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Film

Indie flix: Keep the 'Coffee' coming

By STEVE PERSALL
Published July 29, 2004

[Photo: United Artist Films]

Coffee and Cigarettes

	[Photo: IFC Films]
	Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

Coffee and Cigarettes (R) (97 min.) - The films of Jim Jarmusch are an acquired taste, and acquiring it is not easy. Their dramatic minimalism and seemingly pointless direction of the barest essentials of plot have turned Jarmusch's career into parallel puzzlements: On one side of the fence, his devoted fans lament that his style isn't admired by more people. On the other, people are astounded that anyone sits through such purposely dull movies.

Coffee and Cigarettes is the Jarmusch movie that attempts to resolve both questions. It contains all the usual ingredients: monochromatic cinematography, static or geometric camera designs and scenes crafted to float away into the ether. It also has popular movie stars including Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett and Steve Buscemi, and an episodic strategy that never allows a wispy theme to become boring. It certainly isn't a sellout move, yet it isn't aesthetically exclusive. Coffee and Cigarettes preaches to the choir and potential converts, offering a bit of salvation from slick Hollywood to both.

The film is a series of vignettes with little in common except the titular vices. Characters meet over cafe tables to share coffee, cigarettes and conversation. It doesn't sound like much until you listen. It doesn't look like much until you seek something beyond movement for satisfaction. Best of all, it cheerily invites viewers to do both.

Two vignettes qualify as minimovies: Blanchett is superb twice in a dual role as herself, an actor doing a publicity tour, and her cousin Shelley, the kind of relative a celebrity wishes to keep at a distance. Later, Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan play themselves, one trying to personally connect with the other, with the best kicker Jarmusch concocts. Those are the closest Coffee and Cigarettes comes to conventional storytelling.

The other vignettes are thin slices of life, some absurd, such as Roberto Benigni (as if he needs caffeine) trying to please a distaff Steven Wright, others amusingly esoteric, such as Jack and Meg White (the White Stripes) musing on the genius of scientist Nikola Tesla. Several are dominated by a single performance - Buscemi delivering an Elvis conspiracy theory to Cinque and Joie Lee - or surprisingly good collaborations by unknown actors, or perhaps just interesting characters Jarmusch knows.

The film veers from a meeting of the minds of Murray and two members of the renegade rap group Wu-Tang Clan to a sad, tender finale with aging underground actors Bill Rice and Taylor Mead imagining their java to be champagne. Along the way we ponder such subjects as fried Japanese peas, newcomer Renee French's allure doing practically nothing, and why singer Tom Waits doesn't get more work as an actor. Only one scene bored me, and I won't reveal which one because it would likely be a different choice for everyone.

That is the uniqueness of Jarmusch's films. They possess an impressionistic sensibility allowing any interpretation, even negative ones, to develop slowly, much as Coffee and Cigarettes did over 17 years when Jarmusch filmed these vignettes, grabbing available sets, actors and four cinematographers. It's the most leisurely labor of love imaginable, as addictively cool and hard to shake off as two bad habits. Grade:A-

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (R) (135 min.) - Take the intentional laughs out of This is Spinal Tap and you have this excellent documentary about a year in the life, and possibly death, of the greatest heavy metal rock 'n' roll band. The fans bang their heads while the band members butt theirs.

In 2001, filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (Paradise Lost, Brother's Keeper) planned to trace the creation of a Metallica CD; six months of shooting, maybe eight. Filming wasn't completed for nearly two years while the band struggled with songs being written by committee for the first time and old rivalries that made the writing a volatile process. That's why Metallica hired "therapist/performance enhancement coach" Phil Towle to keep tempers and sanity fairly stable. For $40,000 per month.

Then lead singer James Hetfield checked into drug and alcohol rehab, and didn't return for a year, working, on doctor's orders, only four hours a day. Drummer Lars Ulrich can't contain his displeasure about everything, while Kirk Hammett, Robert Trujillo and producer Bob Rock shrug. Fans rebel at the band's legal action to stop Napster's free music downloads. The CD, if it's completed, could be the band's last.

Metallica had one too many alpha males, three too many enablers and one quack in Cosby sweaters assuring these millionaire delinquents that they're good enough, smart enough and, doggone it, people like them. The Spinal Tap guys seem positively functional compared with the band in this movie.

The access Berlinger and Sinofsky maintained throughout this rock 'n' roll crisis is astounding. These people, except for Hetfield briefly after rehab, have no idea how fatuous, aggressively naive, mean-spirited and just plain spoiled they're being. The camera doesn't lie (although an editing room can), and it catches every spat, sideswipe and tantrum with unblinking honesty. This is documentary filmmaking in its classic form, and even at well over two hours, it demands attention.

But not only for the band's conflict. Scenes outside the studio with Ulrich provide a fascinating expose of a talented lout. After the Napster incident, Ulrich is shown making millions of dollars at Christie's selling his art collection. It's ironic but also a little sad because earlier we learned those paintings were his muse. We meet Ulrich's father, a grizzled old hippie who criticizes his son's every musical step, and we realize the roots of those studio arguments. A group outburst aimed at Towle when the therapist's welcome wears out, and his greed-laced defense, is priceless reality.

There are plenty of musical segments to satisfy Metallica's fans and enough background detail about the creative process - no matter how dysfunctional - to lend meaning to the noise for the uninitiated. Some Kind of Monster is some kind of movie. Grade: A

Her Majesty (PG) (107 min.) - Mark J. Gordon's movie bounced around film festivals for three years before earning a (very) limited distribution deal. How did it survive, if even barely? Because someone saw Whale Rider, coveted its modest box office returns and Oscar nomination, recalled another family-friendly film about a New Zealand girl and Maoris, then decided to see if lightning could strike twice.

Elizabeth Wakefield (sunny Sally Andrews) is a child of British colonialism in 1954, obsessed with the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth, who is depicted as the Princess Di of her day. Young Elizabeth's room is a shrine to the monarch. Class time is spent with regal fashion magazines tucked inside textbooks. Her best friend and drill teammate Annabel Leach (Anna Sheridan) shares the infatuation, and both are thrilled when the queen announces plans to visit New Zealand.

Elizabeth commences a one-pen letter writing campaign, urging the queen to visit her town, posting dozens of messages. Everyone in Middleton except Annabel thinks she's crazy. Then the queen accepts, and everyone begins jockeying for a position in the royal welcoming committee. Elizabeth will be there, but only after dealing with a snooty women's club, her vandalizing brother (Craig Elliott) and a teacher crush.

She may not want to participate after she bonds with Hira Mata (Vicky Haughton, Whale Rider) a poor Maori woman - some believe she's a witch - whose rural shack is visible from the queen's motorcade route. Hira tells Elizabeth all those things about British colonialism that her parents and teachers ignore, such as the cost it has exacted in indigenous lives and culture. She may have to move again. Gordon's screenplay handles these passages with care, richer and more satisfying than the plot devices in town. Haughton's over-the-top mysticism is bothersome but not entirely detrimental.

Her Majesty is a nice movie, in a Disney Channel sort of way. It will likely play better on television, where such overeager performances and thrice underlined messages of tolerance and faith are easily tolerated. The film isn't boring, but neither is it a particularly uplifting or emotional experience, which is obviously what Gordon imagines it to be. The best compliments Her Majesty deserves is that it's pretty (nice work, cinematographer Stephen Katz) and it's clean, with only a few rude words that don't offend. Some people gauge movies by those factors alone. Enjoy yourselves. Grade: B-

[Last modified July 28, 2004, 10:17:13]