclosed location interrogating Jim Osterberg (Iggy Pop) about The Stooges, the greatest rock 'n' roll band ever. 'Interrogating' is the perfect choice of words for Jarmusch to choose as nothing less would do justice to the severe impact The Stooges had on the rock scene. 

Raucous, loud, dangerous and unafraid to cross the boundaries, not only did Iggy Pop and the rest of the band embody rock, they also embraced an entirely new ethos that was being formed - in part by them - called punk.

Iggy Pop originally formed The Stooges as a blues band, but didn't want to stick to the traditional confines of the genre, he wanted to take the style in a whole new direction, so he and three of his friends began writing songs together. The eight tracks they'd originally compile included I Wanna Be Your Dog and the ten minute+ track We Will Fall. The record would be produced by the Velvet Underground's John Cale and go on to make The Stooges a name that's still recognised as one of the most important bands to come out of those early years of rock 'n' roll.

Continue: Gimme Danger Trailer

Only Lovers Left Alive Review


Excellent

It's hardly surprising that laconic filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) has created such an inventively offbeat vampire movie, helped hugely by the ace casting of Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as extremely long-term lovers. Fans of the genre might find the movie a bit slow and relaxed, but sharp humour and especially strong characters make it unmissable.

In a run-down house in Detroit, centuries-old Adam (Hiddleston) is living in squalor while anonymously creating club music with the assistance of Ian (Yelchin), who finds things like antique guitars for him to play. He gets his supply of clean O-negative blood from a helpful doctor (Wright). Meanwhile in Tangiers, Adam's wife Eve (Swinton) relies on her old pal Marlowe (Hurt) for the blood she sips at sunrise like a cocktail before lapsing into a deep sleep. Bored, Eve decides to visit Adam, so books nighttime flights and arrives to a blissful reunion. But their solace is interrupted when her wild-child sister Eva (Wasikowska) turns up.

These may be creatures of the night, but over thousands of years they have discovered exactly what kind of art soothes their souls. And Eva's boisterous presence disrupts their languorous peace even more than the fact that the blood supply is becoming increasingly contaminated. Adam and Eve call humans "zombies" dismissively and joke about their influence on key events and inventions throughout history. Hiddleston and Swinton are utterly perfect for these roles, bringing out details that are hilarious as well as emotionally moving. They also let us see the years of boredom mixed with a glimmer of childish curiosity that would be required to survive for so long.

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'Only Lovers Left Alive': Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddlestone Celebrate Undying Love In New Vampire Romance [Trailer]


Tilda Swinton Jim Jarmusch John Hurt Mia Wasikowska

You'd think we'd have had our fill of vampire romances by now, but new movie Only Lovers Left Alive is set to show us that there's still fresh blood to shake from the undead fantasy genre. It helps that Jim Jarmusch's soon-to-be-released film boasts the hair-raisingly talented lead duo of Tilda Swinton and Thor's Tom Hiddlestone, who play a pair of trendy vampire lovers trying to find their fill of blood whilst keeping a low profile.

Only Lovers Left Alive
Tilda Swinton & Tom Hiddlestone Strike A Deathly Pose In The New Vampire Romance.

Swinton and Hiddlestone are moulded into the deathly cool couple Adam and Eve. After being around for centuries, Adam, a rock star with a penchant for vintage guitars, is finding it difficult to get his head around the modern world with all of its technology. His need for reclusiveness is threatened by the people drawn to his air of mystery and the music he makes.

Continue reading: 'Only Lovers Left Alive': Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddlestone Celebrate Undying Love In New Vampire Romance [Trailer]

Only Lovers Left Alive Trailer


An ancient vampire named Adam is desperate to remain hidden from the world in his Detroit home. But that's harder than it looks as people are becoming increasingly interested in the music he makes and his mysterious ways. However, it seems music is not his only passion when his old lover Eve makes her way over to his home to rekindle their long lost feelings for each other. Enamoured at the sight of each other, it isn't long before all their attentions are focused on each other, but things aren't as easy as they should be when Eve's perpetually irritating little sister Ava shows up to see them and proceeds to test Adam and Eve's relationship to the limits as Adam struggles to contain his frustration at having her around. The pair have more to worry about, however, such as how they are going to survive in a quickly decaying world.

'Only Lovers Left Alive' is a hearty vampire flick written and directed by Jim Jarmusch ('Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai', 'Broken Flowers', 'Dead Man'). What makes it different to vamp films of recent times, however, is that the characters' monstrous natures take a bit of a back seat as romance and drama become the movie's main themes. It is due for release in the UK on February 21st 2014.

Click here to read the film review for Only Lovers Left Alive

The Limits Of Control Review


Excellent
It was about three years ago when, emerging from a press screening of Pedro Almodóvar's Volver, a good friend said to me, "You just can't argue with Almodóvar," referring to the idiosyncratic style that the great Spanish director has held steady for nearly three decades now. It didn't matter that Volver was, arguably, one of the director's more languid entries in terms of story, thematic content, and ambition. It simply mattered that it was undeniably Almodóvar.

The Limits of Control, the 11th feature by the New York-born auteur Jim Jarmusch, is another work that is inarguably stamped by its director's idiosyncrasies and, like Volver, there have been several critics who have questioned if its artistic success is not so much a result of it being a Jarmusch film rather than simply a good film. It emits a dark-shade cool, as befits any Jarmusch joint, and it features several of the director's usual performers, including the Ivorian-born actor Isaach De Bankolé in the lead.

Continue reading: The Limits Of Control Review

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession Review


Very Good
Z Channel was one of the first pay cable stations ever. It's "magnificent obsession" was movies, as Z Channel became known for being the definitive place to go for those obsessed with film -- snobs, cineastes, and plain old cinema junkies.

And then its programming chief killed his wife and himself.

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Coffee And Cigarettes Review


OK
Coffee and cigarettes. What is it about this magical combination of caffeine and cancer that's so irresistible to millions of café and pub patrons around the world? Despite its title, don't go looking to Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes for the answer. A series of vignettes populated by an all-star cast of actors and musicians, the film has the laid-back attitude of its tobacco-smoking, java-gulping protagonists, each of whom spends his screen time ruminating on a host of arbitrary issues involving class, race, and physics. However, like its central delicacy, Jarmusch's comedy is apt to provide a slight, delectable buzz but little nutritional value.

Jarmusch enlists a diverse cast of indie stars and former colleagues for this modest ensemble, but his uncharacteristically wheezy writing frequently undermines the film's wry humor. Cate Blanchett, in a dual performance, plays an arrogant version of herself as well as her skuzzy, jealous cousin, but the piece's portrait of jealousy and resentment loses steam after you become accustomed to seeing the actress talk to herself. Similarly, The White Stripes' Meg and Jack White provide a brief lesson on inventor Nikola Tesla's Tesla Coil, but save for the creepy, Mao Tse-tung-inspired portrait of Lee Marvin hanging on the wall behind them, the skit is nothing more than an overly long non sequitur. And even a brief appearance by Steve Buscemi can't rescue an insipid bit about two argumentative African-American twins talking racial politics in a Memphis diner.

Continue reading: Coffee And Cigarettes Review

Punk: Attitude Review


Excellent
At the start of Don Letts' excellent new documentary Punk: Attitude, ex-Black Flag-er and perennial curmudgeon Henry Rollins explains punk as being in essence one guy looking at the world he's living in and saying "Fuck this." A pithy summation of the movement, to be sure, and also quite a smart one, as this is one of the few films about the birth, death, and pseudo-revival of punk rock to actually acknowledge the genre's limitations (you can only say "Fuck this" while playing 90-second songs for so long), while simultaneously reveling in another trip down the antiestablishment memory road.

Most of the literature and documentaries on punk tend to start out in the same place, talking about how in the mid-1970s music had become this bloated, big-business monster, with pretentious arena rock bands playing 20-minute solos and so on - and then came The Ramones to shatter all that. Letts - a former producer and icon in the scene, as well as director of the authoritative documentary on The Clash, Westway to the World - digs deeper than that, going back to the 1960s and early '70s, finding the root of the coming musical uprising not just in expected places like The Velvet Underground, MC5, and Iggy Pop, but also in the jaggedly poppy sounds of many now mostly forgotten garage bands (whose sound is still inspiring post-punkers like The Hives). In describing the ascent of punk later in the '70s, Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra talks about how just about every smaller town and city had one guy who was into The Stooges and The Velvet Underground who then moved to the bigger cities, met up with all the other like-minded small-town new arrivals, and started bands.

Continue reading: Punk: Attitude Review

Jim Jarmusch

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Jim Jarmusch Movies

Paterson Movie Review

Paterson Movie Review

Unpredictable filmmaker Jim Jarmusch ricochets from his artful vampire movie Only Lovers Left Alive into...

Paterson Trailer

Paterson Trailer

A week in the life of Paterson (Adam Driver); a bus driver who happens to...

Gimme Danger Trailer

Gimme Danger Trailer

As the trailer begins, you hear Jim Jarmusch announce that he's "in an undisclosed location...

Only Lovers Left Alive Movie Review

Only Lovers Left Alive Movie Review

It's hardly surprising that laconic filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) has created such an inventively...

Advertisement
Only Lovers Left Alive Trailer

Only Lovers Left Alive Trailer

An ancient vampire named Adam is desperate to remain hidden from the world in his...

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession Movie Review

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession Movie Review

Z Channel was one of the first pay cable stations ever. It's "magnificent obsession" was...

Coffee And Cigarettes Movie Review

Coffee And Cigarettes Movie Review

Coffee and cigarettes. What is it about this magical combination of caffeine and cancer that's...

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