Seinfeld: The Movie

Rating: Null/10 (14 July 2004)

`Coffee and Cigarettes' is an old tale, but until now only bits of this long-building fabrication have been available. Begun in 1986 as a TV piece for Saturday Night Live, director Jim Jarmusch has stitched together a fabric of inter-related stories; remarkably coherent snippets as if Woody Allen has filmed Seinfeld episodes.
Shot entirely in black and white, there could be no other way to get the gritty feel of most of the locations in color. Since we intend to listen, the wardrobe doesn't particularly interest us, and what better way to envision a coffee shop than in B&W? Thinking of it in reverse fashion, what would have been gained in filming in color?
"Ghost Dog; The Way Of The Samurai" has probably been the only movie that Jim Jarmusch has made that most might have heard of, but the current offering is more his trademark. He certainly likes to use musicians as actors, for example; the cast of this film continues this tendency. And certainly the use of black and white, as in Dead Man, seems an awfully comfortable medium for him as well.
There are a total of eleven vignettes in the movie. Each has its own title, and of course each has its own plot. The best of the lot include Somewhere in California (starring Tom Waits and Iggy Pop), where these professed non-smokers sit in a booth and drink coffee, smoke and shoot the breeze. The best idea in the entire film can be attributed to Steven Wright (Strange To Meet You) as he describes to Roberto Benigni why he likes to drink coffee before he goes to bed.
Perhaps watching Renée French (in Renée) reading magazines would be the hippest thing in the entire movie. We need no explanation (and none is offered) why such a knockout would be casually thumbing through gun mags, but we love the notion that there might be a girl out there that does that.
The best faces in all the vignettes (No Problem) belong to Alex Descas and Isaach de Bankolé. Their expressions are terrific as these friends wrestle with suspicion and disbelief, just as they might in real life. Lastly, Steve Buscemi (Twins) apprises us of his suspicions about an unknown brother of Elvis and the real impact that purported surrogate had on myth surrounding the King.
Rating: Three Stars.