Mystery Train

This movie made me love people watching, it made me realize that we truly never know what people are doing

Great movie in Jim Jarmusch's typical style of three stories tied loosely together.

Classic Jim Jarmusch. If you like quirky movies, comedy movies or independent movies, this is a must-watch.

Showcasing a virtually unknown cast at the time, Mystery Train is a brilliantly original dramedy with excellent directing and writing by Jim Jarmusch.

In all of Jarmusch's other movies, I really don't mind the meandering as long as the character that meanders is interesting. It doesn't mean that something necessarily engaging needs to happen, but in this movie it is clear that the main character is the director's love for Americana and Memphis. Mystery Train has a few good characters, like the clerk and bellboy (to the point where I wish it was about them), great cinematography, and a great soundtrack, but in every other aspect it's dull. All three stories have a peppering of Elvis, but in reality, it could have been literally anyone. The template is already there in the first story. None of the stories converge outside of a few incorporations, and nothing even justifies the structure of the movie. It's just 100 minutes of rarely amusing scenes of badly padded dialogue in vignettes with bizarre allusions that only serve to question the character's artificiality. Lost in Space, because Buscemi is lost in space with those two idiots, and that's why he doesn't just leave. That's great. It's also not interesting. The movie insists on being an anti-climax, subverting the dreaded conventions of storytelling to its detriment. It's definitely not Jim Jarmusch's best.

Uneven yet still entertaining. Youki Kudoh is a delight.

Memories that you wistfully remember because of how simple life was back then. It seems that Jarmusch has dipped his brush in them before painting this otherwise off-beat, cool tapestry of three stories woven around the spirit of Elvis Presley. It's an ode to the ephemeral simple moments, only commemorated with a tinge of amiable quirkiness and deadpan humour to lend them some levity. And with a very aesthetic palette, Robert Müller magnify the intensity of colours to bring life and vividness against the vague tone of the movie and the tacky set design. Seeing Paterson and now this, I can safely assume that Jarmusch really manage to combine absurdity with poignancy very well. (8.5/10)

Another independent film that tried to bridge things, but the deadpan got old. It did make me interested in visiting Memphis. Saw it on TCM.

It's a mystery why the train doesn't play a bigger part in the story...

Why Memphis? They must love the Blues or something. Very charming and likable girl. They're trying to make the best of there trip to Memphis but it seems like they keep getting let down in a way. They make a cute couple. She's such a sweetie. I like this movie because you feel like you're there with them, sharing the moment almost like your friends with them. What a nice and extremely generous woman. It's really cool to see how all the characters stories get intertwined with one another and how they're connected. My favorite characters were the Japanese couple.