Rating: 
Summary: great film
Review: a wonderful and great film.
a beautiful poem advocating friendship and ice cream.
and showing with perfect clarity why western imperialism must be totally totally totally destroyed.
Rating: 
Summary: Whittaker Shines
Review: Forrest Whittaker is certainly one of our most talented and underrated actors. This role probably allows him the greatest latitude to express a wide range of emotions since he starred as Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood's "Bird" or in the gender-bender "The Crying Game." As Ghost Dog, he winds his way through Jim Jarmusch's script with grace & depth. In adopting the way of the Samurai, GDog latches onto Louie, a mid-level mob boss played by John Tormey. The mix of cultures is a familiar Jarmusch theme that is exceptionally well realized in this DVD. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is GDog's relationship to his French-speaking best friend Raymond. The two often converse, not understanding each other's language but almost mirroring each other's thoughts as the subtitled French indicates. Isaach de Bankole does a great job as the ice cream truck-driving friend. Also very pivotal to the film is the wonderful screen time given to Camille Winbush as Pearline, a child who GDog loans a copy of Rashamon to. There is a great rapport between the two. The Italian crime bosses are ironically played for laughs with Cliff Gorman's inept mob boss front & center. As Vargo, Henry Silva who has such a great ethnic look and has played in "Dick Tracy" & "Oceans 11" does a great job of being hard-edged and incompetent. His daughter Louise is a witness to one of GDog's early executions and eventually orders Louie to perform the hit on our star. With the aspects of carrier pigeons and a guy building an arc on a city rooftop, we see numerous interesting cultural aspects and humor combined in the drama. This is an interesting film melding Asian culture with modern crime, kind of a Hip-Hop version of Kung Fu. Whittaker keeps us glued to the screen for a most interesting performance. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Surreal and entertaining
Review: This was another gem from the director Jim Jarmusch, who previously brought us the incredibly underrated zen spaghetti western Dead Man. Which mixes some of the same elements, taking several genres, and blending them together in a believable and respectful way. Forest Whitaker is playing the main character. A street punk who follows a bushido code and considers himself a modern day samurai. He lives his life by this strict code of honor, and has pledged his life to a mobster who saved him. So he works for this gangster as a contract killer. Never questioning the reasons for his killings, just like a samurai, there is no good and evil. You follow your the will of your master to the death. Through all this you definitely get the feeling that he is alone in this world of his, duty is what concernes him. His only friend is an ice cream vendor that doesn't speak english, just french, which Forest Whittaker's character doesn't. The second part of this film is the Mafia themself. A comical group of broken down gangsters who are starting to show their age. They are having trouble making their bills, and are suffering from internal conflicts. Obviously their glory days are long gone, and they seem to be waiting for the inevitable. This movie blends to the two genres well, making them both entertaining and believable for the premise. As we all know the Mafia lost most of it power through the late 70' to the mid 90's. They show this with the age of the mobsters and the fact that they can't even make their bills. The Bushido code wasn't practiced on a grand scale since World War 2 with the Japanese, when they lost the war, a lot of that part of their culture started to dissappear from their lives. So you have two groups that were once held a great deal of power and respect, but now are a shadow of themeselves, being slowly forgotten. He also manages to make this as surreal as his previous pictures. Not like the sledgehammer to head stylings of Greg Arraki, or force fed surrealism of David Lynch, but more subtle. Lots of people watch cartoons, there are silent interludes where ambiant soundtracks play and you just feel the intensity of the main character, the world has a subdued and detached feel to it, like you are looking from the outside in, the philosophies still hold relavence today despite their age,...... All in all it is a very good movie. Be warned it isn't an action movie, dont' expect any John Woo style gun fights or sword wielding killers, that isn't what this is about. It is something deeper and more introspective.
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