Mystery Train

1989 Jarmusch joint

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Japanese rockaphilic tourists, a newly-widowed woman stalked by a ghost-story-telling weirdo, and an inebriated Brit hanging with his pal and brother-in-law converge on a dilapidated hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis haunts the street. There's a gun shot, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins eats a plum.

Jarmusch is a director who understands, maybe better than any other director, that human beings are really pitiful creatures but that that is the exact quality that make us entertaining. Misery, loneliness, heartbreak, generally not what a comedic writer would focus on, but Jarmusch manages, weaving the stories of these wandering souls as they feel their way around the purgatory of Memphis. I've never been to Memphis and I definitely don't want to offend Mephisites, but I wonder if the city looks nearly as crappy as Jarmusch makes it look. In fact, his Memphis has a lot in common with the settings in his pal Aki Kaurismaki's movies. His camera moves a lot more than it normally does, following the characters through those streets, and there's also a special effect that seems incongruous. But Jarmusch's other trademarks are at play here. He toys with language barriers, tells half-completed stories, focuses on the gaps, showcases microscopic dialogue details. I love the structure of this thing, the trio of stories barely nudging up against each other with the thinnest of reference points. And the movie is very very funny, funny in that Jarmuschian way where you laugh and then wonder what the heck you're even laughing at. The aforementioned Screamin' Jay and Cinque Lee as desk clerk and bell boy respectively exchange funny banter, and Roberto Benigni's wife has a good character to work with. I also liked the Japanese couple lost in this dry and shabby Wonderland. My favorite scene might be when they visit Sun Records and stare blankly at their fast-talking tour guide while rhythmically shuffling to the right. As with all of this cat's flicks, this isn't exactly for everybody. I may have given bonus points for a cameo appearance by Tom Waits' voice and Tom Noonan (The Man with One Red Shoe and Manhunter).

"At the time of his death, if he were on Jupiter, Elvis would have weighed six hundred and forty-eight pounds."

Cannes Man

1996 comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Big-shot producer Sy Lerner makes a bet with a buddy that he can take any individual his buddy picks and turn him into the talk of the Cannes Film Festival. Enter Frank, a cabbie with no film experience except for some work in a video store. Sy dubs him Sy Lerner and takes him to meet some other big shots, introducing him as screenwriter Frank Rhino, writing of Con Man.

Here's a cheap one. I'm surprised so many big names (Depp, Hopper, Del Toro, even Chris Penn!) agreed to be seen in something so crappy. As a parody, it falls flat. There's nothing especially biting here and not a single laugh. A lot of the crappiness, however, is because of sub-genre inconsistency. It's uneven as a mockumentary, seeming more like a traditional and cheaply-made narrative with a bunch of interviews and poor narration thrown in. Francesco Quinn (Frank Rhino in this and Anthony Quinn's son in the real world) provides that narration. His performance was awkwardly bad, terrible even. I looked him up because he seemed familiar, and I imagine that's because he was, in a completely different sort of performance, terrorist Syed Ali in season two of 24. He was also in Platoon. Seemingly, Cannes Man (or Con Man or apparently and goofily Canne$ Man) was filmed with a scant script. A lot of the interviews seem to be select samples from much longer improvisational ramblings, and a lot of the dialogue feels more spontaneous. But for the most part, it seems as if the director gave the talent an instruction to improvise but with a "Don't Even Think About Saying Anything The Least Bit Funny" rule. An extended cameo involving Sy and Frank visiting Jim Jarmusch and Johnny Depp is probably the funniest part of the movie, but that might be the reason why it seems to clash with the rest of the story. This movie thinks it's just so clever. It isn't.

Dead Man

1995 metaphysical Western masterpiece

Rating: 18/20

Plot: William Blake arrives via Crispin Glover-driven train to the Wild West town of Machine where he's been promised a job as an accountant. He's too late, and the job's been given to somebody else. His life is threatened. He meets a woman, and because he looks just like Johnny Depp, she sleeps with him. Unfortunately, her fiance strolls in after the deed is done and shoots them both. Blake kills the man, steals a horse, and flees into the wilderness. An Indian named Nobody, thinking he's the reincarnation of English Romantic poet William Blake, guides him on his journey as a trio of bounty hunters--the vile Cole Wilson, the verbose Conway Twill, and young Johnny "The Kid" Pickett--sent by his victim's father track him down.

On certain days, usually Thursdays when the sun's hitting me just right and I've added just the right amount of sugar to my tea, my answer to the question "What is your favorite Western featuring Iggy Pop wearing a dress?" would probably be this peyote-induced nightmare of a travelogue, Dead Man. Man, does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie or does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie? Following a quote about how it's preferable to not travel with a dead man, you get the incoherent ramblings of Crispin Glover and the senseless shooting of buffalo from a train. Then, Depp's character enters Machine. William Blake walks the dusty street, passes a coffin shop a la Hang 'Em High, a bunch of animal skulls fastened to a wall, a wagon filled with antlers, a urinating horse, a grunting hog in the middle of the road, Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes on the receiving end of a blow job, and a creepy-looking fellow with troll ears and a troll nose, all with Neil Young's plaintive guitar. They're visuals that let you know what's what in Machine, reminiscent of one of my favorite film images--Kurosawa's dog with a human hand in its mouth at the beginning of Yojimbo. The tone is set, and then you get a ceaselessly surprising man-on-the-run Western with more great Neil Young, lovely shots of great American Western landscapes shot in crisp black and white, an odd assortment of characters and cameos, faux-philosophies, and the best comedy this side of Dante's Inferno. This might be the funniest movie I've seen all year, and it's definitely the funniest Western ever made. Sorry, Mel Brooks. At the center of that is William Farmer's Nobody, the embodiment of a stereotype, spouting Native American-ish riddles and non sequiturs. My favorite scene might be where Nobody tries on William Blake's hat. No, my favorite scene is probably where Nobody and Blake are watching three mysterious men, one being Iggy Pop as "Sally" and another being Billy Bob Thornton, and barely being able to hear snippets of Iggy's retelling of the "Three Little Bears" story. Or maybe my favorite scenes are the ones with Robert Mitchum. No, wait, Crispin Glover's in the movie, so my favorite scene probably has him in it. Or maybe they're all my favorite scenes. It's definitely unique, a riddle of a film that grows every time you watch it and one of those movies you almost want to watch again as soon as it's over. It might be an acquired taste. It's dreamy Johnny Depp as a straight man in an askew Wild West philosophical comedy, mysteriously poetic and absurdly fascinating, and if you've got a high tolerance for the offbeat, this just might be your cup of poisoned tea.

Now, do you have any tobacco?