BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Benedito Dias Rodrigues I really don't like art movies but this one is very interesting,in a bucolic and already decadent Memphis three stories happen in same time with different an unusual characters crossing their destiny in a cheap hotel,each one didn't are connected but all them acting so close like a parallel world,just Dee Dee has a little link with some them,the music score is fabulous as opening "Mistery Train" the best,Memphis is a kind of Rock'n Roll's Meca,survives from their past idols that addressed mainly to Elvis due cause he lived there,fantastic Jarmush picture!!Resume:First watch: 1991 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.25

thinbeach Three different groups check in to a cheap Memphis hotel - two young Japanese tourists obsessed with Elvis and American pop culture, an Italian woman staying overnight due to flight issues, sharing a room with a talkative American she bumped into in the foyer, and three young men hiding out after one of them drunkenly shoots a liquor store clerk. As in 'Down By Law', Jarmusch once again finds humour in foreign language difficulties, and is excellent at capturing the idiosyncrasies and quirks of his characters. With the ghosts of Elvis both figuratively and literally appearing in every frame, and the seedy run down side of Memphis on display, the film certainly has a unique character. In fact, the film is all character, as only the barest of plots ties it together - the sound of a gunshot in the morning. However as in 'Down By Law', these characters are not always pleasant to spend time with, particularly the three young men of the final act, who it is impossible laugh either with or at after they've just killed someone. The film is also incredibly slow, particularly at the beginning, and can be a drag to get through. Thematically, it is about the odd and mysterious ways strangers can be intertwined.

Michael Neumann Director Jim Jarmusch continues to indulge his fascination with America's cultural residue, this time going directly to one of the more reliable sources: Memphis, Tennessee, home of the Once and Future King himself, Elvis Presley. Like other Jarmusch films it's a deadpan, deadbeat sampling of offbeat Americana, seen by outsiders on the inside looking out: an Elvis-idolizing Japanese tourist and her cool, catatonic boyfriend; a young Italian widow who receives a ghostly visitation from the King; and an expatriate English drop-out bearing an unfortunate resemblance to the Man From Memphis. It's certainly the most tightly controlled of the director's features to date, but at the same time the most relaxed and disarming. All the action (what little there is) takes place in and around a dilapidated downtown hotel over the course of a single night, with each episode occurring simultaneously but told in sequence, connected only by the repetition of otherwise incidental details. It may not add up to anything more than a shaggy dog joke, but (in its own offhand way) the film works, with Robby Muller's atmospheric photography providing a wonderfully effective after-hours ambiance.

bhy1976 This is not the first Jim Jarmush film I've seen, but it is most definitely the last. In typical Jarmush style, this film is composed of mindless dialog amongst flat characters that just goes on ad nauseum. When the characters' words actually lead to actions, those actions are barely able to keep an already struggling plot alive. What saves this film from utter ruin are some amusing one-liners that satirize life in the Southern United States and the naivité of overseas tourists when they end up somewhere like Memphis. Hence the 3-star rating instead of a 1-star rating. Nevertheless, I think the film as a whole fails to entertain or to make any interesting observations on life in general.