3 strikes out of 11, maybe 4 strikes

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2004)

The 3 greatest segments of the movie were 1."Cousins?",2."Cousins", and 3. the last one with the 2 old men. The Roberto Benigni one had a nothingness charm, but it doesn't compare to those 3. The other segments were ruined either by obvious,half baked writing or unskilled acting, even for people as cool as those musicians, and even the Bill Murray one didn't work because the jokes got stale very quickly. Now, the best ones: "Cousins?" worked geniusly and beatifully mainly because of Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan, without their acting Jarmusch's writing would only be good, but they made it great, and the fact is their charcters really matched up with what they were saying, like when Coogan says he loves Spike Jonze, that just sounds like something he would say even if you don't know him. Alfred Molina's acting lets you inside the character and entertains satisfyingly. "Cousins?" is the most carefully crafted piece in the movie, or at least it seemed like it, it was also the most enjoyable and exciting one. the whole development of the conversation was very believable,hilarious, brilliant, and sweetly resonant. "Cousins" had an unusually awesome quality also because of the acting, by the Cate Blanchett, it's considered a great achievement in her acting because of the timing between the 2 characters she played, to think that she held full control over a relationship between 2 people not only makes her a great actress, playing each one eloquently and colorfully, but it also makes her a director of this segment. This segment is all in all really, really enjoyable because these character's identities have such an incredible clarity to us it makes what happens between them come alive very strikingly, and the shortness of their interaction makes the segment quite disorienting alas enchanting. I wouldn't need to explain why the last segment was so good except I thought Jarmusch's writing was at his best in this one. Everything he communicated in this segment was things he cared most about. In this he really stuck it through with his best, he stopped trying to be quirky but really became quirky, man A: The world is conducted by acoustic resonance. man B: I have no idea what you're talking about, could you explain it to me? man A: No, not really. In this segement he transcended his creativeness into something magical and subtle, providing a good end to the film. The credits are incredibly enjoyable which makes you automatically like the whole thing, yet it is what it is, though if anything you should really see it for those 3 segments.