User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars An Off-beat, Hilariously Dry Study of Human Interaction
If you can only laugh at slap-stick comedic films, you will not like this very much. If you enjoy dry comedic films where the jokes come from the characters’ personalities, facial features, and witty dialogues, then you will enjoy most, if not all, the sketches of this film. The comedy comes from what I mentioned before, but it’s a better experience watching this movie if you know almost every actor involved. Don’t get me wrong, even if you didn’t know any actor in the sketches, you would still find this enjoyable due to the excellent interactions between the characters.
As the title I gave for this review suggests, this film is a simple observation of how incredibly hilarious ordinary conversation can be. Irony and awkwardness are prominent themes throughout each of the sketches, and you will want to find out how exactly each conversation ends. None of the sketches run too long because even the few minutes where the characters’ are seemingly staring into space trying to figure out what to talk to each other about is completely essential to establish the realism of the situation.
If you find ordinary conversation amusing especially when the talkers are so involved in the conversation, then you will enjoy the sketches in this film. There are no explosions, nudity, scary moments, or even color, just great writing and characterization.
4 Stars Weird, But Worth It
Each vignette is basically the same: two people seemingly miscommunicating and casting oddly ominous glances at one or the other. I did enjoy the soundtrack, though, which fits the mood. There is no point to this film, but that’s part of its charm. It all seems to add up to more than it appears, but it doesn’t really. I can’t discern a real message. But don’t let that stop you from watching it. It’s better than a big-budget Hollywood shoot-em-up.
4 Stars The Sublime Pleasure of Mixing Coffee, Cigarettes, and Conversation.
“Cigarettes and coffee, man. That’s the combination.”–Iggy Pop
This film is better than many reviewers claim. It is a film that will appeal to anyone who has ever experienced the aesthetic pleasure of having a conversation (no matter how inane) over coffee and cigarettes, or to anyone who has ever encountered the social awkwardness of enjoying a smoke amidst the anti-smoking hysteria and worldwide public smoking bans. In 2004 Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise; Down by Law) released Coffee and Cigarettes, a collection of short vignettes, several of which had originally aired on Saturday Night Live in the late 80s and early 90s. Shot in black and white, the eleven short vignettes are linked thematically by characters drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. While some segments are stonger and wittier than others (Cousins, Somewhere in California, Delirium), and while many of the conversations are inane (much like life itself), the cumulative point of Jarmusch’s film always remains clear: having a conversation over coffee and cigarettes is one of the most pleasurable experiences in life. When combined, caffeine and nicotine have the power to reveal the sublime humanity in the dreariness of human existence, a point the anti-smoking movement will never understand.
The eleven segments of Coffee and Cigarettes include:
1. Strange to Meet You, which features Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright;
2. Twins, which stars Joie Lee and Cinqu
