Coffee and Cigarettes
Now here is a movie that’s practically perfect for DVD. Shot over many years with eccentric actors, Jim Jarmusch’s collection of black-and-white vignettes is as uneven as a collection of music videos (without songs). Even with the dull spots and the drop-dead-hip ambiance, there’s something touching about this parade of frazzled people holding on to their coffee and cigarettes like life rafts–especially in the final sequence with Taylor Mead. There are some severely misconceived pieces, but the best are a treat: Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan in a hilarious Hollywood encounter, Tom Waits and Iggy Pop getting off on the wrong foot in a funky diner, and Cate Blanchett doing a dual role as herself and a jealous cousin. Bill Murray can’t save one underwritten piece, but Jack and Meg White are amusing in an absurdist blackout. Use the Scene Selection menu, and revel in the fetishizing of java and butts. –Robert Horton
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.
5 Stars Go. Make art.
Seeing that it got quite a few 1 star ratings, I decided it needed more credit. The artists here are just excercising their creative urges to go beyond conventional mainstream film making and are having fun doing it. Who has a problem with that? The film follows in the tradition of Warhol’s underground films where the movie maker simply puts a camera in front of a couple of actors and says, “Go. Make art” and the great actors start to improv. It’s a great risk because it’s either hit or miss. And of course in movie making we see mostly the hits thanks to editing. Of course it is a little tighter wound with more grace than the underground Warhol films (sorry Andy!). The film is about everyday normal conversations and situations involving cafes, coffee shops, at work, etc. where there is usually two people talking over a cup of java and smoking some cigs. Some conversations are small talk and shallow, while some other ones are existentialist and profound. It deals with the human condition and relationships and how that can be altered by the two drugs caffiene and nicotine. This film is risk taking at it’s best. They went for broke. That’s art. I think some viewers of the film thought, “Well, I could do that!” Well, they didn’t, so they need to stop whining, get an artistic license, get on the ball, and get a life. Bravo for all the creative people of this film. Encore!
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 Different from the Usual
This film consists of several short segments, consisting of two main characters sitting at a table, drinking coffee (tea, in two segments) and most of them smoking cigarettes. There are few connections between the conversations from one segment to the others, aside from pointing-out that cigarettes and coffee aren’t a good lunch, a couple of mentions of inventor Nicolas Tesla and coffee popsicles.
I will admit that this film isn’t for everyone and also that I had a hard time writing this review. But, this film is entertaining for people willing to have an open mind about films that go outside the form most movies take. There are some very funny parts in “Coffee and Cigarettes” which had me laughing out loud and other parts where I could feel the discomfort of one character in their segment where the conversation seemed to touch a raw nerve in their companion or themselves. That uncomfortable moment occurs in many real life conversations where we don’t know what to say next, if anything, to avoid hurting the other person’s feelings.
This film has no definite beginning or ending and there is little in each segment to connect it with the others beyond the coffee (or tea) and cigarettes they are consuming.
Nevertheless, I liked the film and I recommend it to people who like to watch films that go outside the norm.
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
