Coffee and Cigarettes

Honestly, it was such a massive letdown. Just plain boring. It felt like a total display of Jim Jarmusch's typical narcissistic pretentiousness. The guy clearly just doesn't get the whole soul of coffee at all.

Douglas Robinson12, are you just not a Jim Jarmusch fan in general, or was this one just not your vibe?

Sadly, I haven't even seen it yet... 🙂 🙂 🙂

I don't know, man... this one just didn't really click for me.

I know he did those Coffee and Cigarettes shorts a while back, but this feels like a quick little thing

Been waiting forever for this to drop... honestly, if it isn't because of Jim Jarmusch, it's definitely for Tom Waits and Bill Murray...

Anyway, nothing but respect for Jim Jarmusch 🙏 . To me, the guy has always been the cinematic version of Nick Cave. I’ll never forget those scenes from Lights out, specifically the stuff about the Japanese pistols and the smoking cessation cigarettes 😁 (which is funny, because I’ve actually been trying to quit for a month now myself)

They’re killer... ☕

p.s. Betty Walker, that's literally just what makes them Coffee and Cigarettes films—they're all mashed together into one.

Carol Jackson45 said:That’s basically just what those Coffee and Cigarettes films are—just all mashed together into one.

Ah, okay...

Now I'm actually looking forward to this one...

Douglas Robinson12 said:Tip definitely doesn't get what coffee is all about.

So, what exactly is the point of coffee anyway? 🤔

How long is this film actually supposed to be? I happen to have a 25-minute version on hand, though I haven't sat down to watch it yet, and surely it isn't actually that short.

Thomas Diaz6 said:How long is this thing actually? I found a version that's only about 25 minutes, but I haven't sat down to watch it yet. There's no way it's really that short, right?

It's about an hour and a half.

Betty Walker said:I’ll never forget that scene in Lights out, the one with the Japanese pistols and the smoking cessation gum. 😁 (For what it's worth, I've been trying to quit for a month now myself)

Aside from the whole bit about watching garbage movies, that's pretty much the only good part of the film.

I didn't hate it. It wasn't anything groundbreaking, but it’s definitely worth a watch. I don't smoke or drink coffee myself—so I can't say for sure if they truly captured the essence of that "religious ritual" aspect of addiction, or that specific kind of obsession...
I really enjoyed the segments featuring Tom Waits, the White Stripes, and Alfred Molina. And Bill Murray, as usual, was just brilliant.

So, I’ve been scrolling through all these threads about Jim Jarmusch, and honestly, I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that most people arguing against him just point to how "mainstream" his movies are—or lean on that silly whole "instant cult director" cliché (I mean, okay, fine, when I was a kid watching some random flick on TV about five taxi drivers in five different cities—true story, I was "instantly" hooked)
. Anyway, I finally sat down last night and watched the full Coffee and Cigarettes from start to finish, since up until now I’d only seen those first three little vignettes in order. And man, I experienced this incredibly rare cocktail of feelings—this weird blend of bliss, guilt, and total weightlessness (I don't even know how to put it into words, but it just happens after you watch one of his films). Between sips of coffee and puffs of smoke, these various—well, mostly ordinary—people just ramble on about trips to the dentist, an Elvisian evil twin, or Nikola Tesla... (except for Renea, where there's some guy named Nikita checking out a catalog of weapons). What really blew my mind, though, is that this actually works as a "real" feature-length film.
Oh, and yeah, those big 🙏 episodes with Molina. It’s a massive slap in the face to all those arrogant, easily swayed blowhards. Maybe we'll see fewer of them in the future; it’s actually pretty nice to read something that reminds you what a real Human being should actually be. 😎

Look, I’ve never been a massive Jim Jarmusch fan, but calling this a "film" feels wrong, doesn't it? It’s more like a cinematic mosaic assembled over the course of seventeen years...

Anyway, there are some great conversations in here—personally, I loved the one with Tom Waits, and the bit with the more benign characters, too...

I actually sat down and watched Broken Blossoms, and honestly, until my second viewing, I felt pretty indifferent toward it (aside from a fantastic Bill Murray and the soundtrack). Who knows? Jim Jarmusch follows a strange path...

bluecobra9 said:but this isn't even really a movie, right? It feels more like some cinematic mosaic gathered together over about 17 years

Honestly, just because these segments were shot over several years doesn't mean I can't call it a "real" movie. To be fair, those kinds of technical formalities have never really mattered much to me anyway.

Besides, it's like how Lars von Trier spends every year working on tiny little pieces of a future masterpiece he won't actually finish until he's ancient—though, fingers crossed, both the director and the actor actually make it that far.

vividmason5 said:Just because the episodes were filmed over several years doesn't mean I can conclude whether this is a "real" movie or not. Honestly, formal criteria like that have never really moved the needle for me.

Besides, Lars von Trier spends every year filming a tiny snippet of some future project he won't finish until he's elderly (though I hope both he and the actor survive that long).

Oh, really?
The point is that Jim Jarmusch treated those conversations as distinct pieces; in fact, he even picked up a Golden Bear for Best Short Film for some of them. Bundling them into one cohesive unit just means he found a better way to present high-quality material to the public (which isn't really an option when you're dealing with short films, which there are as many of here as there are conversations).

And the idea that von Trier is doing Trier planning—working through sequences with the intention of finishing them one day—is a slightly different (albeit equally eccentric) concept.

I mean, when you sit down to watch a film, you generally take certain things into account. If nothing else, you look at the genre label and judge it accordingly.

Look, obviously there’s a massive gap between how Jim Jarmusch and Lars von Trier approach things, but with Jarmusch here, we're really just looking at one big, healthy joke. I mean, the guy spent seventeen years filming eleven little vignettes, only to pull a fast one and pass them off as a full-length feature—and then, get this, he announces it to the crew by shouting, "WE have Got major movie !!!!" which apparently sent the whole team into fits of laughter. Honestly, what else is there to say? Should I start nitpicking about how the whole thing lacks cohesion or how the characters aren't fully fleshed out? It feels a bit silly at this point.

And honestly, I can't bring myself to judge a film just based on its genre label. That feels way too narrow-minded to me, especially when you consider all the brilliant, clever stuff tucked away inside a single movie. Besides, it doesn't feel like an honest way to watch anything.

No, my friend... genre serves as a sort of pardon—it excuses all the missed opportunities, the blunders, the mistakes, and ultimately, the very concept of the film you're watching.

Genre is an argument, not the foundation of your judgment. That's what I'm telling you.

I was pretty disappointed 😢 I had no clue what to expect, so I just went in blind. Honestly, for me, it’s not all that "genius" or "cult classic." The only thing is that Dead Man is easily in my top 5 movies of all time, but the rest? Just meh...