Jim Jarmusch has been making films for almost forty years. Despite such a prolific career, his bad works can be counted on one hand. This is a direct result of knowing his audience and knowing exactly what it is that they want. This streak continues with his latest feature, The Dead Don’t Die, a zombie horror-comedy which takes on American consumption without ever taking itself too seriously; after all, that film was made about forty…
Gimme Danger is by no means a groundbreaking documentary. It’s by-the-book filmmaking, full of talking heads and archival footage, and very much reminiscent of the punk rock films of Don Letts. The Letts comment, of course, is not a negative at all. Don Letts is a great person to emulate when searching for cinematic punk rock aesthetics.
Paterson is a study of ennui in its purest form. Paterson is a love letter to the seemingly inconsequential town of Paterson, New Jersey. Paterson is about Zen and the creation of art. The fact that all of this is contained in a film about the quotidian activities of a man’s life across one week is nothing short of a miracle.
By: Addison Wylie Wylie Writes’ coverage of TIFF’s Jim Jarmusch retrospective began with a mixed bag of shorts, and ends with a mixed bag of concert cutouts and behind-the-scenes glimpses. It’s undoubtable Jarmusch captures a raw vision of Neil Young and Crazy Horse with his scattershot Year of the Horse. The filmmaker catalogues footage from unique perspectives; the performances are especially visceral if occasionally obscured. He switches between different film stocks (16mm, Hi-8 video, and Super 8)…
By: Addison Wylie In Dead Man, Johnny Depp plays William Blake, an accountant removed from society twice over. The loss of his parents has his mind aimlessly wandering and a new job in the West has Blake feeling further alienated. Then again, it would take a lot of adjusting to fit in with Machine’s homely, rugged community. After meeting a local woman and then meeting her beau, Blake is pitted and pinned to a murder…
By: Addison Wylie My feelings for Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai follow in the same vein as some sceptics felt about Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive – a whole lot of style and not much else. I could see what Jarmusch was trying to do with Ghost Dog. It was the same thing we later saw Refn carry out with Drive, except Refn executed his film much better. Jarmusch was wanting to…
By: Addison Wylie TIFF Cinematheque opens up a wonderful world of weird with Strange Paradise: The Cinema of Jim Jarmusch. The retrospective – which began on July 24 and runs until August 16 – screens Jarmusch’s unique filmography in pristine condition at the TIFF BELL Lightbox. The scheduling of the program jumps around, so faithful watchers are never following the career in chronological order. Something tells me this quirk is much like Jarmusch’s unpredictable sensibilities. Wylie…