Pitchfork filmed an unlikely collaberation during their time at the recent ATP in the States. Director Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man, Coffee & Cigarettes) teamed up with Bradford Cox (Deerhunter) and Randy Randall (No Age) to do a cover of the brillaint Neil Young song Cortez The Killer from Young’s Zuma LP.

well staying up through the daylight hours didnt really pan out. kinda typical, but whuddy gunna do? anyways i finished watching jarmuschs stranger than paradise. it completely blew me away. very inspirational as well. in addition to being an aspiring musician, i am a fledgling filmmaker and screenwriter. after watching stranger than paradise i suddenly became flooded with ideas. the plot line in the movie is so minimal, so simplistic yet so captivating. the story unfolds at a gentle pace, the dialogue is sparse and at times inconsequential. after picking up on jarmuchs technique i quickly began pondering up my own story ideas. seeing how jim jarmusch didnt use superfluous violence or gimmicky cliches to gain the audiences attention. it seemed like he rather presented a simple set of realistic characters and allowed you to observe. the resolution was vague, but in a good way. i learned that filmmaking doesnt have to try to be captivating so long as its sincere. my eyes stayed glued to the set the entirety of the film. and i am now plotting out a short film of my own that will undoubtedly employ the same techniques.
but just stay tuned to see how that goal turns out.
after stranger than paradise i fell asleep on the couch. when i woke up it was later than usual and not even a hint of daylight lingered in the sky as i peered out my window to the world. my girlfriend had been up since earlier and seemed to be in an uncharacteristically irritable mood. after some persistent prying she revealed the heart of the matter. we were out of smoke. now ive been known to puff a pipe every now and then, but if i dont have the cash to drop on a bag, i certainly dont let it ruin my day. this trait is not true of my girlfriend and can be found no place in her demeanor. in fact the converse is true, she seems to fall to little frustrated bits every time she is without. its sad but true. beautiful in its own way really. she has a great deal of stress in her life and without her one true vice/indulgence she proves ill equipped to face reality/life.
our usual connection was dry and i was late to meet up with some of my mates. so i left my distraught girlfriend at the apartment and took off to go meet up with the guys across town. the time with the fellas did me good. we jammed out a bit, drank on a 6 pack i had procured earlier and basically just hung out for a couple hours. during this time my best friend was also trying to procure some green of his own. however his guy was able to come through, thankfully. so we headed over to his homeboys spot and got both of our orders filled. we got there kind of late as we had stopped to make a last minute (literally 11 58) beer grab at the corner store. we walked in the house greeted by several noisy and large dogs as well as the coneheads on tv.

back at my friends house we got high and put in funny games. a movie i have seen quite a few times, though not in a while. the movie was however effective as usual and managed to suck me in even while boisterously debating its complexities with my cronies as we sipped on 40s. it was late by the time i left, around two. my girlfriend was stil up when i walked in the door, shes normally a pretty punctual sleeper, hitting the hay at a somewhat decent hour everynight. but the lack of smoke caused her anxieties to keep her up. she was pleased to see that i had scored. i was more tired than usual when i got home, hungry too. i made me some oatmeal and ate some left over chicken. my girlfreind smoked and i threw in next friday (a classic). soon after i fell asleep.

An urban hitman, living by the code of samurai, is set up by his boss and is sentenced to be killed. Sounds like a cool film.

Forest Whitaker stars as “Ghost Dog”, a hermit who lives by killing for the mob. Ghost was rescued by his boss when he was a teenager. Years later, convinced he had a debt to repay to this mobster he returns to serve the mobster as quoted by the samurai code.

“Ghost Dog” is directed by infamous indie director Jim Jarmusch who has directed other indie hits “Night on Earth” and “Dead Man”. This is also his third time as screenwriter and director of his films.

Jarmusch’s style is a little means a lot and that is so true with the depiction of who and what “Ghost Dog” actually is. Is this man insane or is this a part of the world he is in? In other words, is he a victim of the society he is in?

Completely immersed in the code, we see a character cut off from society in mind and spirit. As the director opens the world of “Ghost Dog”, we begin to see that this isn’t exactly a world that lives by any sort of code except the right to survival.

This contradiction brings us to like the hero more. The mobsters and their motives, come off as greasy and unorganized as we notice that these aren’t the typical mob but just a group of hoods, underlings to the real mob. If they were the real mob where is their wealth and why does a landlord threaten to kick a mobster out if he doesn’t pay his rent?

My only nagging problem with “Ghost Dog” was that when the hero has his first ethical confrontation with the code he adores. He never shows any struggle and just does what the book tells him to do. Was that apart of his character or a flaw?

You could tell that the world unearthed by Jarmusch is in essence, a contradiction to our own and by doing so it becomes a reflection to a critique of society. There are a lot of images in this film and some I am still trying to understand. But my belief is that Ghost is trying to put a code of ethics in an already screwed up society and this is very commendable.

By coming to this conclusion, I believe that Ghost is “sane” and he uses the world of feudal Japan to control a little bit of order in a chaotic world. Evidence for my conclusion came when he passed on his code to another so that they may find that little bit of order he cherished.

3 out of 5

So Says the Soothsayer.

Written: April 10, 2000

First on my list for Best of 2009 would have to be seeing each of my three kids take another solid step forward with their lives, each maturing a bit, taking on different responsibilities than they had in previous years, etc.

Movies – My life rarely allows me into the theaters unless it’s to take one of my kids. The only movie I saw this year, DVD or in theater, that I know came out this year that I’d toss on this list is The Limits of Control, directed by Jim Jarmusch.

Music – Okay, I spend the bulk of my time on the computer listening to the local sports talk station. In the car, it’s typically an argument between that and emo/rap/dance music that my kids like and help remind me I’m becoming an old man. Oh, that and the fact that I still buy CDs and don’t have an iPod. CD’s purchased and still being enjoyed this year include new efforts from Paramore, We the Kings, Avett Brothers, Joe Henry, and while I know I spent more money than this, those are what come to mind and are still being listened to fairly regularly.

Television – I know, I hear the shudder from the literary crowd, but it’s a true story, I watch a shitload of television. Big Bang Theory and Fringe probably top my lists for favorite comedy and favorite drama, though if I wander in on Sons of Anarchy, Top Chef, Chopped, or NUMB3RS, I’m probably going to end up on my ass until the final commercial. And don’t get me started on anything that starts with the words Rock of . . .

Books – I’m going to have to go the route of publicist here and comment upon the many fine reviews that Dzanc, BLP, and OV titles received this year, with Hesh Kestin’s starred PW review and Laura van den Berg’s starred Booklist and B&N Discover Great Writers selection right at the top of those.

If I start talking about books that weren’t published by us, that list gets so long and I get so afraid I’m going to miss somebody that I’ll really only take that risk at my own site. No need to offend somebody here at Big Other.

Though, at the risk of harming some feelings from other publishers, two Best ofs for 2009 to me were the development of MLP and Madras Press. Two very cool ideas getting a lot of attention.

One other best of just realized, my partner in crime at Dzanc Books, Steven Gillis, has informed me that he’s on his very final last pass on his new novel, a novel I got to read early chapters in a much earlier version and was pretty blown away by, and that it should be a late 2010 title!!!

Lastly, I think one of the Best of 2009’s for me was getting to watch from nearby on the sideline as Matt Bell blew up huge – chapbooks selling out, short story collection deal, being flown across the country for writing panels, etc. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Dan Wickett – Executive Director and Publisher of Dzanc Books
In 2000, Dan founded the Emerging Writers Network by reviewing Alyson Hagy’s Keeneland and emailing the review to 21 individuals. Throughout the years, Dan has continued to develop the EWN by adding interviews, e-panels, and other literary reporting to the itinerary and developing a database website for storage of these, as well as a litblog for more daily topic discussion. The network itself currently has over 2600 members. Dan was also a member of the Litblog Co-op, a grouping of over 20 of the leading North American litblog sites that brought attention to both books that might have been overlooked, as well as to litblogs in general. An anthology of short stories that Dan edited, Visiting Hours, was published by Press 53 in late 2008.

The idea that a cultural movement begins or ends with the flip of a calendar is, of course, fallacious. ”60s Music” is an identifier of a specific strain of popular music that really refers to the time period, between 1965 (mid-career Beatles) and 1976 (The Sex Pistols). What we think of as the Golden Era of 70s movies began, arguably, with The Graduate in 1967 (or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the year before) and ended with Raging Bull in 1980.

For now anyway, the 2000s can be called The Netflix Decade, a time when, in theory, more movies were more accessible to more people than ever before. That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone took advantage of this opportunity. Still, the idea that a movie, even one from say, Romania about abortion, can have a second life on video is encouraging. If you’re a stickler for lists, consider this the 90 (or so) best movies of the last ten years. What this era in film will ultimately be called is anyone’s guess, but, many films in this list, particularly those made in the US, reflect life in the Age of Terror, where the country was led by a man whose ambition far exceeded his abilities.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days – Over the last ten years there has been a rush, in relative terms anyway, of films from countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain. The best of these was a heartbreakingly frank film about the moral and practical dilemmas of abortion while Eastern Europe crumbled in the late 1980s. A movie of unflinching honesty. (2007)

8 Mile – Don’t laugh. Yes, Eminem played himself, but great movies put the viewer in a time and place and Curtis Hanson’s impeccable direction gives life to the hopelessness of Eminem’s Detroit ring of despair. The performances of Kim Basinger and Mekhi Phifer are first-rate.  The movie looks even more authentic now that Eminem has faded from the limelight. (2002)

21 Grams – The title refers to the amount of weight we lose after we die. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s follow-up to Amores Perros brought together a math professor (Sean Penn), a grieving housewife (Naomi Watts) and a re-born convict (Benicio Del Toro). The story isn’t arranged chronologically and the morality of what’s taking place is apparent before the full impact of the plot.

The 25^th Hour – Spike Lee’s least bombastic work. Three men (Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) one of whom is preparing for a prison stint, re-assess their lives in New York City while terrorist occupied planes still echo in the background. The request made late in the film by Norton will make you gasp, but then nod in agreement with his logic. (2002)

About Schmidt – When Jack Nicholson’s wife dies he decides to rent an RV and drive around trying to avoid the realization that he’s a selfish creep. Alexander Payne’s portrait of aging shines even brighter when compared to the emptiness of another Nicholson film about old age released several years later—The Bucket List. Hope Davis is brilliant as Nicholson’s estranged daughter. (2002)

Almost Famous – The best fictional account of the rock and roll life this side of Spinal Tap. Billy Crudup hits every note as an ambivalent guitar hero. Philip Seymour Hoffman is hysterical as rock critic Lester Bangs. Cameron Crowe’s movie also launched the career of Kate Hudson, who plays a groupie. Don’t hold that against it. The “Tiny Dancer” sequence on the tour bus is sure to put a lump in your throat. (2000)

Amelie  – Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fable starring Audrey Tautou is certain to become a beloved classic if it hasn’t achieved that status already. Jeunet and Tautou occupy a world that looks much like our own yet is eminently more just, hopeful and full of love. Engaging from any number of perspectives. (2001)

Amores Perros – The three-pronged story about how lives have been irreversibly altered by a car accident can only be described as awe-inspiring. It introduced the world to the massive talents of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gael Garcia Bernal and the progenitors of Latin American Cinema. Much as Amores Perros is a child of Pulp Fiction, it is also the father to the acclaimed City of God. (2001)

Away From Her – This tiny movie about a woman (Julie Christie) coming to grips with Alzheimer’s raises challenging questions about the true nature of love, honesty and companionship. That Sarah Polley was only 27 when she directed this counts as a miracle. (2007)

Babel – Whereas Amores Perros’ and 21 Grams’ centerpiece were a singular event, Innaritu’s Babel centers on a singular feeling brought on by a digital, wireless age. It’s one of mutedness. We can speak to more people in more places than ever before, yet we still have no clue what to say. The characters’ eyes tell us everything we need to know about their hollowed-out existences. In Babel, continents are little more than land masses that separate people trying to cope with this new world. Brad Pitt has never been better. (2006)

The Beat That My Heart Skipped – Romain Duris dreams of becoming a concert pianist conflict with his father’s desire that he follow his footsteps into a life of low-level street thuggery. Director Jacques Audiard brings together the disparate physical and emotional universes that Duris occupies. Paris, probably the most-filmed movie locale in the world after New York, is presented in a new, fresh way. (2005)

Before Sunset – Nine years after Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy fell in love on a single night in Vienna they meet again. Except now they’re in Paris. But time has passed and things have changed. Or have they? A great idea executed to perfection by director Richard Linklater and the two leads. (2004)

Black Hawk Down – Mark Bowden’s searing chronicle of the US Army’s disaster in Somalia. Ridley Scott and a strong ensemble cast capture the frantic efforts of well-intentioned men in one impossible situation after another. (2001)

Bigger Faster Stronger* – A straightforward documentary about steroids and American culture by a first time director and former devotee of the weightlifting/bodybuilding scene. (2008)

Bloody Sunday – Made prior to United 93 and The Bourne movies, Paul Greengrass’ re-creation of the events of January 30, 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland seethes with anger. (2002)

Borat – Far and away the best comedy in recent years. Although it dutifully serves its  function as a biting social satire, it’s the bar which other comedies strive for: “Yeah, (title) was pretty funny. But it’s no Borat.” (2006)

Bowling for Columbine – With the school shootings still fresh in the public mind Michael Moore’s film about America’s obsession with guns is a tour de force of filmmaking. It’s become the template for countless other issue-driven documentaries, but the original is still the best. Who could forget Moore emerging from a bank, gun in hand as gratitude for opening a new bank account? (2002)

Capote – I tend to resist portrayals of historical figures little more than overwrought imitations, but there are some performances that just throw you back in your seat. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s depiction of the caustic, gifted, tortured Truman Capote is such a performance. (2005)

The Dark Knight – One of the major secular features of Bush Era was rampant self-involvement. Facebook has turned the personal into the global scale. In a landscape where fame goes to those who are willing only to be more extreme than their predecessor, Heath Ledger, as the sadistic Joker tapped perfectly into this pathos while living up to unprecedented pre-release hype. Everything, onscreen and off, about The Dark Knight reflected the culture of entitlement. Mostly though, The Dark Knight delivered on all its promise.  The movie has flaws; Christian Bale’s smoky (or is it gravelly?) voice is an unneeded prop and the stunt make-up of Aaron Eckhart’s character is unnecessary. That said, it performs the near impossible—a summer blockbuster whose story and message stays with you for days, if not weeks. (2008)

Darwin’s Nightmare – A documentary about the perch in Lake Victoria that shows the social and political effects of an ecological nightmare. While An Inconvenient Truth was the environmental movie that bagged the awards and attention, Hubert Sauper’s movie chilled and moved. (2005)

Eastern Promises –  David Cronenberg re-emerged with A History of Violence, but its follow-up was far more entertaining. Naomi Watts’ London midwife stumbles across the Russian mob, as personified by Viggo Mortensen, cultures clash, mayhem ensues–including a grisly fight in a steam bath. (2007)

Edge of Heaven – The best movies of the decade made outside the US addressed the blurring of boundaries among class, race, ethnicity or sexuality. Fatih Akin’s film about a German Turk who moves to Istanbul in order to find his half-sister makes you wonder if maybe boundaries aren’t such a bad thing. (2008)

Elephant – Gus Van Sant’s take on school violence is haunting. The impending carnage looms over the characters to such a degree that, as an audience member, you want to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to run before the bullets start flying. (2003)

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room – The best of its type. A traditional talking-heads documentary that harnesses the national outrage of the Enron collapse and the subsequent dominoes that fell. Names are named and we’re given plenty of reason to hold those mentioned in absolute contempt. (2005)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – I resisted this as too gimmicky at first and I don’t buy Jim Carrey doing anything serious, but on a second viewing it struck me as a thoughtful consideration of how memory relates to romantic longing, especially considering it’s a major studio release. The rare instance of  when a blend of a potentially toxic mix of artists–Carrey, Kate Winslet, Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman results in a coherent final product.  (2004)

The Fall – A suicidal stunt man, an eight year old Eastern European immigrant girl who speaks accented English, Charles Darwin, Alexander the Great and many, many others people populate Tarsem Singh’s follow up to The Cell. Reportedly made without CGI, it’s unlike any film ever made. (2008)

Finding Nemo – A father clown fish loses track of his son clown fish. In desperate need of help in finding him, he is assisted by a pang fish with short-term memory. That the movie somehow takes a parent’s worst nightmare and turns it into something cute is a testament to its many charms. Edged Ratatouille and Up for a spot behind WALL-E on this list. (2003)

Garden State – While it’s easy to dismiss the movie as a tool for Zach Braff’s navel-gazing, Garden State appealed to people of a certain age, pre mid-life, who wondered, “What’s it all for?” It owes massive debts to The Graduate and the work of Wes Anderson but it’s a movie of and about its time. (2004)

George Washington – David Gordon Green’s somber sketch on poor black children in North Carolina plays like a Miles Davis number. The movie is all mood, but by the end, you feel like you know the kids in this movie intimately. (2000)

Gone Baby Gone – This may be a blasphemy in some quarters, but Ben Affleck’s directorial debut does Clint Eastwood better than Eastwood himself. It confronts many of the same issues as Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River the difference is the performance of Amy Ryan, as the world’s worst mother. (2007)

Good Night and Good Luck – George Clooney’s paean to an era gone by was meant to be a body blow to the modern media, where rumor and innuendo flourish. More than David Straitharn’s uncanny impersonation of Edward R Murrow, most the high points are the elegant singing of Dianne Reeves that served as a bridge scenes of increasing tension. (2005)

Goodbye Solo – Souleymane Sy Savane is  Solo, a Senegalese cab-driver in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (the Tar Heel State is a new hot spot for American Indie Cinema). He picks up a weary, southern man who asks that a few days from now Solo take him to Blowing Rock National Park, no questions asked. Ramin Bahrani’s movie is so loaded with symbolism it’s easy to overlook what an assured, confident piece of filmmaking it is. If there’s any justice, Savane will pick up an Oscar nomination this year. (2009)

Happy-Go-Lucky – How far does attitude go in life? At first glance Sally Hawkins’ Poppy is gratingly optimistic, but as Mike Leigh’s small masterpiece unfolds we see that Poppy is far more sophisticated than we’ve given her credit for. Furthermore, I can think of no film of this or an era that so lovingly presents a friendship between two women—Hawkins and Alexis Zegerman. They’re co-workers and have each other’s backs in ways that the girls from Sex and the City would never understand. (2008)

The House of Flying Daggers  – Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon set a standard that Zhang Yimou’s exhilarating epic set in the Tang Dynasty surpassed. That’s Ninth Century kids. Two police officers, with differing motives, force a gorgeous dancer to go undercover and infiltrate The House of Flying Daggers, a group of militants who steal from the rich and give to the poor. There’s a sequence where…ok forget that, watch it and you’ll instantly recognize why this movie is on a “Best of” list. (2004)

In America – After WALL-E this was the movie that stole my heart. Jim Sheridan directed a script he wrote with his daughters about a family a lot like their own. It’s the magical story of a family overcoming the loss of the youngest child through great sacrifice and a move to Hell’s Kitchen. Sarah and Emma Bolger, who play the precocious daughters, will steal your heart too. (2003)

In the Bedroom  – Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek have a son (Nick Stahl) who gets involved with an older woman (Marisa Tomei) estranged from her husband. When Stahl gets killed by the husband in a jealous fit Wilkinson must face his own thoughts of revenge in this wrenching drama directed by Todd Field. (2001)

In the Mood for Love – It’s 1962 Hong Kong and Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are neighbors who suspect their spouses of infidelity. Wong Kar-Wai’s film is in the grand tradition of a love story set against a society in upheaval, but simmers with a lust and eroticism all its own. Runner-up to Y Tu Mama Tambien for sexiest film of the decade. (2001)

In the Valley of Elah  – When Tommy Lee Jones’ son goes missing shortly after returning from a tour in Iraq, he sets out to find him. In the course of his quest he’s aided by Charlize Theron and the movie becomes a layered treatise about the war in Iraq, the military and family. In his best roles, Jones face says far more than any word could and that’s certainly the case in this movie, which takes its title from the site of David’s biblical battle with Goliath. (2007)

Into the Wild  – After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta, Chris McCandless, the child of well-to-do parents, gave away all his possessions and hitchhiked across America en route To Alaska. A wonderful companion to Jon Krakauer’s elegiac account of McCandless, Sean Penn’s movie brings together sweeping natural panoramas, marvelous supporting characters (Hal Holbrook especially) and a pitch-perfect score from Eddie Vedder. (2007)

Junebug – So many films about the clash between urban and rural ways of life resort to easy stereotypes, but Phil Morrison’s movie strikes just the right tone. Now living in Chicago, a son brings his art gallery-owning wife (the stunning Embeth Davidtz) to meet his parents in rural North Carolina. He re-acquaints himself with his brother whose wife (played by Amy Adams in the breakthrough performance of the decade) is pregnant. New conflicts arise as old wounds are re-opened. Celia Weston is delightful as the family matriarch. (2005)

Katyn – The legendary director Andrzej Wajda may have made his best film in his 80’s. It’s the heretofore untold story of the slaughter of thousands of Polish soldiers at the beginning of World War II by the Russian Red Army. Wajda focusses on how the Russians lies about the massacre left a permanent stain on the Polish psyche. The final twenty minutes of Katyn put your heart in your throat. (2008)

Kontroll  – Nimrod Antal’s film about life in the Budapest subway system defies easy description. Every scene and piece of dialogue seems loaded with literal and metaphorical interpretations. And the metaphor can apply just as easily to the main characters as to life in Hungary after the fall of the Soviet Empire. (2005)

 Lilya 4-ever – Abandoned by her mother, 16 year-old Lilya must fend for herself in bleak, gray Estonia. She meets a young man different from the abusive thugs in her neighborhood. He is kind to her and promises to pull her out of her dire circumstances. Hopeful and desperate, she trusts him. Thinking they will run off to a slice of heaven, Lilya is instead lowered into a kind of Hell that can only be borne from the minds of the truly evil. Lukas Moodyson’s film muscles its way into the pit of your stomach and stays there for days.

Little Children  – The decade’s best movie about suburban dystopia and arguably Kate Winslet’s best performance. She plays an educated mother whose marriage is passionless. She begins an affair with Patrick Wilson –The Prom King, as he’s dubbed by the neighborhood mothers—whose marriage is  deteriorating while he attempts to pas the bar exam. Most memorable, however, is Jackie Earle Haley, a sex offender trying to start a new life while under the watchful eye of self-appointed moralist. (2006)

The Lives of Others – An engrossing film about the horrors of life on the front lines of the Cold War. Ulrich Muhe is a member of the Stasi in 1984 who listens in on the conversations of a playwright and his lover. His own life being one of boredom he becomes increasingly engrossed in those of his subject. Florian Heckel von Donnersmarck crafted a film of personal destruction while addressing contemporary issues of privacy in a time of unparalleled freedom. (2006)

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – It will be hard to explain to future generations the impact that this series of films had on a populace put on perpetual edge in the age of terrorism. Thousands of people lined up to watch the entire trilogy, nine hours in total. It did not take much imagination to see the similarities between Peter Jackson’s sprawling epics and the state of world affairs. The stories of honor, mysticism, fellowship and duty in the face of an indefatigable enemy bent on an engineering an apocalypse resonated with millions of people who had never even heard of JRR Tolkien. (2001-2003)

Memento  – How Christopher Nolan began the decade. The taut Guy Pearce is covered from head to toe with tattoos. He’s also written himself hundreds of notes. The ink on both the paper and his skin is critical because he has no short term memory. In normal circumstances this would be quite the conundrum, but it’s worse because Pearce’s wife has been murdered and he’s trying to figure if he did it or if someone else did. Memento was that rare, visceral movie that left the audience in their seats after the house lights came up, catching their collective breaths. (2001)

Michael Clayton  – Where Good Night and Good Luck was a clarion call to a lazy media elite, George Clooney got back in front of the camera in this tightly written drama about corporate malfeasance. He’s a fixer who keeps small problems from becoming big ones. He must prevent an old friend gone crazy (a manic Tom Wilkinson) from jeopardizing a billion-dollar project while keeping the company lawyer (a scathing Tilda Swinton) at bay. Tony Gilroy’s movie recalls 70s classics like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor. (2007)

Minority Report - The back end (after Artificial Intelligence: AI) of a Steven Spielberg double-dip on the dire possibilities of the near future, blisters with energy. Tom Cruise plays a pre-crime officer—criminals are arrested before they commit their crimes—who finds himself caught up in agency politics that have far-reaching implications. Watch it again just to see how prescient it is, based on a Philip K. Dick novel. (2002)

Monster’s Ball  – An extremely graphic sex scene featuring Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton (ick) generated buzz, but Marc Forster’s depiction of troubled lives in the south is harrowing. Heath Ledger, Sean Combs and Peter Boyle are excellent in support of Berry’s raw performance. (2001)

The Motorcycle Diaries – Before he became a face on a t-shirt, Ernesto Guevera was called “Fuser” by his friends. As a student, he and a buddy traveled through South America on a beat up Norton 500. Gael Garcia Bernal is Che in Walter Salles’ exquisite travelogue about idealism colliding with reality. The Machu Picchu sequence is breathtaking. (2004)

Moulin Rouge! – Unapologetically over the top, Baz Luhrman’s was the best musical of the past ten years. A courtesan (Nicole Kidman) falls in love with a would-be poet (Ewan McGregor) much to the chagrin of a duke. This triangle is resolved in a splash of song, color and double-entendres. Jim Broadbent won an Oscar the following year in Iris, but he deserved it for his role as the ringmaster here. (2001)

The New World – Terrence Malick’s lyrical, contemplative rendering of the affair between John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahantas sweeps you up and carries you off to a place that only he seems to be able to construct. When the duties of colonization become too much, the stability of their relationship is threatened. (2005)

The Notebook – The moment you say, “Oh, come on! That would never happen!” you’ve missed the point. Every character in the movie is of a type and that very broadness is what makes the film such a timeless love story. (2004)

No Country for Old Men – Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh immediately joined the pantheon of cinematic psychos but Tommy Lee Jones is outstanding as sheriff trying to make sense of killer whose weapon of choice is a cattle prong. Josh Brolin is up to Jones’ lofty standards as Chigurh’s main target. Kelly MacDonald turns a potentially forgettable role as Brolin’s wife into the moral center of the film. While the movie may have caught fans of the Coen Brothers off-guard, it fits nicely in the canon of the makers of Miller’s Crossing, Fargo and Blood Simple. (2007)

Once  – Set in modern day Dublin, Glen Hansard is a Hoover repair man and Marketa Irglova is an immigrant caring for her mother and daughter. They are both amateur musicians and gradually they write songs together that reflect their growing feelings for each other. A small treasure. (2007)

Pan’s Labyrinth – In order to escape her sadistic stepfather in Franco’s Spain, a ten year-old girl imagines a secret world where she must perform three tasks to prove that she is, in fact, a princess. Fashioned by Guillermo Del Toro, who spent the decade creating worlds that exist just beyond the reach of our own. (2006)

Requiem for a Dream — Four disparate characters succumb to drug abuse. Most frightening in Darren Aronofsky’s film is the descent into madness of a woman collecting social security played by Ellen Burstyn. Far from a lecture, the movie shows in explicit detail how different people become addicted for different reasons.  (2000)

Sideways - In celebration of his philandering pal’s upcoming nuptials, Paul Giamatti takes him on a tour of California wine country. Like any good road movie, Alexander Payne’s film contrives one scenario after another in order to reveal something about the characters. What made Sideways different was the intensity of Giamatti’s portrayal of a man consumed by his own self-loathing. (2004)

The Station Agent – A thoughtful independent film from Thomas McCarthy about a dwarf (Peter Dinklage) who inherits an abandoned train station after his best friend dies. He’s subsequently harangued into friendship by a chatty hot dog vendor (Bobby Cannavale). The unlikely friends then encounter a woman (Patricia Clarkson) who is in mourning. Well-deserving of the many awards it picked up on the festival circuit. (2003)

Taxi to the Dark Side – Of the many righteously indignant documentaries criticizing the Bush Administration Alex Gibney’s was the best. It’s the story of an innocent Afghan cab driver who was tortured and killed while in US custody. He’s not a casualty of the madness of war, but rather, the victim of carefully vetted policy.  (2007)

There Will Be Blood  – P. T. Anderson’s sprawling epic of greed, oil and religion has a problematic ending but who could forget the opening scene, where Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, without saying a word, grunts his way into our psyche. He plunges one hole after another into the ground through the force of his personality, creating to a fortune but and future that will, most certainly, be bloody. An instant American classic. (2007)

Traffic  – The War on Drugs from the peripatetic camera of Steven Soderbergh. In his most complete film, he inspects many, if not all, aspects of the struggle and concludes that the effort has been a colossal failure. Sturdy performances by Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Don Cheadle and Michael Douglas anchor a somewhat chaotic enterprise. (2000)

Waking Life – Richard Linklater’s mind-massaging meditation on truth, reality, dreams and just about everything else washes over you like a hot shower. The fact that it merges animates live action characters pushes it to the stuff of legend. An exponentially better “alternative reality” film than Mulholland Drive. (2001)

WALL-E – The other major secular strain brought on by the reign of error that was the Bush presidency was conspicuous consumption. Remember that he suggested we go shopping in the weeks after planes were crashed into the financial and political capitols of the country. And we did. Boy did we spend. The magicians at Pixar presented the down side of this approach to calming our collective nerves, while telling a tender love story. If you didn’t go “awwwww” at least once while watching WALL-E may God have mercy on your soul. (2008)

Waltz With Bashir  – Perhaps the first and last of its kind. An animated documentary about an Israeli soldier’s memories of a battle that occurred some twenty years earlier. Ari Folman’s autobiographical story of The Lebanese War had the unique distinction of reminding you of several other films while still being thoroughly original. (2008)

Y Tu Mama Tambien – The sexiest movie of the decade. Maribel Verdu joins Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna on a road trip from Mexico City to a mysterious beach with no strings attached. Much steaminess follows. (2002)

You Can Count on Me  – Before starring in Kenneth Lonergan’s movie Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo had minor roles in minor movies. They play a brother and sister who are connected by a tragic event from their past. Each day is a struggle as they to overcome their flaws and make something out of their shiftless lives. Linney was nominated for an Oscar as a single mother trying to build a life out of perpetual setbacks. The soundtrack features several songs from Steve Earle, who knows a thing or two about turmoil. (2000)

Zodiac  – David Fincher’s story of the serial killer that spooked the Bay Area in the 1970s. Jake Gyllenhaal is a newspaper cartoonist who starts out trying to decode the murderer’s cryptic messages and ends up more obsessed with finding the killer than the police officer (Mark Ruffalo) assigned to the case. Fincher gets the grisliness out of the way early and delivers an unsparing crime procedural; the inclusion of Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man on the soundtrack is inspired. (2007)

They barely missed the cut: High Fidelity, Oldboy, Adaptation and Up

Best Releases Three or Four Decades Late

Army of Shadows – Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic of The French Resistance, released in Europe in the late 1960s made going underground heroic and cool. It ushered in a much-deserved reassessment of Melville’s place in The French New Wave. (2006)

Killer of Sheep – the life of a Los Angeles slaughterhouse worker in black and white with one of the best scores in film history. Charles Burnett’s film sat in a vault at UCLA for 30 years until it was released on video by Milestone/New Yorker Video. (2007)

Underrated, Forgotten or Worth a Second Look

24-Hour Party People – Steve Coogan nails it as the riotously self-possessed Tony Wilson, the television host who sired the Manchester music scene in the late 1970s. Michael Winterbottom adeptly recalls a flowering cultural moment that was both depressing and inspirational. (2002)

The Bridge – Eric Steel’s documentary about why the Golden Gate Bridge has become Ground Zero for suicides. More than that though, it’s about those left behind and trying to make sense of the profoundly tragic. (2006)

The Cell – The acting isn’t much (Jennifer Lopez playing a psychologist and Vince Vaughn playing it straight) and the plot machinations are absurd but Tarsem Singh’s movie about the subconscious of a serial killer is loaded with visual explosions from start to finish. (2000)

The Claim – When you sell off your wife and baby daughter for a gold mine it’s just a matter of time before it comes back to bite you, even in the pre-Information Age. There’s no escaping karma on that one. Michael Winterbottom’s version of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge is unforgettable. The icy turn-of-the-century Canadian landscape is the ideal backdrop for this morality tale. (2000)

The Dish – What role did Australia play in the first moon landing? Well, the country put up a satellite interface in a remote desert. Sam Neill plays one of the technicians who helps the locals prepare for and cope with their day in the, uhh, sun. Patrick Warburton is winning as the American liaison. (2001)

Everything is Illuminated – The movie based on what might be the best novel of the decade barely registered at the box office. Eugene Hutz steals the movie as Elijah Wood’s linguistically-challenged guide and Liev Schreiber’s debut behind the camera is extremely faithful to Jonathan Safran Foer’s source material. (2005)

Heaven – It came and went in the blink of an eye, but Cate Blanchett is a bald vigilante aided and abetted by police-officer Giovanni Ribisi. Impossible to categorize as an action pic for the art house crowd (or is it vice versa?), Tom Tykwer’s movie merits another consideration. (2002)

Idiocracy – Mike Judge’s futuristic comedy about what happens to a society that spends decades rewarding impulse and hubris over intellect and honesty. Sound familiar? (2005)

The Illusionist – In pre-World War I Vienna Edward Norton plays a magician who astonishes and taunts royalty (Rufus Sewell) and law enforcement (Paul Giamatti). It was overshadowed by The Prestige which was released the same year, but it is better shot, better acted and without the cop-out ending of Christopher Nolan’s film. (2006)

Innocence – After his wife dies a man looks up his lost love from over forty years ago. She has married and is living a comfortable life. Now in their 70s, they try to pick up where they left off. Paul Cox’s film of hope, death, loss, regret and risk tugs at your heart and never lets go. (2001)

Last Orders – A London butcher (Michael Caine) instructed his best friends (Tom Courtenay, David Hemmings and Bob Hoskins) to throw his ashes into the water at Margate beach. His son (Ray Winstone) joins them as they make the journey, recollecting about what was and what might have been. The type of small, touching film that big stars don’t seem to make anymore. (2001)

LIE – Paul Dano, in a pre-There Will Be Blood role plays a teenager who sits on a bridge above the Long Island Expressway. He has nothing, so when a dubious character, the slimy Brian Cox, offers him some semblance of normalcy, he takes it. (2001)

Made – Jon Favreau’s comedy is a follow up to Swingers which again features him and Vince Vaughan. This time they’re playing wanna-be mafiosos hired by Peter Falk to cut a deal with Sean Combs. The repoire of the castcast is terrific and the movie is even funnier with the audio commentary on (by Favreau and Vaughn). (2001)

Our Daily Bread – A dialogue-free documentary about the mechanized, industrialized nature of food production. Make sure you eat before viewing. (2006)

The Proposition – Set in late 19^th century Australia, the underappreciated Ray Winstone is magnetic as a frontier lawman determined to bring peace to his town. A group of four brothers has terrorized the locals and Winstone urges two of them to turn in the oldest, who is the ringleader. This sounds like a traditional Western but Nick Cave’s bloody and depraved script is accompanied by a setting that invites comparisons to Antonioni. (2006)

Reign Over Me – Almost all of Adam Sandler’s comedic characters are emotionally-stunted man-boys. His character in Mike Binder’s film is also a shell of a man, mumbling his way around New York City on a scooter, donning headphones to keep the outside world away. Don Cheadle is his usual superb self playing a dentist, trying to find out what’s gone wrong with Sandler, his old college roommate. In the course of reaching out to Sandler, Cheadle must face problems in his own life. (2007)

Sweet Land – In 1920s Minnesota a beautiful German woman arrives to marry a Norwegian farmer. He speaks little English and she speaks none. This is the least of their troubles as her ethnicity, in light of World War I, gives the rest of the community pause. Ali Selim’s feature debut is quiet, elegant and assured. (2006)

The Widow of St. Pierre – Patrice Leconte’s tale of redemption set in the (then) French colony of Newfoundland in the 1850s. Emir Kusterica plays a drunk sentenced to death for a murder. But time passes before the guillotine can arrive from France. Slowly, the community, represented by Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, comes to see the murderer in a different light. (2001)

The Yards – James Gray’s story of corruption in the Queens rail yards was unjustly ignored by audiences on its release. Perhaps it was because the star, Mark Wahlberg, was an unproven quantity as a dramatic actor (Ok, some might say he still is), but he more than holds his own among James Caan, Ellen Burstyn, Faye Dunaway, Charlize Theron and Joaquin Phoenix. (2000)

A Double Feature About Women Living on the Margins

Frozen River and Wendy and Lucy -  Melisso Leo and Michelle Williams try to save their son and dog, respectively, while staring some hard truths in the face. (Both released in 2008)

Actors of the Decade—Gael Garcia Bernal and Philip Seymour Hoffman

Actresses of the Decade – Cate Blanchett, Laura Linney and Kate Winslet

Directors of the Decade – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Christopher Nolan

Overrated

Brokeback Mountain – A movie more concerned with its message than advancing the story in a cinematic way. The script is clunky (saved by Heath Ledger’s performance) and for a movie intended to bust stereotypes, it’s comprised of supporting characters who are exactly that.

Knocked Up – Where The 40-Year-Old Virgin was a sweet, bromance about the complexities of dating, this was self-indulgent. A stoner who lives with other porn-living potheads hooks up with a successful television producer? That’s a shaky premise to begin with and impossible to ignore whenever the two leads start talking about child rearing. Why weren’t women insulted by this movie?

Lost in Translation – Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are displaced Americans in Tokyo. It’s a Jim Jarmusch movie done by Sofia Coppola. One Jarmusch is plenty thank you very much.

Mulholland Drive – What’s this movie about? No, really somebody tell me.

Movie that’s aged the worst – Crash. Only five years old and the tale of race and circumstance in Los Angeles already feels quaint.

And what of Wes Anderson? – His four films (three live-action and one animated) are entertaining, but they’re all riffs on a similar theme—highly stylized portraits of fractured families done to great soundtracks. They all made my best of the year list when released, but Anderson, so far anyway, has been content to have his characters talk about their struggles rather than show them.

Television (Still a vast wasteland)

The conversation begins and ends with The Wire. If you haven’t seen it you have deprived yourself of storytelling on par with Charles Dickens, but more visual. There’s no point in spilling more cyber-ink on it as countless others have extolled its virtues. So watch it. Now. You’re welcome.

The two best documentaries of the past ten years originally aired on television. Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home revealed every available side of Bob Dylan including a few that Mr. Zimmerman would rather have kept under wraps. Scorsese seemed to talk to everyone who ever had anything to do with Dylan.

The other great doc was Spike Lee’s agonizing, thorough, poetic story of the debacle and failure of our government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. It’s not hyperbolic to call When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts an act of public service.

OK…if I must choose…a baker’s dozen…(I actually already tipped my hand above by adding a clip after the summary)

WALL-E, Amelie, The Dark Knight, Memento, Amores Perros, In America, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Moulin Rouge! There Will Be Blood, The Lives of Others, Waking Life, You Can Count on Me and Lilya 4-ever.

Jim Jarmusch

He was born on 22 January 1953, Akron, Ohio, USA . He graduated from Tisch School of Arts in New York. He also went to paris to study film at the Cinematheque Francaise. His early job in fimmaking career was an assistant director of the film by Nicholas Ray and Win Wenders called Lightning Over Water (1980). He met Nicholas Ray, legendary filmmaker, who helped him to make Permanent Vacation (1982). His next film Stranger Than Paradise (1984) received many awards including he Camera d’or at the Cannes Film Festival. He always cast musical as his actors.

His next film Down by Law (1986), a black & white film, was considered the masterpiece for his style. The next films Mystery Train (1989), Night on Earth (1990). It was well received from the critics but some say that the concept was lost. In 1995, he proved himself again with the film Dead Man (1995) starring Johnny Depp. This film he can deal with the big issue as death and the American heartland. He continues making film such as Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005).

His interesting films are

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Down by Law (1986)

Mystery Train (1989)

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

Dead Man (1995)

Before diving into my nine favorite films released in the rapidly expiring year of two-thousand-and-nine, I ought to make the following confession: I haven’t seen very many movies that came out this year, relatively speaking. I mean, I have, but I haven’t. The following are films that I likely won’t get around to watching until next year, all of which would’ve had more than a fighting chance at cracking this list (or even at expanding it to—dare I say it—ten films): The Headless Woman, The White Ribbon, Antichrist, The Frontier of Dawn, Police, Adjective, White Material and 35 Shots of Rum, 36 vues du Pic Saint-Loup, Wild Grass, A Prophet, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Ne change rien.

Anyway, without further ado:

1. Fantastic Mr. Fox – I addressed this one just last week. I could go on and on about how charming and irresistible and endearing it is, but instead I’ll say that it’s the one film on this list that absolutely anyone would love; however, what’s most impressive is the fact that it manages to be so undeniably lovable without compromising even the slightest bit of its aesthetic integrity, its slightly exclusive wit or its overwhelming will to please and to challenge. It’s not really within my jurisdiction to evaluate Wes Anderson’s status as a self-conscious auteur—only because I don’t care to—but it’s readily apparent that someone, or rather a group of someones, is trying to forge a bond with the viewer throughout this film, trying to externalize a meticulously designed vision for public consumption, trying to slip a philosophical roofie into the viewer’s cinematic rail mixer. For my money (literally), this is the most effective movie of 2009.

2. The Limits of Control – Though it’s been months and months since I even thought about Jarmusch’s latest, it still strikes me as the sort of flick that can’t help but leave an anvil-sized impression on its viewer’s tabula rasa. The Limits of Control fits in nicely with a string of films released over the course of the last decade—films such as Denis’s The Intruder, Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. and INLAND EMPIRE, and most of Weerasethakul’s output—that aim to confound the viewer in order to induce certain modes of consciousness. Jarmusch name-checks Rimbaud during the film’s opening sequence, a rare instance of directorial intentions surfacing without undermining the purity of the film as a cinematic experience. This is the year’s most phenomenologically exhilarating movie; probably helps to see it in a theater, though. I never would’ve guessed that Jim Jarmusch would be responsible for such an abstract masterwork.

3. Two Lovers – The dialogue is often grating and insipid, the emotional swerves tend towards a tiresome strain of melodrama, and the two leads’ star presences frequently threaten to disrupt the impenetrable high that Two Lovers otherwise effects; nevertheless, this was, in many ways, the year’s most visually impressive release. It reaches a new plateau of tragedy. Despite the high praise that this film initially received, I honestly didn’t expect to like it. Turns out I did (quite a bit, in fact).

4. The Hurt Locker – Find my DC review reproduced here. I stand by most of what I said about this film last summer, but I think it’s also worth noting that I’ve felt no desire to see it again, despite countless opportunities to do so—such was the first viewing’s intensity, potency and general unpleasantness. In other words, as far as films about war go, it’s perfect.

5. 24 City – Neither as involving as Jia’s two best of the decade—Unknown Pleasures and The World (I haven’t seen Platform)—nor as exhaustively dreary as Still Life. The year’s most formally significant film, I reckon. Not quite documentary and not quite fiction, not quite gleaned and not quite fabricated: somewhere at the heart of this fourfold resides the essence of cinema. I think. Can’t wait to see what Jia churns out next.

6. A Serious Man – My DC review can still be accessed rye heeyah. In a year featuring several films that addressed the question of Jewish identity in a direct and serious (golden word) manner, this was probably the funniest and the most sensitive and, paradoxically, the most implausible. Never let it be said that there isn’t something to be said for implausibility.

7. The Beaches of Agnès – I won’t bother trying to build upon my remarks from last week, but don’t you dare forget that this one is currently playing at the Orpheum.

8. Summer Hours – One of the two ensemble-centric films that left a big impression of me this year. At the risk of sounding like a disingenuous cornball: see this one with a family member. My only real concern is that the maturity displayed throughout is kind of elephantine, but what can you do?

9. Goodbye Solo – Possibly the most universally agreeable film on this list. The hype surrounding Bahrani is (mostly) legitimate and this is far and away his stickiest work yet. Funny how melancholy manages to lurk both on the periphery and at the core of this film. I’d never seen what Winston-Salem looked like until I saw it from the rear windshield of Solo’s cab. This film deserves a healthy slab of credit for not being as painfully obvious as it easily could have been.

Last Year in Jarmuschabad 
(Image Courtesy: Impawards)

If I had to resort to one of those crude movie equations to describe Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control (2009), it would have to be “Quentin Tarantino minus the hyperkinetics”. Studded with a plethora of movie references, Jarmusch’s movie is a film buff’s dream, literally. In some ways, Jarmusch is like Pedro Almodóvar, who has been consistently accused of being apolitical in his movies (Is it a mere coincidence that The Limits of Control is based and shot in Spain?). But a little investigation shows that the very nature of Almodóvar’s films – with their explicitness of ideas and visuals – reinforces the difference between contemporary Spain and Francoist Spain and, in the process, draws a portrait of a country that has come a long way since those oppressive years. Jarmusch’s cinema, too, does not exist in vacuum. With their plotless scripts and unhurried pacing, his movies are the perfect antidote to the summer blockbuster of Hollywood. These films have been relentlessly repudiating Hollywood’s ideas of filmmaking and its mantras for success through the years. However, with this movie, Jarmusch establishes himself as the absolute antithesis of the industry-driven cinema of America. It is almost as if Jarmusch believes that he exists only because an entity called Hollywood exists – a kinship like the one between The Joker and Batman. Hollywood and Jarmusch, it seems, complete each other. In that sense, not only is The Limits of Control Jarmusch’s most political movie, it is also his most personal and most complete film.

The Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé) dresses in snazzy formal clothing and meets up with two men at an airport, one of whom speaks Spanish and the other translates. The conversation is completely tangential to the mission briefing, which seems like some illegal job, possibly an assassination. He listens to them keenly, gets up and leaves. Cut to Madrid. In the city, he visits art galleries daily before retiring for the day at the local restaurant, where he orders two espressos in separate cups. He is, of course, waiting for Violin (Luis Tosar), who, like all the other agents in the film, exchanges matchboxes with him. The Lone Man draws out a piece of paper from his matchbox, which has some kind of codes written on it. He memorizes them and eats the paper. A day or few later, he has a rendezvous with a blonde woman (Tilda Swinton). The matchbox routine is followed. This time the matchbox contains a bunch of diamonds, which the Lone Man hands over to the woman (Paz De La Huerta) who has been staying with him in his hotel room. He leaves Madrid and on the next train meets up with an oriental woman, Molecules (Youki Kudoh), who has her own scientific, religious and philosophical theories to tell him. After the matchbox ritual, he checks into the hotel at Seville. There, he attends a dance rehearsal and meets Guitar (John Hurt) who tries to derive the etymology of the word “Bohemian” and hands him over a priceless guitar. Lone Man leaves the town. On the way to his next destination, where he would meet a Mexican (Gael García Bernal), he snips off one of the guitar strings that he will soon use to assassinate an important man. Make what you will of this weird plot, but you can’t blame the film for what it does not have. Jarmusch has written and directed the movie exactly the way he wants it to be.

The Limits of Control continues to explore one of the director’s favorite questions – How aloof can a man be from his surroundings? Till this film, this idea was most manifest in Ghost Dog (1999) (which clearly takes off from Jean-Pierre Melville’ austere Le Samourai (1967)), wherein a Black American lone ranger living in Jersey City follows the code of the Samurai and, in effect, constructs his own moral and psychological world. In The Limits of Control, the Lone Man – an American who performs Tai Chi in dressing rooms, hotels and train compartments in Spain – is a blue whale in a baby carriage. The film opens with a quote by Arthur Rimbaud: “As I descended into impassable rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen”, recalling the final scene of Dead Man (1995). This “impassable river” soon goes on to take multiple meanings in the film as Lone Man commutes from the labyrinthine western structures of Madrid to sparse and open locales of the Spanish countryside. This fitting quote is followed by the bizarre opening shot whose camera angle presents us the Lone Man in a seemingly reclining position, like that of William Blake (Johnny Depp) in Dead Man. The Lone Man has already entered the mystic river. Production Designer Eugenio Cabarello’s fabulous work gives us ominous vertical, horizontal, diagonal and spiral structures that attempt to devour the Lone Man. Christopher Doyle’s camera arcs and glides to trap the Lone Man within the convoluted architectures of the film, in vain. Evidently, the Lone Man is Jim Jarmusch himself, like a monk, relentlessly wading through from the corrupt, impassable and savage rapids of Hollywood.

The Limits of Control is an unabashed celebration of art, of its eccentricities and of losing oneself in it. The film is loaded with conversations about paintings, music, dance, films and books. In fact, Jarmusch’s film is closer to Last Year at Marienbad (1961) than any other. “It’s just a matter of perception”, says one of the characters in this movie. The world in The Limits of Control is one that exists solely in the mind of its protagonist. Like in Marienbad, Jarmusch uses parallel structures – hedgerows, pillars and hallways – to underscore the idea that what we see is not a physical world built out of concrete and cement but the labyrinths of the mind – memories and experiences, particularly, of art. If the surroundings, at times, seem highly artificial, it’s because that is how the Lone Man perceives it to be. It’s a world that is completely parallel to the real one, like Jarmusch’s cinema. It’s a world which is far more valid, uncorrupt, honest and truer than the real world for the Lone Man, very much like Jarmusch himself. One character quotes that “For me, sometimes the reflection is far more present than the thing being reflected” and that “La Vida No Vale Nada” (Life is worthless), as if believing that if at all there is some meaning to be found anywhere, it is in this world of art – the one which they live in. It is this alternate world that interests Jarmusch more than the real one. The film is parenthesized between shots of the Lone Man entering and leaving his dressing room –the portal to the film’s world. The first cut in to the movie signals, through the skewed camera angle, the other worldliness to come and the final cut out of the film, an unmistakable Jarmusch signature, segregates the film from squalor of the real world (This cut recalls the final one in Broken Flowers (2005), where the director nudges the hitherto Jarmuschian protagonist into the melodramatic clockwork of the pop cinema and cuts away to indicate the end point of his world).

Throughout The Limits of Control, there is the notion of interchangeability of art and life – of reality and memory. Representation becomes perception and vice versa. One character even believes that violins have a memory and can remember every note that is ever played on them. The Lone Man watches the paining of a nude woman, only to find a nude woman lying on his bed, in a similar position, a few minutes later. His point-of-view shot of the vast expanses of the city of Madrid is intercut with a similar paining of the city. Life becomes images and images come to life. The Limits of Control reinforces George Steiner’s theory that “it’s not the literal past that rules us, but the images of the past”, through works of art and through one’s own memory – the two carriers of history – that have preserved them from being destroyed completely. Jarmusch’s movie reflects on how these images of the past – our masters – are being rapidly corrupted and replaced by the ones from popular media in an attempt to forge false histories, destroy critical mythologies and homogenize world culture by influencing their past (art) and present (life), through endless stereotyping and manipulation of truth, to reflect kindred iconographies and system of beliefs (One can sense seething anger beneath the cool exterior of the film). The climax of the movie (that I, first, felt was crude and which, now, I feel is deliciously Lynchian) depicts the Lone Man in a remote region in Spain getting ready for a face off with his adversary, a typical Conservative, American executive (Bill Murray, top class), who does not understand or give a damn about these “bohemian” ideas of art and who has infiltrated the deepest of foreign regions on a mission, perhaps, to establish the biggest studios, worldwide.

[The Limits of Control Trailer]

The Limits of Control seals Jarmusch’s position as a reactionary filmmaker. Each facet of the film seems like a move against the “industry norm”. The cast consists almost entirely of non-Hollywood actors. The film is shot on location in Spain, a world away from the cluttered studios of Fox or Universal. The average shot length is way too high compared to that of the blockbusters. The colour palette isn’t at all like anything we see on TV every day. On the surface, Jarmusch’s is the typical man-on-a-mission movie. His script, however, is made up entirely of in-between events that are taken for granted in such movies. There is a Bourne movie, a Bond movie and a McClane movie unfolding somewhere in the background. But that is not Jarmusch’s world. What Jarmusch did with cinematic time in his movies, so far, is applied to cinematic space in The Limits of Control. Jarmusch’s “dead time” has always complemented Hollywood’s “show time”. In The Limits of Control, he goes to the extent of dividing his protagonist’s world into Hollywood zones and non-Hollywood zones. The moment our man enters a “Hollywood infested zone”, the camera goes crazy, the editing becomes rapid and the soundtrack starts blaring, while at other times they remains sober. None of the “actions” of the mission are shown on screen. Like Le Samourai, which opens with an photograph-like shot of the protagonist, Jef Costello (Alain Delon), on his bed and goes on to show us a zombie-like detached figure walking through familiar checkpoints in a genre movie as if performing a ritual, Jarmusch’s Lone Man is seen, for most part, lying down on bed and walking towards his next strategic position. We come to know neither of the meaning of the codes that he gathers, not of his business with diamonds and matchboxes. Heck, we don’t even get to know his name.

Quentin Tarantino said about The Bride in Kill Bill (2003-04) that she was, in fact, fighting through all the exploitative cinemas from around the world. Tarantino’s movie both paid homage to and incriminated all the exploitative movies that the director had grown up on. Likewise, within his world of art, Jarmusch integrates cinemas from around the world in an attempt to illustrate that all art is one (Molecules tells us that Hindus believe the whole world to be one and that she thinks people are nothing but molecules rearranging themselves regularly). There are actors from almost every continent in the film. Like The Bride, the Lone Man wanders these empty corridors on a mission to keep art untainted. His arch nemesis seems to be the “art industry” that tries to infiltrate his perception (of the world, of art and of this art-world) and impose its own dynamics in it. The Limits of Control is a clash of these two perceptions where the title of the film refers to the ability of one to “think the right thing”, free from TV-driven emotional response systems. During the final scene, upon being inquired, not so politely, how he got into the heavily guarded building, the Lone Man says “I used my imagination” as if pointing out that one’s acceptance of rejection of popular beliefs is purely a question of the psychology. So the film also unfolds as one man’s journey into his own subconscious, to free himself from the chains that bind him to predictable ways of acting and thinking. It’s an odyssey to rid art of capitalistic models based on consumerism and marketability (The post credits sequence flashes a huge marquee that reads: “No Limits No Control”). The film is counteractive to every “formula” that pop cinema sticks to for keeping its “products” of art saleable (“No guns, no cell phone, no sex” quips someone in the film). Again, Resnais’ and Marker’s Statues Also Die (1953), an overt, one-sided but well-crafted bashing of the western world’s fetish for exotic art and its detrimental effects on lifestyles and cultures, comes to mind.

But, by no means is Jarmusch’s film a propagandist assault on this conveyor-belt mindset of ours. It is far too assured and composed for that kind of conversation. “I’m among no one”, claims the Lone Man. Jarmusch makes it clear that he does not have an agenda here. He just wants no other agenda to be made with respect to art. He is not against any particular system or a film industry, he is against the very notion of industries that try to regulate and quantize the quality of art. And justifiably, his movie is a celebration of all such films that have survived the concentration camps of major studios. Jarmusch adorns the movie with references to iconoclastic movies that have raised their voice against the oppressive, money-driven tendency of the studio systems. Early in the film, the Lone Man returns to his hotel room in Madrid to find a nude woman named, well, Nude on his bed. She asks him if he likes her posterior. This, of course, is the hyperlink to Godard’s polemical Contempt (1963), where the director bit not only the hand that fed him, but all such hands which feed only conditionally (Jarmusch even recreates the shots of Brigitte Bardot swimming). Later, Blonde, a film buff, talks about The Lady from Shanghai (1947), where Welles had to put up with a lot of meddling by the execs at Columbia Pictures. Jarmusch even sneaks in pointers to his own movies, effectively categorizing his movies under this kind of cinema of resistance, although he never takes sides. There are broken flowers, there are coffees and cigarettes everywhere in the film and the Lone Man, whose cousin lived by the Samurai code, travels in a mysterious train with that Japanese girl who we saw in Memphis a few years ago. There are also movies that Jarmusch loves and pays tribute to. There is Jean-Pierre Melville, there is Aki Kaurismaki and there is Andrei Tarkovsky, packed somewhere into this seemingly sparse and empty film.

Because of all this and more, watching The Limits of Control is like having a déjà vu marathon. Notwithstanding the fact that many lines in the movie, as is the case in other Jarmusch films, are recited over and over throughout, one gets the feeling of having seen these people, these objects and these setups somewhere, sometime ago – another Resnaisian trait of the film (specifically redolent of one of Marienbad’s powerful, enigmatic quotes “Conversation flowed in a void, apparently meaningless or, at any rate, not meant to mean anything. A phrase hung in midair, as though frozen, though doubtless taken up again later. No matter. The same conversations were always repeated, by the same colorless voices.”). It is the kind of experience some people have watching Vertigo (1958). “The best films are like dreams, you’re never sure you really had.” tells Blonde. Indeed. Like Allen’s Shadows and Fog (1992), The Limits of Control blossoms out as a dream in which you meet the most unexpected of movie stars in the most trivial of roles. Jarmusch’s self-referential tricks only add to this strange familiarity that we feel with the movie. Blonde likes movies where people just sit there, doing nothing. Ring a bell? She tells the Lone Man that Suspicion (1941) was the only film in which Rita Hayworth played a blonde. The Limits of Control must be the only film in which Swinton plays a blonde. Seemingly pointless lines such as “You don’t speak Spanish, right?”, “Life is a handful of dirt” and “The universe has no center and no edges” go on to become central to the ideas of the film (there is a strange little prank involving subtitles in the all important opening conversation of the film). The major attack against The Limits of Control, I imagine, would be regarding the self-indulgent nature of the film. Sure the film is self-indulgent, but it is also more than that. It is a self-indulgent movie that promotes self-indulgence. It is a movie that dares to almost profess that art can exist for only its own sake (what else can it exist for? World peace?). That there is nothing called “progress” or “superiority” in art. That all art is one and, to kill the most frequently uttered maxim in this movie and elsewhere, everything is subjective.

Verdict (Oh, The Irony!):

Does the fusion of greatness and ambition require a level of insanity? While I cannot offer a FiveThirtyEight.com-style statistical analysis, why does it seem that a disproportionate contingent of painters, musicians, writers and filmmakers meet such tragic life endings? Pop-psychology would claim that the brains of these creative types possess artistic sensibilities in the places where we mere mortals maintain mundane thoughts like “pay the bills” or “remember not to shoot your loved ones”.  Due to the information explosion of this here internet, fans have access to a more well-rounded historical account of their favorite creators. Far too often, this results in the discovery of sordid life details that can affect our enjoyment of their work (did I really need to know that avant-garde composer Percy Grainger’s use of English rather than Italian musical terms was due to his white supremacist beliefs?) Why is this phenomenon such a shock today? We were the subjects of a whitewashing of the Truth, and now, in all apologies to Jack Nicholson, we are unable to handle it?

In April of 1988, all newscasts within the Los Angeles media market interrupted their etudes to baseball’s opening day with the account of a ghastly murder-suicide. Jerry Harvey, the program director behind Z Channel, shot his wife, then turned the gun – a gift from director Sam Peckinpah – on himself. If you subscribe to that popular on-line move-delivery service, I compel you to log onto said service and search for Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession. You’ll want to clear three hours from your schedule – two for the film, and one for all of the times you’ll be pausing to document the names of incredible films that are referenced.  Directed by Xan Cassavettes and produced by Rick Ross (not that Rick Ross), Obsession brings in a cavalcade of notable directors to tell their story about why Z Channel mattered. Not too long after Michael Cimino, director of The Deer Hunter, released Heaven’s Gate to an angry phalanx of tomatoes, he received a call from Harvey. “I want to show your film on my network”, Harvey exclaimed. “Do you have any extra footage that was cut from the theatrical version?”, he added. This example illustrates the impact of Z Channel. Following Cimino’s efforts to return Heaven’s Gate to his original artistic vision, Harvey heavily promoted his network’s programming of this “director’s cut”. Critics that previously lambasted the picture were coming around to sing its praises. Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession is loaded with Hollywood anecdotes that sound almost too apocryphal for reality. After describing Harvey’s showing of The Decline of Modern Civilization, director Penelope Spheeris describes the underwriting of her punk-rock masterpiece as “…financed by two businessmen from the Valley who wanted to finance a porn movie. They had no idea I was going in to pitch a punk rock film.”

Robert Altman gives Harvey credit for providing a “safe place” for films that asked audiences to “discover details for themselves”. There are far too many stories to highlight here: emotional tributes from Alexander Payne, Jim Jarmusch, Stuart Cooper, Jacqueline Bisset, and on and on. The serious expressions of loss are cleverly interspersed with Quenton Tarantino’s comedic fanboy-esque recollections. The appropriately-named F.X. Feeney, a local film critic, sums it up with this line: Harvey and Z Channel  “…acted and inspired others to admire these things of beauty.”

The Day It Ended

Like most residents of Barstow, I remember wondering “Who is Jerry Harvey?”, until the talking-head mentioned Z Channel. For kids in southern California with any interest in film, Z Channel was viewed as a Voltron of the Holy Grail, the Ring, the Lost City of Gold, and that “Archie’s” place in License to Drive. We saw the commercials, we read the ads, and we heard the fish stories from relatives with Los Angeles addresses.  While we had access to HBO and Star Channel (the early version of The Movie Channel), it felt like they had 20 films that were constantly repeated. I must have seen Corvette Summer (starring Mark Hamill) 50 times in what was our family’s Caprice Classic Winter. Z Channel sounded like an Antarctic blast of fresh air, with insane amounts of horror, rock band stories, and foreign films (not that teenagers would ascertain that subtitles = nudity, but hey…). Alas, it was never to be – when Z Channel was purchased by media conglomerate Group W a few years before Harvey’s tragic moment, rather than expand the service to the High Desert, the top brass decided to slowly transition their auteur-based fare into local sports programming. By 1989, the network’s days of Fellini festivals and Cimino director’s cuts were over. Few things are more frustrating than being denied access to greatness as it occurs. However, it would be much worse if it never happened at all – I did not have the chance to see Z Channel in its heyday, but I can enjoy the fruits of its existence. A week after Thanksgiving, here’s another item to add to the list. Check it out when you get the chance – you’ll thank me later.

‘A CAVEMAN IN A SPACESHIP’

There are many reasons to like Joe Coleman. Is he one of America’s best modern painters? I certainly think so. He’s most underrated, but if I had a spare few grand I know where I’d spend it. There’s a film about him called RIP which is well worth checking out. It also has Jim Jarmusch and Hasil Adkins in it - a major reason in itself to buy the film. In the meantime here’s an interesting article about Joe with an interview at the bottom.

 I love this three headed monster of Charles Manson that he made. He looks like a Hindu deity. Not sure if I would hang it above my bed but it’s the sort of painting that deserves a secret gallery all to itself…

Jim Jarmusch says it best (from MovieMaker magazine):

Rule #1: There are no rules. There are as many ways to make a film as there are potential filmmakers. It’s an open form. Anyway, I would personally never presume to tell anyone else what to do or how to do anything. To me that’s like telling someone else what their religious beliefs should be. Fuck that. That’s against my personal philosophy—more of a code than a set of “rules.” Therefore, disregard the “rules” you are presently reading, and instead consider them to be merely notes to myself. One should make one’s own “notes” because there is no one way to do anything. If anyone tells you there is only one way, their way, get as far away from them as possible, both physically and philosophically.

Rule #2: Don’t let the fuckers get ya. They can either help you, or not help you, but they can’t stop you. People who finance films, distribute films, promote films and exhibit films are not filmmakers. They are not interested in letting filmmakers define and dictate the way they do their business, so filmmakers should have no interest in allowing them to dictate the way a film is made. Carry a gun if necessary.
Also, avoid sycophants at all costs. There are always people around who only want to be involved in filmmaking to get rich, get famous, or get laid. Generally, they know as much about filmmaking as George W. Bush knows about hand-to-hand combat.

Rule #3: The production is there to serve the film. The film is not there to serve the production. Unfortunately, in the world of filmmaking this is almost universally backwards. The film is not being made to serve the budget, the schedule, or the resumes of those involved. Filmmakers who don’t understand this should be hung from their ankles and asked why the sky appears to be upside down.

Rule #4: Filmmaking is a collaborative process. You get the chance to work with others whose minds and ideas may be stronger than your own. Make sure they remain focused on their own function and not someone else’s job, or you’ll have a big mess. But treat all collaborators as equals and with respect. A production assistant who is holding back traffic so the crew can get a shot is no less important than the actors in the scene, the director of photography, the production designer or the director. Hierarchy is for those whose egos are inflated or out of control, or for people in the military. Those with whom you choose to collaborate, if you make good choices, can elevate the quality and content of your film to a much higher plane than any one mind could imagine on its own. If you don’t want to work with other people, go paint a painting or write a book. (And if you want to be a fucking dictator, I guess these days you just have to go into politics…).

Rule #5: Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

No termino de comprender las duras críticas que se han hecho contra la nueva película de Jim Jarmusch. Por alguna razón, muchos han vapuleado esta nueva incursión cinematográfica del director de Dead Man y Stranger than Paradise, atacando precisamente los elementos que hacen de The Limits of Control una obra súmamente interesante.

En esta ocasión, Jarmusch filma su moderna cinta noir en España. Contando la historia de un misterioso y extremadamente silencioso hombre, que alguien ha contratado para cumplir una desconocida misión. A lo largo de su viaje ibérico, el misterioso hombre, interpretado por Isaach de Bankolé (participante habitual de las cintas de Jarmusch), va recibiendo ayuda de una serie de misteriosos personajes. Siendo estos los que le indican el siguiente paso a realizar en la enigmática travesía, mediante un intercambio de cajas de cerillos que contienen pequeños papeles codificados (LEER MÁS)

Rule #1: There are no rules.

Rule #2: Don’t let the fuckers get ya.

Rule #3: The production is there to serve the film.

Rule #4: Filmmaking is a collaborative process.

Rule #5: Nothing is original.

Full Article [via MovieMaker.com]

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, brodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. if you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery-celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from-it’s where you take them to.”

-- Jim Jarmusch

[Click here for a guide to Booze Revooze and the rating system used]

From the juiced-box and the OST: The Black Angels – You On The Run

[This review is a lot better if you press 'Play' and read while you listen.]

Ramblings: Outer Limits

Final Proof: 2 Shots

You know how you drink with Jim Jarmusch? You’ve seen Dead Man and Down By Law and you can’t wait to hang with the guy who hangs with Tom Waits, Bill Murray and Johnny Depp. So he gets there and you’re all excited and you sit down at the table ready to have this super intense conversation with the writer of Broken Flowers, Coffee and Cigarettes, and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Then nothing happens. He just kinda sits there and looks at you. And you wanna say something but it’s Jim Jarmusch and he’s so much cooler than you could ever be so anything you say will sound completely stupid so you sip your drink and wait. And wait. And he doesn’t say anything. At all. He looks at you and kinda smiles sheepishly. He says “Wow, it’s quiet in here.” Then nothing else for twenty minutes. Then he tells you it was nice meeting you and stands up and leaves and you have to pay the tab. That’s what The Limits of Control was like.

To be honest, it might be my fault. i was drunk when i saw this movie. i’d had like 5 glasses of wine at lunch, then a pint of lager after work waiting for an Aussie coworker, then another pint outside the movie theater waiting for Miss Demeanor. Then another pint inside the movie theater. Then three bottles of beer during the movie. Alls i can say, though, is i saw this with Miss Demeanor and two other chicks and they agreed with me about what i’m going to write here.

Here’s a shot of the bar inside the movie theater:

So You Can Make A Scene

Jim himself came to present the movie:

The guy who announced Jim said that Jim was reluctant to show up because he was shy. This was the first bad sign. The second was Jim saying that we should look at his movie as though it were a dream. The third bad sign was he didn’t even hang around. He took off, and if he couldn’t stay to watch his own movie…

The Limits of Control is a very minimalist movie. Like Dead Man on downers. There are llllooooonnnngggggg stretches without any dialog and so you have the feeling you’re watching moving paintings. The paintings are very beautiful, but no one wants to look at paintings for 2 hours.

The problem with this movie is you have to be drunk to appreciate it, but then you fall asleep because there’s no action and you’re drunk. The other problem is i was holding in my piss for the whole movie. Finally my bladder exploded so i had to run off to the can to stem the internal peeing and when i came back, i’d missed the only action scene in 116 minutes. That pissed me off.

The Limits of Control reminds me of past lives i’ve never lived. Or a slide show of Jarmusch’s trip into his dreams. It was like having someone else’s déja vu.

Blonde (played by Tilda Swinton) summarizes Jim Jarmush’s approach:

I like movies that are like dreams. The ones where you’re not sure if you saw them or dreamed them. Some movies are best when people don’t say anything at all. Where people just sit and don’t talk.

Then she just sits and doesn’t talk for a real long time…

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 3½ Shots

The best part of the movie, if you ask me. We get some nice shots of Paz de la Huerta nude, which you would expect of someone whose character is called “Nude”. Well, not totally nude because she wears thick nerd glasses.

i think what i liked best about her was how unsymmetrical her body was. Her breasts are slightly different sized and her nipples point in different directions. i find that the things i appreciate most in any woman, both physically and mentally, are the things that make her unique from all other women. There’s a lot of that going on here…

Jim & Paz Outside The Bar None

Tilda Swinton was also in the movie as Blonde. While she may not be a classic pinup, she has a very distinctive edge:

Giving Oscar 'Head'

Drink: 0 Shots

i don’t remember any alcohol in the movie, but then i fell asleep for much of it due to all the alcohol i’d had before and during the movie. Maybe you should just ask Miss D…

Rock & Roll:3 Shots

While it’s not truly rock and roll, the soundtrack is very cool. It reminded me a lot of Dead Man, with the saturated guitar rasping out Neil Young style solos. Here’s a complete track listing:

1. Bad Rabbit – Intro
2. Boris with Michio Kurihara – Fuzzy Reactor
3. La Macarena – Saeta
4. Bad Rabbit – Sea Green Sea
5. Boris – Feedbacker (Tloc Edit)
6. Manuel el Sevillano – Por Compasión: Malaguenas
7. Boris – Farewell
8. Sunn O))) & Boris – N.L.T.
9. Carmen Linares – El Que Se Tenga Por Grande
10. Bad Rabbit – Dawn
11. The Black Angels – You On The Run
12. Earth and Bill Frisell – Omens And Portents 1: The Driver (Tloc Edit)
13. Talegón de Córdoba & Jorge Rodriguez Padilla – El Que Se Tenga Por Grande
14. Sunn O))) & Boris – Blood Swamp (Tloc Edit)
15. Ensemble Villa Musica – Schubert 2. Adagio [String Quintet In C, D.956] (Tloc Edit)
16. LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
17. Boris – ” ” (Tloc Edit)

Boring Technical Crap

Written by: Jim Jarmusch

Directed by: Jim Jarmusch

Starring

Paz de la Huerta – Nude

Tilda Swinton – Blonde

Isaach De Bankolé – Lone Man

Bottom Line

Don’t see it. But find naked photos of Paz de le Huerta.

Existen muchas organizaciones secretas, Los masones, La mano negra, Los canteros o Los hijos de Lee Marvin (Sons of Lee Marvin). Esta última es una organización fundada por el director de cine (para mí uno de los mejores en la actualidad) Jim Jarmusch. Para ser miembro de este “club”, necesitas tener una fisonomía similar a la del gran actor Lee Marvin y la verdad es que encontrar una estructura facial semejante a la del señor Marvin es jodidamente complicado.

El genial actor de "Uno rojo: División de choque", "Los doce del patíbulo" o "Delta Force"...

Por esa razón es una hermandad de difícil acceso para los seres humanos de a pie, solo unos pocos privilegiados, todos ellos amigos, son los que forman la hermandad, gente que conforman un groso contracultural bastante firme, los personajes son:

El propio Jim Jarmusch: El injusto adalid del cine “gafapasta”. A veces creo que mi misión en este planeta es destruir a todos esos intelectuales del cine.

El fundador es probablemente quien más se parezca

John Lurie: El tremendo músico y amigo de Jim, trabajó con el por ejemplo en “Bajo el peso de la ley” aparte de un par de cintas más.

El genial músico de viento

Os regalo un video de Lurie junto con el buenísimo percursionista Naná Vasconcelos, en el mítico show americano “Night Music”.

Nick Cave: Ya he hablado aquí del señor Cave, amigo de Jarmusch y del resto de miembros.

Como podeís ir viendo el parecido físico es brutal...

También os regalo una de las mejores canciones de Cave, “Red right hand”

Tom Waits: En fin, pues dios, digo Tom, digo dios no podía faltar en este club. Espectacular músico y actor en varias pelis de Jim.

Una foto de dios, digo Tom, digo dios...

Siguiendo la rutina, lo que es probablemente mi canción favorita de este señor “Heart Attack and Vine”

Iggy Pop: El que faltaba… ¿Os dais cuenta de la calidad que tiene este club? Solo verdaderos amos que compartan, en cierto modo, la fisonomía de Marvin pueden entrar en él.

No es el que más se parece a Lee Marvin, pero quizas si tenga los rasgos faciales necesarios

Como estoy que lo tiro, os pongo lo que para mí es una de las canciones más románticas jamas escritas.

Neil Young: Pues otro más, bastante amigo de Jarmusch y creo que no debo decir quien es… ¿Verdad?

Es el mismo caso que Iggy.

Venga va, pues una de sus canciones más famosas, “Old Man”.

Thurston Moore: El frontman de “Sonic Youth” también está en este exclusivo club.

Como Young y Pop, es más la forma de la cara, la boca o los ojos que un parecido físico...

No sabía si poner un video en directo de la ruidosa “Kool Thing” o el video dirigido por Spike Jonze “100%” en el que el actor Jason Lee hace una de sus primeras apariciones en pantalla… me he decidio por “100%”

Richard Bose: Lo siento mucho pero no tengo ni idea de quien es este señor. Lo siento de verdad.

Bueno, pues esto es “Sons of Lee Marvin”. Curiosa hermandad de esa cantidad de artistas frikis y extravagantes.  Me encantaría formar parte del “club” de estos dementes artistas, pero creo que no me parezco a Marvin, como mucho en la boca, pero creo que no me aceptarían…Espero que os haya culturizado un poquito…

Mangold’s review:

As a Jim Jarmusch fan, this was a huge let down for me.  In the past I’ve loved the long takes, the little dialogue, and the overall slow pace of his films, but he takes it to a whole new level on this one.  It’s borderline unwatchable, completely pretentious and indulgent, and even the philosophical musings on the power of imagination aren’t that interesting, let alone worthy of their own feature film.  Having said that, it does have its share of ups, notably the score by the Japanese rock trio Boris, which is one of the best I’ve heard this year.  The cinematography is also beautiful, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that this movie has no soul and contains mostly just pseudo-intellectual ramblings.  BOO.

RATING:  5.5/10

Anastasya’s review:

While I understand the frustration people have with the pacing and content of The Limits of Control, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Perhaps it is because it came across as more of an installation — an exploration of space and time — rather than a narrative film.  The cinematography and pacing of the film create a purely aesthetic experience.  The carefully crafted, beautiful, lengthy shots create a sort of meditative atmosphere, which the score adds to, and the repetitive visual elements (hotel room, cafe, two espresso, match box) give you patterns to follow throughout the film.  If anything I would argue that the film would be better without a plot at all (there is barely one as it is), but I can see how the, as Mangold puts it, “pseudo-intellectual ramblings” add to the meditative, contemplative nature of the film, even if they are a little pretentious.

**Spoilers**

Having seen nearly all of Jarmusch’s films, I found this an interesting development of his style.  Most of his films are made up of a repetition of scenes, shots, situations and objects, and while most of them use this to further the plot, The Limits of Control developed it into a purely aesthetic experience.  Vagueness is a major component of his characters and story lines, and the characters in The Limits of Control epitomize this sort of ambiguity.  While it may have frustrated many people, the ending was one of my favorite parts of the film.  Jarmusch frequently leaves out important plot points — disrupting the narrative flow (namely Down By Law, in which he skips over the entire prison break, which would have been the climactic event of the film).  In The Limits of Control Jarmusch entirely omits the climax of the film — the entire film he has been getting clues for his mission, and when he finally gets within reach of the final goal, it jumps to the end, without any explanation whatsoever of how he got inside of the building.

Throughout his career Jarmusch (with apparent influence of the No Wave Cinema movement) has attempted to subvert many narrative film traditions, and like many filmmakers (I could draw many comparisons to Kiarostami), he seems to be moving into the art world.  While this film had its weak points (mainly narrative and dialogue), there were many strong aspects, and I am interested to see if he moves further into the art world, or if he goes back to narrative filmmaking.

RATING: 9/10

“Nada é original. Apropria-te de tudo o que te enche de inspiração ou estimula a tua imaginação. Devora sem distinção filmes velhos e filmes novos, músicas, livros, quadros, fotografias, poemas, sonhos, conversas ouvidas por acaso, arquitetura, sinaléctica urbana, árvores, nuvens, movimentos de água, sombras e luz. Rouba apenas as coisas que falem diretamente ao teu coração. Se agires assim, a tua criação (tal como o teu fruto) será autêntica. A autenticidade é inestimável; a originalidade uma quimera. E não tentes dissimular o que pediste emprestado – reivindica-o se for teu desejo. Dê por onde der, lembra-te sempre do que disse Jean-Luc Godard: ‘O importante não é onde se apanha as coisas – é até onde se as leva’.”

Jim Jarmusch