2008 Woodie Awards
Smokes and a cuppa joe
All star cast brings an allegory for a generation to life
Elizabeth Sinclair-Smith
Date created: 5/21/04 Section: ENTERTAINMENT
Some things just work better in pairs. For example: peanut butter and jelly, Batman and Robin, cookies and milk; the list goes on.
Then there's coffee and cigarettes. It's an inseparably hip dyad, cookies and milk's darker opposite, or as it's described in Jim Jarmusch's latest film "Coffee and Cigarettes," the representation of a generation.
Whether or not the actual film is a representation of an entire generation, however, will be left to the viewer's discretion. In fact, there's not much else to this film other than its parings-and that's the beauty of it.
Book-ended by two separate covers of the song "Louie Louie," "Coffee and Cigarettes" presents a series of humorous vignettes with coffee and cigarettes as the connecting theme. More than that, however, are its many interconnected phrases, scenarios and even outfits that make conversations with smokes and cups of joe that much more entertaining.
And speaking of entertainment, there are more celebrities in this movie than one could shake a cancer stick at, including Steve Buscemi, Steve Coogan, and Cate Blanchett. In the particularly zany, star-studded sequence "Delirium," Wu-Tang Clan rappers Genius (GZA) and The RZA are chatting it up in a coffee house. Interestingly enough, The RZA does not drink coffee, claiming that, as a practitioner of Eastern medicine, it's bad for one to drink.
Then in comes waiter Bill Murray, playing a more caffeinated version of himself. After Genius and RZA refuse his offer of coffee, he drinks it straight from the pot. "It helps me dream faster," he says, mirroring the same phrase from an earlier vignette "Strange To Meet You," which stars Oscar winner Roberto Benigni.
Building off the duality theme, there are many appearances of twins, actual and otherwise. Blanchett excellently portrays herself as rich and famous while at the same time playing her sad-sack loser cousin in "Cousins."
As actual twins go, Cinqué and Joie Lee face off against yokel waiter Buscemi. As Buscemi recalls, Elvis had a twin who died at birth. He speculates that the jumpsuit clad Elvis was actually the twin of the real Elvis, and that the real, "Jailhouse Rock" era Elvis was just retired. "Damn, I look like Elvis," he muses, much to the dismay of the Lee twins, who insisted that Elvis was a racist, while they puff on rolled cigarettes.
Then there's coffee and cigarettes. It's an inseparably hip dyad, cookies and milk's darker opposite, or as it's described in Jim Jarmusch's latest film "Coffee and Cigarettes," the representation of a generation.
Whether or not the actual film is a representation of an entire generation, however, will be left to the viewer's discretion. In fact, there's not much else to this film other than its parings-and that's the beauty of it.
Book-ended by two separate covers of the song "Louie Louie," "Coffee and Cigarettes" presents a series of humorous vignettes with coffee and cigarettes as the connecting theme. More than that, however, are its many interconnected phrases, scenarios and even outfits that make conversations with smokes and cups of joe that much more entertaining.
And speaking of entertainment, there are more celebrities in this movie than one could shake a cancer stick at, including Steve Buscemi, Steve Coogan, and Cate Blanchett. In the particularly zany, star-studded sequence "Delirium," Wu-Tang Clan rappers Genius (GZA) and The RZA are chatting it up in a coffee house. Interestingly enough, The RZA does not drink coffee, claiming that, as a practitioner of Eastern medicine, it's bad for one to drink.
Then in comes waiter Bill Murray, playing a more caffeinated version of himself. After Genius and RZA refuse his offer of coffee, he drinks it straight from the pot. "It helps me dream faster," he says, mirroring the same phrase from an earlier vignette "Strange To Meet You," which stars Oscar winner Roberto Benigni.
Building off the duality theme, there are many appearances of twins, actual and otherwise. Blanchett excellently portrays herself as rich and famous while at the same time playing her sad-sack loser cousin in "Cousins."
As actual twins go, Cinqué and Joie Lee face off against yokel waiter Buscemi. As Buscemi recalls, Elvis had a twin who died at birth. He speculates that the jumpsuit clad Elvis was actually the twin of the real Elvis, and that the real, "Jailhouse Rock" era Elvis was just retired. "Damn, I look like Elvis," he muses, much to the dismay of the Lee twins, who insisted that Elvis was a racist, while they puff on rolled cigarettes.
