Coffee and Cigarettes 2004

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Though Coffee and Cigarettes provokes the occasional buzz, it is really just a respite from any serious business [Jarmusch] may have planned, or may be putting off. Read more

Erik Lundegaard, Seattle Times: There are few things more boring than cool. Cool keeps to itself; cool doesn't reveal itself. For cool to be cool, it has to be part of a larger story. Here it's not. Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: The draggy ones make you restless while the best ones, like the movie's title ingredients, provide a buzz that doesn't last long enough. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Some of the conversations are beyond cryptic, and a few of the scenes drag a bit. But seven or eight of the 10 short films are as addictive as caffeine. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A hit-or-miss movie. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: Although this talky collection of black-and-white films from Jim Jarmusch ... has the potential to drive anyone into the lobby, it rewards those who are patient. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Jarmusch has aged into a hipster of a sly, vulnerable vintage. Read more

Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times: Jarmusch has a great gift for playing actors against one another, for finding complementary eccentrics (Murray and RZA) and uncovering rare gems (Bill Rice and Taylor Mead in 'Champagne'). Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: The short form looks like a genuine alternative in Jarmusch's hands because of what he does with it. Read more

Houston Chronicle: Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: At least three of the spots make the hour and a half worthwhile through an addicting blend of hilarity and beauty. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Jarmusch the sly formalist, it seems, has become a virtuoso of the interpersonal duet. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Expect a map, and you'll be sorely disappointed. Work to make one, and you'll be happily addicted. Read more

Jane Sumner, Dallas Morning News: It has the sad, goofy charm of a silent comedy with Buster Keaton, a Jarmusch favorite, with passive-aggressive hits and flashes of barely contained antagonism. Read more

John Powers, L.A. Weekly: It's worth fidgeting through the mediocre stuff to get to three good pieces. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: What unites everything is Jarmusch's playful, hang-dog absurdism. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: In a world where even the independent filmmakers are all starting to look alike, it's a pleasure to welcome back the one-of-a-kind eccentricities of a true original. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Nine of the shorts are instantly forgettable, two are wryly amusing and one is a knockout. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: The film begins on a comparative high note with Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright as two good-natured screwballs, and it ends with a lyrically poignant epiphany with Bill Rice and the once-impish Taylor Mead. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Jim Jarmusch's anthology of minor-key vignettes is a celebration of caffeine, nicotine and the indolent pleasure of sitting around and consuming them. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: A black-and-white novelty that plays like a directing-class exercise, you take your good with your bad with this one. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Sometimes movies tire us by trying too relentlessly to pound us with their brilliance and energy. Here is a movie pitched at about the energy level of a coffee break. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Flat and uninspired. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: Despite glimmers of wit and a hipper-than-thou cast, it's painstakingly smug, and smaller than the sum of its parts. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Although it flat-lines repeatedly in episodes that feel like improvised acting exercises, the film is more than intermittently amusing and occasionally hilarious. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Jarmusch demonstrates once again why he is the sultan of strange encounters. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: It is way cool -- and funny -- in ways that more expensive comedies trying harder rarely are. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Feel so haphazardly conceived and slapped together that one wonders for whom this compilation was made. Read more

Deborah Young, Variety: Most successful are the mini-comedies with a loose punchline, while others barely qualify as character sketches. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: Never more or less than what it appears to be, the film is a slow honky-tonk thud-beat, only intermittently punctuated by a joke or idea. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Nearly all are almost painfully self-conscious as the actors strain for the hip brand of improvised spontaneity that is usually guaranteed by a Jarmusch production. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Myself, I loved it -- as much for the self-conscious banality and surreal pointlessness of its dialogue, which unravels over the course of 11 more or less unrelated vignettes, as for its austerely retro black-and-white photography. Read more