Star Cast

Winona Ryder portrays Corky, a taxi driver in Los Angeles.

Gena Rowlands plays a role of Victoria Snelling, a passenger in Los Angeles.

Giancarlo Esposito portrays Yo Yo, a passenger and cab driver in New York.

Rosie Perez plays a role of Angela, a passenger in New York.

Isaach De Bankole portrays taxi driver in Paris.

Beatrice Dalle plays a role of a passenger in Paris and she is blind.

Roberto Benigni portrays Gino, a Taxi Driver in Rome.

Paolo Bonacelli plays a role of a passenger in Rome.

Matti Pellonpaa portrays Mika, a Taxi Driver in Helsinki.

Plot Summary

On Los Angeles Airport Victoria Snelling, who is executive and casting director, is looking for taxi. She sits in Corky's taxi and start talking on phone about her business. She hangs up the phone and start conversation with Corky. In conversation she finds that Corky suits the character of her next film. Helmut is working as a cab driver in New York. He picks Yo Yo and he has to drop him to Brooklyn. On their way they also pick Angela, his sister in law. Helmut is new in New York so he gets to know the culture of New York in conversation with Angela and Yo Yo. In Paris one driver picks blind woman. Both of them have short conversation and they share their culture and experience of life with each other. In Rome another taxi driver picks Priest from Rome. While driving driver starts talking about his sexual abilities and his affairs. He said that he lost his virginity with pumpkin. In Helsinki taxi driver picks three workers and start telling them most distressing story.

My Views and Perspective

Plot and Storyline

This film is a taxicab comedy that bought a brief literary description of five different cities on one night, in each city passenger and driver is discovering the relationship as they move towards their destination. We start moving from Los Angeles, from there we arrive to New York, then we move to Paris and Rome across Atlantic and finally we arrive to Helsinki when first light of the day is about to set in. Movie shows the condition, that last for a very short time, between strangers. It's very great to see five different stories are running parallels and it is happening in five cities around the world. In first section both ladies found something common in themselves and finally Victoria finds a star in driver. The section of Rome is very funny. Paris story is also very funny. Driver and passenger are making racialist comments about fellow. Before reaching at destination driver learn about the quality of Prejudice. Story conveys something about the place, people and culture of all cities. The final section is little bit disturbing in my view. I was not able to figure out what director is trying to convey. I mean I saw four section, heard their stories and conversation and finally I arrived at some conclusion. First four sections are contingent and in good detail. But after seeing last part what I conclude is that in capital city of Finland the rate of self-annihilation is very high.

Direction

I really like the imagination of the director. I mean what can be done with just a cab that grab the attention of the audience and fascinates the viewers to watch the movie. Jim Jarmusch actually did it by writing and directing this movie. He actually wants to show that there is no plot and decision in our lives and all five stories contains that view. Jarmusch picks all actors from their respective countries. Jarmusch beautifully covers five cities within five different cabs. By seeing all this I can say that he beautifully intense the movie. He has different approach of film making and he has ability to make very small niceties, obliging and substantial. He delivers this smoothie with single subject and shows different versions of that. He puts his talent and skills in this film he used drama, comedy and emotions to show episodic view of different cities. These things prompt that we are living in different countries but on same planet.

Characters and Performances

There is nothing much to watch in this movie except narrative and performance. As I already said that nothing can be done with cab but the brilliant acting is there to fascinate the audience. As taxi driver Corky, Winona Ryder impressed me a lot. As Helmut, Armin Mueller is wonderful. His character is very simple down to earth and works well as refugee. Italian cab driver Benigni amuses by his ridiculous behavior by singing and shouting. The story he is telling to passenger is hilarious and funny. His character is funniest and inspiring. I bet you will enjoy this story and you will laugh out loud while watching. As a blind woman Dalle's character is characterized in undertaking to prove that she can deal with her blindness. You can watch her distinguishing color and setting make-up. Dalle's is perfect fit for the character and her dialog delivery is worth watching. The characters are not loveable or adorable but they are worth watching.

Additional Info

To sum up cinematography is incredible and stunning. This whole credit goes to Frederick Elmes. I have seen his camera work in Wild at Heart and Blue Velvet and believe me this time he is at top of all. He beautifully filmed the conversions from location to location. The soundtracks were given by Tom Waits. I also suggest you to put subtitles with the movie because some sections are in different languages like Italian and French.

Overall this is a great film. The more you see, the more you will like it and learn something from movie. This movie is not about action and thrill but see this movie for relationship between characters and dialogs. This is upbeat and bizarre movie of the year. I strongly recommend this strange film to all. You will feel transcendental as you are meeting with different character and roaming around different cities. If you are seeking for humor in this film then probably I would not recommend this film to you but if you are looking for something different and interesting you can give it a try.

Taking a nod and a wink from the 70's and 80's vignette style movies The Ten follows a story that surrounds each of the Ten Commandments, all stories are interlinked by the breakdown of a relationship between Jeff (Paul Rudd) and Gretchen (Famke Janssen). While trying to garner a Woody Allenesque feel, the movie actually comes off more like a terrible car crash, where the only civil resolution would be that all those involved were to perish.

I appreciate that my open statement might seem rather harsh; however try making an adult movie with lots of swearing, nudity, sex, and touchy subject matter; then try aiming it at an audience with the intellect of a five year old and you might just begin to understand where I am coming from. The terrible vignette stories include an uptight woman who has sex with Jesus, two men who feud over who has the best and most Cat Scan machines, a drug addict Rhino who tries to warn the community about an incoming bunch of AIDS infected wiener dogs who want to have sex with the locals so they die; and possibly the most bizarre a man who jumps out of a plane without a parachute only to become surgically attached with the earth, while he ponders how to get out of the ground without his internal organs falling out, his girlfriend has sex with the local news anchor before leaving him to have an illicit affair with a ventriloquist doll. And if you think things have got as bad as they can, there is a story about male rape, given a hysterical spin; of course I'm joking when I use the word Hysterical.

The humour is far from funny in this movie, it's in fact possibly the most puerile and worthless humour offering since the likes of Date and Epic movie. Worse still, the trailer makes the movie look half way worth watching, so imagine seeing the trailer, getting all psyched up for what appears to be a worthwhile comedy then having to endure something so terribly abysmal. Things go from bad to worse sadly with this movie, because as well as all the terrible humour (I use the word humour lightly) there is a terrible song and dance number where all the actors sing about themselves (not the characters they play).

"Sometimes I wonder what it might be like if I were the one ass raping you every night! I can't look at you without fantasising about shoving you up against the wall in the laundry room, and punching you in the mouth, and then raping you... Without your consent of course... That's what makes it rape!"

What I do find fascinating about the movie is exactly who stars in it, they have a fairly reasonable calibre of cast including Winona Ryder, Adam Brody (The OC), Ron Silver (Blue Steel), Gretchen Moll (3.10 To Yuma), Justin Theroux (Mulholland Drive), Liev Schreiber (Scream), Jessica Alba, Oliver Platt (Flatliners), and Janeane Garofalo (24, Mystery Men). And if that were not enough there are handfuls of actors from some of the most successful TV shows of recent years. Somehow in my mind the actors and the story just do not add up, this is not a big budget movie, although it is certainly Hollywood. How on earth did so many reasonably sized actors get involved in such a terrible movie? Were they doing someone a favour? Were they repaying a debt perhaps with the devil himself?

What I find most annoying about the movie is the intercut pieces that divide the stories, set on a giant soundstage it's like one of those artsy fartsy theatrical pieces where the actors interact with nothing, trying to make you use your imagination as to what you see. On this giant blacked out soundstage are the two tablets of stone (giant size) containing the Ten Commandments. Both Rudd and Janssen are so so actors either performing well or incredibly badly and this backdrop does neither any favours.

The Ten is due in UK cinemas later in the year, if you're going to take my advice on one thing this year, take my advice on this, because this really is abysmal.

 

The downside was a few loose ends, like wondering how Sarah played by Geena Davis, possessed the power to let the sandworm in, to swallow Beetlejuice when the ghosts were weaker than the worm. Another loose end was how the dead couple got siphoned back to the world of lost souls, although one could figure that something was needed to inform the couple that a mortal had stolen the “Book of the Deceased”.

The imaginative loopholes where the actors like Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis went in an out of the after world, added to the momentum and tension of the film. One suspected that the deceased couple would try to make an attempt to get the new owners out of the house but there had to be complications like the hazard of reverting to the help of Beetlejuice or the additional plague on the already deceased couple because of a meddlesome Otho.

An early performance by Winona Ryder crowned the film. She played a convincing gothic suicidal teenager with a special ability to communicate with the dead couple and acted also to inform her parents that the ghosts were unwilling to be used for show. She interacts with Beetle juice in order to have him remove a ghastly curse on the ghosts but had to sacrifice her celibacy to marry him.

The wedding is comical in the way it is dragged out and ended before it is sealed and so is the combination of special effects and comedy with scenes such as one of he final ones where Beetle Juice has his head shrunk because he switched numbers for some other freak waiting dogs ages to get into the after world.

A woman (Finn) is writing a thesis to get her Masters Degree. She's staying with her grandmother and great aunt for a few months so she could write. She talks to the women in the quilting bee with her grandmother and great aunt about love. The women are making a quilt for Finn. While staying with her grandmother and great aunt, she thinks about whether to accept her boyfriend's proposal. She's also torn between her love for he boyfriend and her attraction to another man.

Here are my thoughts on the movie:

The women in the quilting bee tell Finn about their lost loves. Hy and Glady tell Finn the story about when Hy's husband (Finn's grandfather), was in the hospital. Hy's husband was dying, but she ended up having an affair with her sister Glady's husband. Glady got upset about the affair and ended up throwing things at her husband and at the walls. She turns the mess of the things she threw into a quilt. There's no understanding as to why Hy betrayed Glady. Glady was more forgiving than Hy deserved. It was never shown in the flashback whether or not Hy apologized to her.

Glady and Hy told Finn about Sophia's story. Sophia met Preston at the pool. They got along pretty quickly. Sophia went through troubles at home. Her mother wanted her to get married because she wasn't pretty enough to be on her own. When you think about the way her mother treated her, it's no wonder she seems like a nag in present day. Sophia and Preston ended up getting married and had kids. She appeared miserable for some reason. Preston ended up leaving her and didn't come back. Why did Glady and Hy tell this story? All the other women told their own stories, but they told her story. Also, they had no way of knowing what happened between Sophia and Preston when she wasn't around.

Em told Finn about her husband Dean. Her husband is an artist. Dean cheated on her for his student. He also cheated on her throughout their marriage. All he had to do was say the right thing and she forgave it. I don't see why Em would have put up with her husband.

Constance is a widow. She lost her husband who was the love of her life. She took comfort from a married man. Spoiler: She had an affair with Dean, Em's husband.

Anna's story was about her falling in love with her boss's son. She was a maid for Beck's family. It was an interracial relationship. Once she became pregnant, she was sent away. She went to work for Hy and Glady's family. She ended up giving birth to Marianna. In the flashback, it was revealed that Anna was the one who taught Glady and Hy how to make a quilt. This story is underdeveloped. You never find out whether Beck looked for Anna and their daughter.

Marianna told Finn how she met her soulmate after she ended another relationship. It turned out that the man was married. He gave her a poem that she kept for years. We didn't get to see enough of her story to know that this guy was her soulmate.

After hearing all the women's stories about love, Finn was more confused about who she should choose. Finn was having an affair with Leon . She met him at the pool. She didn't think about being with him until she thought her boyfriend, Sam, cheated on her. We never do find out if Sam cheated on her. She got suspicious of Sam when she tried to call him and a woman answered the phone. They had a fight and he stormed off. She tried calling him and couldn't get through to him. When she finally did get through, a woman answered the phone. That's when she decided to start seeing Leon .

This movie had pretty good acting. All the women did good jobs with their parts. I didn't really care for Dermot Mulroney's (Sam) acting in this movie. Another problem I had with his casting is the fact that he looked too old for Winona 's character.

I liked how the movie found a way to incorporate all of the main characters in the movie. A couple of the women's stories were too short, but there's still a way for them to have a story.

This movie is not for men. Almost every man in this movie cheat or hurt the women. Considering Finn cheats on Sam, she's never written up as a bad character the way the men are. She's still considered a heroine. I think this makes the movie hypocritical because she cheats just like the men in the movie do, but they are wrong. This is an unbiased opinion considering I'm a woman.

You would never know what year this movie takes place in. The movie was done in 1995, but it seems earlier. Finn dresses like it's the 1950s. If Sophia didn't ask Finn about using a computer to do her thesis, I would never have known that it took place in the 90s.

The movie is lengthy. It is almost two hours long. Luckily, there's enough happening that you may not notice that it's almost two hours.

Final thoughts:

I thought it was a good movie for women. If you like a movie with a good cast and good acting, then this might be the movie for you.