Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Dreadfully Boring

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Apparently, this film is a little bit boring to some people.No fascinating scene,So gorgeous actress.However, after watching it,something remains in my mind.What is it?I think it is a non narrative thing,so I can't convey how I feel.The reason it attracts me so much is just because this situation is similar to me.I am a college student,and once I have a extra money, I definitely use it so fast.It is true of every students all over the world.What stops my action is only smart and good looking girl's whisper.

Never heard of this film but it came around on Turner Classic Movies so I figured I'd give it a shot. It boggles the mind how so many reviewers on here say how much of a masterpiece something is whenever the late Ebert said something similar. Those same people most likely thought 2001 A Space Odyssey was a masterpiece too simply because they were afraid to admit they had no idea what the *bleep* it was about.Stranger Than Paradise is a complete mess from beginning to end. Read the other *expert* reviews for the story line, what there is of a story line anyway. When the final credits rolled I just stared at the TV and mumbled, what was the point of that drivel?

I first encountered Stranger than Paradise in a Intro to Film tutorial - - I think it was for the week on cinematography. It was only the opening scene, but the visual style grabbed me right away. The grainy black and white, looking not like a 1980s feature film but rather newsreel of some mid-century atrocity, the long opening shot of Eszter Balint's Eva walking away from the airport like an angel of death, the almost-surreal scene of her walking through the streets blaring "I Put A Spell On You"... it stuck with me. A few years later, I finally got around to watching the film in its entirety. The visual style fades after a while and becomes invisible in the way cinematography tends to. But what emerges in its place is a slow but devastating character drama.Stranger than Paradise is really about the immigrant experience in America. In this way it is a strange, low-key response to The Godfather. Whereas Coppola saw the story of the immigrant as one of struggle, seduction, and eventual corruption -- a Hollywood tragedy, in other words -- Jarmusch argues that it is a grind, an endless procession of ungrateful relatives, incomprehensible television, dead-end jobs, and the slow realization that no matter where you go, the banality of real life is always there ahead of you.Jarmusch was a pioneer in independent American cinema. The style of Stranger than Paradise is echoed in any of the countless "mumblecore" films that deal with the mundanity of contemporary existence (and perhaps existence in general). It is frequently a boring film, mainly because it is about boredom and its omnipresence. Certainly it could be aesthetically improved, so that the dialogue and the characters have the same artistic grace as the cinematography. But somehow I like Stranger than Paradise just as it is. Instead of the catharsis of Hollywood, it leaves the viewer with an emptiness, a strange hole in their gut that they can't quite figure out what to do with. But maybe that hole was always there, and the film only cast a revelatory light on it.

My circle of friends has been saying "I am de vinner..." since we first saw this film in the '80s."Stranger than Paradise" was Jarmusch's first film, based on a short film, and I've been a fan ever since.John Lurie is Willie, who has been living in New York City and thinks he's really got it going on in his drab apartment and TV dinners. He is surprised -- and not very happy -- when his cousin Eva shows up from Hungary for a visit. He doesn't want anything to do with the Hungarian language or the old country.Willie is pretty hostile in the beginning, but he and his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) take her along with them (though they continually try to ditch her) on their big road trip, which starts at Aunt Lotte's (Cecillia Stark) house in Cleveland. There they play cards with Aunt Lotte declaring herself "de vinner." Then it's on to Florida, and here's where the story develops a couple of neat twists.This film was made for $90,000 and is considered incredibly successful as it earned something like 20+ times its budget. The photography is stark in black and white and the locations finally elicit an hysterical observation from Eva."Stranger than Paradise" has quirky comedy and a quirky outlook, typical of Jarmusch. There's an underlying feeling of quiet loneliness throughout as the three misfits look, but don't seem to know what they're looking for. The film is set in the '80s, both Willie and Eva don't dress like it, and seem to fit in well with Aunt Lotte's old-fashioned European decor.Though Jarmusch's characters are often a little wacky, you can't help but like them or empathize with them. The story and characters of "Stranger Than Paradise" are oddly unforgettable as Eva looks at America and thinks, so what? And given what she sees, you can't blame her.