Metro Pulse Online: Movies, Past &Amp; Future

Armed only with his mysterious mental connection to the feral minds of studio executives, the Movie Guru reveals just how good or bad this week's new releases will be:

After the Sunset (PG-13)
A successful jewel thief (Pierce Brosnan) just wants to enjoy a luxurious tropical island retirement with his partner (Salma Hayek), but he’s unceremoniously disturbed by an FBI agent (Woody Harrelson) who doesn’t believe his thieving days are over.
Now Showing: Downtown West, Carmike 10, Halls Cinema 7, Tinseltown USA, Foothills 12

The Polar Express (G)
In this CGI animated feature based on the children’s book of the same name, Tom Hanks gives voice to five characters, including a train conductor who takes a young boy and other children on a surreal ride to the North Pole and Santa’s workshop.
Now Showing: Foothills 12, Carmike 10, Halls Cinema 7, West Town Mall, Foothills 12, Tinseltown USA

Seed of Chucky (R)
This fifth installment of the Child’s Play saga finds deadly dolls Chucky and Tiffany resurrected by their non-homicidal son Glen in Hollywood, where a film is being made about the urban legend of the couple’s murderous exploits. Jennifer Tilly (voice of Tiffany) plays herself as an actress starring in the true-crime feature, and gross-out master of camp John Waters is a sleazy tabloid reporter.
Now Showing: Halls Cinema 7, Wynnsong 16, Foothills 12, Tinseltown USA

Empty Conversation

Director Jim Jarmusch’s films seem to fall mostly into one of two camps—offbeat character studies, after the fashion of 1986’s Down By Law, and Mystery Train in 1989; or tersely poetic fables in the mode of later and arguably better-realized efforts such as Dead Man (1995) and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999). His 2003 release Coffee and Cigarettes, just out on DVD, insinuates that while he may have a measure of preference for the former, the latter efforts make better use of his directorial strengths.

A series of 11 rambling, quasi-comedic vignettes, all of them hinging on the ritual fulcrum of (what else?) coffee and cigarettes, C&C is usually too abstract to be very funny, yet too brief and segmented to let any of its more interesting moments gel into something profound. When the film occasionally stumbles on a moment of truth, the moment just as quickly vanishes, dissipating like the smoke rings floating from the mouths of one of its nicotine-addled subjects.

Jarmusch is a visionary directorial stylist, though, and many of C&C’s vignettes are sustaining, despite the pervading haphazard, half-finished feel. In one of the more surreal set pieces, a blasÉ Bill Murray, disguised as a short-order cook and inhaling his java straight from the pot, is the perfect foil for Wu-Tang members RZA and GZA. Jarmusch favorites Tom Waits and Iggy Pop are likewise engaging, playing themselves as a pair of aging musicians cattily airing professional rivalries over coffee and cigs at a rundown cafe.

And Cate Blanchett, in dual roles, taps into some real pathos as a cultured, successful actress having coffee with her street-weathered, ne’er-do-well cousin in the lounge of a chi-chi hotel.

Jarmusch’s eccentric vision is best utilized when he has a story to tell, as he did with the mythic noir western Dead Man, or later with Ghost Dog, an urban fairy tale freighted with poignancy and subtle social commentary. In C&C, the flotsam of character sketches is satisfying, for a moment, but ultimately leaves you wanting, like a smoker stuck with an empty jones for yet another cigarette.

—Mike Gibson