Coffee & Cigarettes

A new Jim Jarmusch movie is always cause for celebration around here. Sure, he’s open to charges of languid pacing and, especially in earlier films, an indifference to plot. But there’s a beyond-left-field outlook to his best work, like Ghost Dog and Dead Man, that you just can’t find in any other English-language director. (Liking his films also gets you monster hipster cred, which is always nice.) Coffee is really only half-new, to be technical, since it incorporates three shorter Jarmusch films dating back to 1986. A fractured, interweaving narrative centered on the classic combo of everyday café stimulants, Coffee is a typically skewed Jarmusch comedy, sort of a cross between his taxicab quintet Night on Earth and Wayne Wang’s improv-based indie Blue in the Face (which Jarmusch acted in). He’s assembled what might be his best cast yet—longtime buddies Roberto Benigni, Tom Waits, and Isaach De Bankolé are joined by Cate Blanchett in a dual role as two crazy sisters, Bill Murray, and Jack and Meg of the White Stripes. Did we mention hipster cred?