Solid but varied

Rating: 6/10 (10 September 2008)

If John Sayles is the Stanley Kubrick of the American Independent film scene, able to get his sundry, tightly wrought, but distinct films to reach a sizable market, then Jim Jarmusch is its Martin Scorsese- whose restive films ever seem to probe the boundaries of form. Or, at least in Scorsese's case, up until his last few attempts at blockbuster melodrama. The latest Jarmuschian experiment is a series of eleven black and white short films that spanned a seventeen year range. Coffee And Cigarettes started out as a small black and white short that aired in 1986, on Saturday Night Live, and featured Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni in a rather pointless, unfunny, and forced piece in a shitty café. In this compilation, which takes its name from that original short, the first piece is retitled Strange To Meet You. Regardless, it is no better nor funnier under the new title. Luckily, Jarmusch decided to work on variations of the theme. His next attempt, and the next filmlet, is 1989's Twins (originally Coffee And Cigarettes, Memphis Version), which is a marginal improvement. Here, the real life siblings of filmmaker Spike Lee, Joie and Cinqué Lee, are arrogant pricks who are annoyed by and at waiter Steve Buscemi, who give a rambling defense of Elvis Presley against charges of racism by propounding an evil twin theory. The third entry is 1993's Coffee And Cigarettes- Somewhere In California, now just Somewhere In California. It's the first of the pieces that moves beyond mere gimmickry, as rockers Iggy Pop and Tom waits play themselves in a sly game of one-upsmanship at a café dive. It's the first of the films where the actors are actually playing themselves. OK, critics either loved or hated this film, and the truth is it's not as bad nor good as either side says, because there is a great deal of amateurism involved, as well as daring. as I said, when really good actors and situations are put forth, there are gems of moments, such as in Cousins?, where Molina's slight shift of tone after Coogan's rebuff of his seeming sycophancy perfectly illustrates the fact that he knows he's higher in the Hollywood pecking order than his distant cousin. In Somewhere in California a similar moment is reached when Iggy Pop first tries to tell Tom Waits to call him Iggy and Waits, without missing a beat, calls him Jim- his real name. When not there is nothing distinct; its plotlessness really shows- as in Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil. Yet, there are segments like Those Things'll Kill Ya and No Problem where the utter barrenness of diurnal existence are both emulated and satirized by the aging mooks and the none-too-bright Jamaicans, whose conversations are so painfully weak, awkward, yet real, that the film-goer attuned to even the slight falsehoods of the minimally enlightened dialogue of Hollywood tripe can feel it, and wince. This film, at its best, avoids the needs to be boring to convey the power of boringness trope that affects much modern art, but its very hit and miss nature also undermines the cumulative effect that the best of it has to offer. In short, the film may be said to recapitulate Jarmusch's whole career.interesting; which is just the term I most often use when a work hits that middling ground that knows no name. There may be something to it, after all.