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Summary: About Time Someone Read A Book To Make a Movie
Review: This movie is an archetype all to itself. One of my all time favorites...And if you read every book Ghost Dog tells you to, things will become clearer.
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Summary: A Very Weird Little Tail
Review: Movie Summary: Ghost Dog was getting the crap beat out of him one day when a two bit gangster saved his life. Because of this, Ghost Dog promises his samurai based loyalty to this gangster. Ghost Dog lives as he thinks the samurai did. He reads about the culture and raises pigeons. His best friend is a French ice cream man who speaks no English. It works out well though since Ghost Dog speaks no French. And he kills people for money payable once a year on the first day of autumn. My Opinion: This is a strange little movie. It could have worked, but it's got some problems. The mobsters who are suppose to be the bad guys are never very threatening. They are all just silly cartoon characters. Yeah I know cartoons are a motif in the movie. But without a strong antagonist in the film, Ghost Dog is never really tested. His values, morals, and physical skills are never put to the test. This would have made things interesting. The attempts at comedy (and I'm assuming that they were really attempts at comedy) fall way short and end up being just plain sad. The way Ghost Dog and the French ice cream man say the same things without knowing it just does not fit in. It doesn't lighten up the movie, it makes it uncomfortable. The mobsters weren't funny either, just silly. Forest Whitaker does put in a very good performance and the excerpts from the samurai manual are interesting as well. DVD Quality: Widescreen anamorphic 1.85:1. A good selection of extras including deleted scenes. The picture seemed grainy at times. What You Should Do: Rent it if you must. This is not a martial arts film.
Rating: 
Summary: Ghost Dog crap
Review: This may be the single worse movie I have seen in my entire life. The story is pathetic, the dialog was terrible, and the acting was even worse. Or was it the other way around? One of the many things that bothered me was that there were extremely long pauses between every dialog. This movie is just unbelieveably painful to watch. Its about this fat guy who lives in the ghetto who, after being beat up at the age of 19 decides to read a samurai philosophy book, and becomes a "ghetto ninja." First he's a contract killer for the mob, then he turns against the mob which consists of the head bosses watching the roadrunner cartoons in every single bleeding scene that they are in. And its not that the cartoons are background noise, its four bosses sitting at a square table staring at a 9 inch black and white television watching Warner Bros. cartoons. If this isn't enough to make you want to ignore this particular title, then maybe this will, IT SUCKED! If you buy it it will be a waste of you $..., and if you rent it, it is a waste of $.... If you rented it, you could have bought yourself a meal at KFC, but if you bought it, that money could have been spent getting your oil changed, unless you do it yourself. Hell, just go buy a couple of books or something. 0 STARS!
Rating: 
Summary: The triumph of style
Review: Really enjoyed this one. Although it's a movie that is more about its own style and form than its story, I have to concede that it had me hooked. If you like these type of movies (i.e. "Run Lola Run", "Buffalo 66", etc), then you'll really like this one too. I like how Jarmusch tried to fuse all the disparate elements in the film together -- worn down, ineffectual, deadbeat Italian gangsters watching cartoons and rapping Public Enemy songs in a Samurai story where the Samurai is an urban black man whose best friend speaks a language he doesn't understand, etc. And it's really funny to boot although there is alot of graphic violence, which is usually unheard of in a Jarmusch film. At any rate, Jarmusch should now officially be considered as one of the top American directors working today.
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Summary: JIM JARMUSCH DOES IT AGAIN !!
Review: If you didn't like Jim Jarmusch's NIGHT ON EARTH (Winona Ryder), STRANGER THAN PARADISE or DOWN BY LAW you'll definitely not like GHOST DOG. Like Tom Waitts' gravely voice that should have made him a failure rather than a succes as performer and song writer (often writing for Jarmusch's films) this movie is logical in a progression of Jarmusch's films. Beginning with casting Forest Whitaker as the inner city Samurai, , who doesn't exactly sport a Bruce Lee physique, OBVIOUSLY this movie was never meant to be taken literally! In fact, Jarmusch may be the ONLY director who dares, and can pull off, a film that mixes hip-hop street culture with Mafioso wise guys, sprinkle it with quotes from The Book of the Samurai by Hagakure and not just "get away with it" but make it all work! If you like Jim Jarmusch films then you'll love GHOST DOG. If you've never seen one of his flicks then go easy on yourself ... and take a peek at his 1991 film, NIGHT ON EARTH. If nothing else, you'll have a chance to see Winona Ryder in a wonderful acting role before she became, err, Winona Ryder. And let's not forget the other greats such as Gena Rowlands, Béatrice Dalle, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and that terrific MOUTH (and body) Rosie Perez who made NIGHT ON EARTH what it is. How can you resist? In GHOST DOG, Whittaker is a gentle pigeon raising philosopher who is repected and feared in his 'hood. By night, he does "special" hits for the Mafia because as any good Samurai, he is loyal to one of the aging lieutenants who saved his life when Whittaker was a youth. The man he does contracts for is more like a character out of the ANALYZE THIS! than from the GODFATHER The wise guys in GHOST DOG are a bunch of ignorant bumblers (one of them played by Victor Argo, a great character actor) who can occasionally become very dangerous. Mixed in with this stew is a little black girl who Whittaker befiends because the two of them share a love of books. His best friend is an ice cream vendor who doesn't speak a word of English because he recently arrived from Ivory Coast in Africa. Some of the best dialogue is between these two who are so intuitively tuned to one another that although their words don't ever match up in their bilingual "conversations" they can exactly guess what the other one means. Anyhow, this is an end-of-the-millennium film which spiritually spans centuries while its post modern style was just born yesterday. See it!
Rating:
Summary: Hooray for this Movie
Review: "Ghost Dog" is the first Jim Jarmusch movie I've seen, and it was a quirky little treat. The movie lopes along in much the same rhythm Forest Whitaker chooses for his character's walk, and the pleasure of a lope is that it may seem you're getting nowhere fast, but you are moving along and you get to notice the sights along the way. The sights in this movie set you up for at least one double-take in every scene. "Did I really see that?" "Did he really say that?" The mafia chieftans are painted with broad strokes - nobody's really that stupid, but it's their buffonery that makes them dangerous, and oddly charming. Almost every act of violence is foreshadowed by a cartoon clip that the cartoon-addicted mafiosi are watching before situations hit the fan. It would be an evening of viewing just to compare the cartoons with the live action that follows. Their code of honor certainly comes more from comic book absurdities than life. They kill each other because they are cartoon characters, and that's what cartoon characters do. Ghost Dog's (Whitaker's) actions are foreshadowed by excerpts from the "Book of the Samurai" and as honorable as they may seem they are just as absurd as the mafiosi, and as lovable as he may be he's sad in his understanding that he's an anachronism. Ghost Dog's interactions with his best friend, the ice-cream man, and his new friend, a highly literate little girl, are pure pleasure. There is an affection that passes between the characters that is lovely to behold. Jarmusch seems to have decided that absurdity plays best as deadpan, and this movie is a study in the best and most consistent deadpan I've ever seen. Even the stray dog seems like a reincarnation of Buster Keaton. I recommend this movie in the same way I'd recommend "Wings of Desire" - settle back, hold your judgement, and just let the story carry you along. You may feel like you're in a row boat on a gently moving river with no paddles and a little rough water, but - consider it a vacation.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Great movie. The hip hop community has always been fascinated with eastern culture. This movie finally finds a way to marry these to disparate cultures and does a damn fine job
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Summary: Hubby and I Sharply Diverge On This One
Review: I don't think this Jim Jarmusch film is anywhere near as original as his others, such as "Stranger Than Paradise," "Dead Man," and "Down By Law." One big reason is that a giant chunk of the movie is about killing mobsters. Italian mobsters have to be the most overdone movie theme I can think of other than action adventure itself as a category. This film inhabits both of these sorely overdone worlds. However, its quirky elements, exemplified by its lead, Forest Whittaker, the dog itself, the little girl who reads "Roshomon," the Ice Cream man who speaks French and the lead's pigeons raise it to a 3.5 even for me. However, for hubby this was 5 stars all the way. He loved all the offbeat moments, of which there are many, but also thoroughly enjoyed this Ghost Dog Whittaker rubbing out the mobsters overall plot. Go figure. One of the problems Whittaker must face is that one of the mobsters is the man who saved his life some time ago. He has worked for this man ever since as a paid assassin. The problem is that in the code of the Samurai, the pupil can never harm or kill the master and that is their relationship.
Rating:
Summary: Foolishness
Review: For someone who's supposed to have pioneered the genre, Jarmusch has managed to fill this with indie truisms: it all takes place in a nameless, generic, cool American small town, where kids hang out outside the 7-11 and old men play chess in the park. Jarmusch has always struck me as one of those extremely self-conscious directors, far more concerned with establishing his status in the film world than in contributing to an understanding of modern life. The "Jarmusch touch" largely involves presenting various forms of eccentric behavior in unlikely settings and adopting a superior attitude toward the resultant goings-on. The film is about a Black contract killer (Forest Whitaker), living alone on a rooftop in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, who runs afoul of a Mafia chieftain and his gang and has to do them in in an effort to save his own life. Matters are complicated by the killer's adherence to the Samurai code and his self-willed vassalage to one of the crime gang's lieutenants. Needless to say, don't take this film seriously. At one point, Ghost Dog murders two stereotypical, White bear hunters, appalled that they've killed an animal which in ancient times was considered equal to man. Ridiculous. The glorification of this sort of response is an adaptation, conscious or not, to our current debased culture and its icons. Definite social conceptions suffuse Ghost Dog, conceptions which most people would call multiculturalism: the hero is Black, the other two characters - the little girl and the ice cream vendor - are Black. The gangsters are numbskulls or thugs, the hunters are one-dimensional White monsters; an Indian puts in an improbable appearance so as to be abused by a couple of the gangsters. Ultimately, as with Spike Lee, it's clear to whom Jarmusch is speaking and to whom he's not.
Rating:
Summary: Cool Mingling of Genres
Review: Martial arts, noir, and music video styling work well together to tell this unique story. The soundtrack is excellent and effective. The sparse dialogue works well to poke fun at the characters and their environments. Every sentence has multiple meanings, but rather than adding ambiguity this works to point your focus on the story unfolding behind the dialogue. The cinematography is beautiful. There are no extraneous details. Watch with a careful eye. Listen with a careful ear. This movie is so packed with vivid detail you won't be able to describe it when its over. You just have to watch it.
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