If a bird's-eye-view of coffee is your cup of tea, have fun with this film.

Rating: Null/10 (20 February 2007)

I have no idea why Jarmusch would take this kind of premise and make it this pointless and dull. But let's look at the movie, segment by segment: Segment 1: Benigni and Wright seem to be too embarrassed to speak openly, to go beyond the casual small-talk which is DULL. Hence, this segment is dull.
Segment 2: The black twins get harassed by Buscemi who starts talking about Elvis. Forgettable.
Segment 3: Iggy Pop and Waits do the same shtick as Benigni and Wright: another celebrity pairing where the dialogue can't go beyond small-talk (because both are embarrassed - for some reason). When it does, to a small extent, Waits get somewhat insulted and Pop gives up and leaves. Average stuff, but better than the previous 2 and the following 3 segments, i.e. the only half-decent "story" in the first half of the movie.
Segment 4: Two mob guys do a scene right out of "The Sopranos" or a Scorsese film. Neither here nor there. Average.
Now the movie really starts to suck: Segment 5: A woman stares at a gun magazine, while a waiter tries to befriend her. Maybe 6-7 lines of dialogue. A totally plot less, pointless and dull segment. Any moron could have "written" this kind of crap. I think Bergman, that overrated charlatan, has done quite enough in the silent-scenes drama sub-genre. Do we need any more silence in movies? No. We need IDEAS. This segment is not based on one.
Segment 6: The two French black guys. The whole encounter is about "why? do you have something to tell me?" and this "theme" goes on and on. Utter nonsense. I could barely concentrate on what they were saying. Yawn Segment 7: Kate Blanchett plays dual roles, twins. Again, a barrier between two parties cannot be broken, only subtle hints of animosity that is being carefully hidden from the other person. But so what? This sort of situation might be interesting as a mini-play to a stoned audience of 12 in some seedy NY art-club, but for a movie this isn't good enough, sorry. And if anyone out there still gets excited over someone doing multiple roles in a movie  wow!!!!  then have a ball with this mediocrity.
But just as I was about to doze off, the movie got better: Segment 8: Funnily enough, Jack and Meg from that awful "band", The White Stripes, end up being more interesting than professional actors and personalities such as Iggy Pop or Tom Waits. Meg can't act to save her life, but Jack is solid, and the segment is interesting in a strange sort of way.
Segment 9: Hands down the best segment. Molina and Coogan are excellent as yet another celebrity pairing that is trying to break the wall of perpetual small-talk between them. Being a fan of Coogan's humour, it is obvious to me that he had a hand in improvising/writing the dialogue, and that is why this segment has a point. It has a beginning, middle, and end, and it's quite amusing. Very subtle, but clever. Very English. I think it's the longest segment  probably because Coogan actually has the talent and had made the effort to make something out of it, whereas the other actors and celebs in this movie weren't up to the task to the most part.
Segment 10: Bill Murray and the members of the brain-dead Wu-Tang Clan (or "Klan", with a "k"? Actually, who gives a s***?) engage in some more of this movie's trademark pointless dialogue, but at least neither side is shy so they talk relatively openly. (A shy Rza would have been TOO much to bear.) Mildly interesting and average.
Segment 11: Two old geezers talk during a break at work. OK.
All in all, only one segment is excellent, and another 3-4 solid. The rest are dull or forgettable. Is Jarmusch getting fat and lazy? Or is his stupidity finally coming to the forefront? "I think next up will be a movie where everyone sips coffee and puffs away. I'll just get a bunch of my friends to improvise some dialogue. I mean, they're all celebs so they should be smart enough to come up with stuff. The stories need not be connected. In fact, they don't even need to be interesting. You see, I've finally realized that it's best to bore people. That way they think that there is some DEEP message hidden in the movie somewhere. That should shut up both the critics and the fans. No-one will dare say they didn't like the movie, for fear of being accused of being too dull-witted to fully appreciate it." Or perhaps I give him too much credit for "slyness"; he IS a moron, after all.
Jarmusch isn't the interesting director he once was. Or perhaps it's the fact that I don't do either: drink coffee or smoke cigarettes, so I can't appreciate the full depth of this smoky, caffeine-induced movie.
Jarmusch's recent "Broken Flowers" isn't much better. "Ghost Dog" was also average, apart from the good ending. "C&C" has good photography and an interesting cast, but that's just not enough. A self-indulging mediocrity similar to "Blue In The Face", which was shot in 4 days or something. (That may work in punk music, but in films)