tjackson24

People with a religious commitment to fictional superheros won't like this, but if you can enjoy 'tongue in cheek', this is right up there with the old Batman tv show: camp at its best.

A director like Jarmusch who has such a consistant and strong visual and thematic style will necessarily tend to draw either strongly positive or strongly negative responses. You either think he's the greatest or you think it's a bunch of junk. For my money he's one of the best. Always visually very fine, serious in his look at the modern world, and so often funny at the same time. In fact maybe it's just the combination of aesthetic and philosophical high seriousness with humor that makes much of his work so satisfying, and of course links him with his main, to my mind, counterparts the Coen brothers. Of course in saying this I immediately place myself as more a fan of Down By LAw, Mystery Train, and Night on EArth, than his other less comic films. Anyway, if I had to choose I'd take Night on Earth as the one I most enjoy. Like his other films it really repays viewing many times. When are they going to release the thing on DVD??

hard to imagine this was susan cabot's last film role. the fact is she's pretty good and playing it straight, no matter that it's completely stupid. fabulously shallow look at women, aging, make-up, and the price paid for wanting to be young, beautiful, and cast in this film. watch this to see how corman maximizes uneventful footage by refusing to use any version of jump cutting. we get to see every instant of non-action. besides this he uses, i don't know, maybe 4 or 5 different sets, and then there's the fast-paced sequence of some unknown guy driving around some city looking for somebody or other. and then there's the wasp woman make-up that you can almost see a couple of times. what really strikes apart from the general camp-ola magnificence is the music. there's some more or less very hip avante garde jazz, i mean seriously, happening in the sound track, especially during the unknown guy's drive around the city. worth a look if you've got the taste for camp