John Lurie Movies
Actor/composer John Lurie began his career studying the alto saxophone, then moved to New York with his brother, pianist Evan Lurie; they formed the Lounge Lizards, a freeform jazz combo that went on to gain some distinction. Beginning in 1977 he directed and appeared in his own Super-8 films, and also acted in many New York-made Super-8 films by other filmmakers. In 1980 he began scoring numerous films, most importantly Jim Jarmusch's first feature-length film, Permanent Vacation (1982), in which he also appeared. This began a significant association with Jarmusch; Lurie co-starred in Jarmusch's breakthrough film Stranger Than Paradise (1984), provided the music, and has acted in and/or scored other of Jarmusch's films as well. His work with Jarmusch brought him to the attention of other directors, and he has appeared in a handful of movies while maintaining his work as a screen composer. ~ All Movie Guide- 1980
Hailed as a "punk melodrama," this feature started out as a serial and was originally shown at the popular New York City punk club Max's Kansas City. The homemade saga begins when Young Turks abduct performer Adele Bertei and her dad. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1980
Jim Jarmusch made his directorial debut with this episodic profile of one troubled hipster trying to make sense of his life. Aloysius Parker (Christopher Parker), known to his friends as "Allie," is a young man with a damaged family background (his mother is in a mental institution and his father has gone missing) and an inability to sleep, causing him to dream while he's awake. After a troubling encounter with his girlfriend (Leila Gastil) and a frustrating visit with his mother, Allie drifts through a strangely under-populated New York City, crossing paths with a sharp-suited street musicians (John Lurie), a middle-aged jazz fan (Frankie Faison), a disturbed Latin woman (Maria Duval) and a popcorn girl at a movie theater (Lisa Rosen) who's fascinated with Eskimos. A chance encounter with a woman with a vintage Ford Mustang gives Allie the opportunity to escape the chaos around him. While Permanent Vacation made the rounds of European film festivals after its completion in 1980, it was all but ignored in the United States, and it wasn't until Jarmusch released Stranger Than Paradise in 1984 that his star began to rise on the independent film scene. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leila Gastil, Maria Duval, (more)
- 1981
This detective drama was shot on location in New York City and chronicles the bloody wake of terror left by a murderous street saxophone player who hides out on the subway. The bizarre string of murders is investigated by a hard-bitten detective. Along the way he meets assorted New Wave scumbags. The mood of the film is heightened by an avant garde musical score. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robbie Coltrane, John Lurie, (more)
The period biker flick The Loveless marks the feature debut of both actor Willem Dafoe and writer/director Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days). Bigelow co-wrote and co-directed the film with Monty Montgomery, who would go on to produce Wild at Heart and The Portrait of a Lady. Dafoe plays Vance, a stoic, leather-clad biker who rides into a small Southern town and to wait for some other bikers. Their plan is to travel on to Daytona for some racing, but they have to stick around the little truck stop town for a while to get one of their bikes repaired. Vance flirts a bit with Augusta (Liz Gans), a widowed waitress. She's the only local who's friendly to him and his gang. Contemplating living in such a depressed, isolated place, Vance tells her, "I think your husband had the right idea." While the bikes are worked on, Vance and the gang, including the abrasive Davis (rockabilly musician Robert Gordon, who also composed the film's soundtrack) and his girlfriend, Debbie (Tina Lhotsky), spend the day in town, to the chagrin of the conservative residents. Vance hooks up with Telena (Marin Kanter), the rebellious teenage daughter of a rich redneck. Their little tryst creates even more tension, and the day ends with violence. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Willem Dafoe, Robert Gordon, (more)
Christine (Sandy McLeod) is a ticket-taker at a Manhattan porn cinema. Her ability to separate reel life from real life is seriously impaired in this slow, often silent, and ultimately enigmatic study of a lonely young woman who first despises the porn and then becomes fascinated with it and the clients who attend the shows. Her inclinations become more active than passive after she decides to follow an elegantly turned-out "businessman" from the theater into an adult video shop, where they begin talking and he invites her to a Yankee game (that dates this movie!). Once at the game, the man leaves for a moment, and Christine follows him again, this time to some sort of strange rendezvous. At this point, it is difficult for both Christine and the viewers to distinguish reality from fantasy, leaving everyone in limbo. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sandy McLeod, Will Patton, (more)
Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) is wandering through the Texas desert, a bit shaky and in desperate need of water, when he stumbles into a bar and collapses. A German doctor of dubious credentials finds a phone number in Travis' wallet, which belongs to his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell). Walt is shocked to hear about his brother's condition, since no one in the family has seen or heard from Travis in four years; Walt flies to Texas to bring him home, only to find Travis wandering by the side of the road, and they begin the long drive back to Los Angeles, where Walt lives with his wife, Anne (Aurore Clement), and Hunter (Hunter Carson), Travis' seven-year-old son. At first, Travis refuses to speak and is oddly distant, but in time he begins to talk again, and when he arrives in California, he begins the painful process of reacquainting himself with his son and trying to reconcile with his wife, Jane (Nastassia Kinski). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, (more)
Although Jim Jarmusch made his directorial debut with Permanent Vacation (1982), Stranger than Paradise (1984) marked his breakthrough as a major American filmmaker. One of the most deadpan comedies ever committed to film, Stranger than Paradise suggests a Buster Keaton film written by Samuel Beckett and Jack Kerouac and directed by Andy Warhol. Willie (John Lurie) is a small-time gambler whose distant cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) is moving to America from Eastern Europe and informs him that she'll need to stay with him for ten days. Willie isn't happy to have Eva around, but after Willie introduces her to the joys of American cigarettes and TV dinners ("You got your meat, you got your potatoes, you got your vegetables, you got your dessert and you don't have to wash the dishes -- this is how we eat in America!"), Eva steals a frozen meal and a pack of smokes from the corner store, and Willie is both surprised and impressed. His buddy Eddie (Richard Edson) happens by, and they hang out with Eva just long enough to develop a fondness for her before she moves on to Ohio, where she'll live with her Aunt Lottie (Cecillia Stark). Months later, Willie and Eddie score $600 in a poker game and decide to visit Eva in Ohio. However, it's the dead of winter, and they have nothing to do except look at the frozen surface of the lake. The three eventually head down to the tacky paradise of Miami, where Willie and Eddie try their luck with the ponies and Eva decides what to do next. Stranger than Paradise is a film that defines the notion, "It's not what you say, but how you say it." Shot in long, static takes, its style is minimalism itself, but the post-beatnik cool of John Lurie, Richard Edson and Eszter Balint somehow betrays the fact that they care about each other, and a loopy charm and subtle but potent humor seeps through the film's stark black-and-white images. Stranger than Paradise began as a short subject which was made possible by German director Wim Wenders, who gave Jarmusch a supply of film stock left over from one of his projects, and it went on to become one of the most influential movies of the 1980s, casting a wide shadow over the new generation of independent American filmmakers to come. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Lurie, Eszter Balint, (more)
A petite New Jersey housewife finds self-fulfillment through amnesia in this new wave comedy of errors set in New York's hip '80s downtown scene. Rosanna Arquette stars as Roberta, who turns to the personals for vicarious thrills after her four-year marriage to staid hot tub salesman Gary (Mark Blum) grows stale. Her favorite classified ads trace the romance of Jim (Robert Joy), a struggling musician, and Susan (Madonna), a SoHo vamp who's just narrowly escaped being murdered alongside one of her other boyfriends -- a gangster who recently stole some Egyptian jewelry. Through a series of complicated missteps, Roberta ends up losing her memory and convincing both herself and a broodingly handsome young man named Dez (Aiden Quinn) that she's the elusive, adventurous Susan. Soon, Roberta finds herself being romanced by Dez and pursued separately by her husband, Jim, Susan, and by a murderous mobster who's looking for the stolen jewels. For her second feature outing, which was partially inspired by Jacques Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating, director Susan Seidelman filled her cast with hipster extras, downtown personalities, and New York thespians. Notable faces include comedian Steven Wright; future indie mainstay John Turturro; future TV stars Michael Badalucco and Laurie Metcalf; punk singer Richard Hell, who also starred in Seidelman's Smithereens; and performance artist Ann Magnunson, who would star in the director's Making Mr. Right. The big dance-club sequence was filmed at Danceteria, the disco that helped launch Madonna's career. The scene, and the film, helped propel "Into the Groove," one of the singer's all-time club classics, into the charts even though it was actually a b-side to the single "Angel." ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, (more)
Jim Jarmusch follows his groundbreaking Stranger Than Paradise with another rambling, character-driven film with a twisted sense of humor. Set in a seedy New Orleans summer, Down By Law details the meeting of three unlikely convicts and their just as unlikely escape. Zack (Tom Waits) is an out-of-work DJ who is accused of murder when a body is found in the trunk of a stolen car he was hired to drive across town. Jack (John Lurie) is a pimp set up for a fall by a competitor. These two sullen souls are locked in a cell with Roberto (Roberto Benigni), a cheerful Italian immigrant who happens to have killed a man. The chemistry between the members of this loosely bound "team" is fascinating: Zack and Jack are forever laughing at Roberto, yet they rely on his energy and good will to escape their dire situation. The three mismatched miscreants eventually bust out of jail and head into the Louisiana bayous. Tired and hungry, they separate to search for food: Waits goes one way, Lurie another, and the frightened Benigni decides to risk stepping into a ramshackle diner. Somehow or other, he winds up in the arms of gorgeous Italian girl Nicoletta Braschi -- and is even able to provide new clothes and escape routes for his astonished comrades! ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Waits, John Lurie, (more)
- 1988
Father Maurice (Walter Matthau) is called on to perform an exorcism of a demon from a fat lady in this offbeat comedy. What emerges is Giuditta (Roberto Benigni) a narcissistic, fun-loving devil with a penchant for nonsensical sayings, and the devil attaches himself to Father Maurice for a series of comedy gags. Giuditta falls for the gambler Nina (Nicoletta Braschi) and impedes the priest's romantic progress with the beautiful Patrizia (Stefania Sandrelli). Maurice discovers that Nina and the expressionless Cusatelli (John Lurie) are two demons sent to retrieve the wayward Giuditta. Matthau and Benigni provide the majority of the laughs with Benigni doubling as director and devil. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roberto Benigni, Walter Matthau, (more)
Willem Dafoe plays Jesus Christ in this extraordinarily controversial adaptation of Nikos Kazantzaki's novel. The film depicts a sometimes reluctant, self-doubting Jesus, gradually coming to accept His divinity and the inexorability of His ultimate fate. The much-maligned sex scene with Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey) occurs as an hallucination experienced by Jesus as he suffers on the cross. This particular sequence was what infuriated the film's most rabid critics, but in fact it is just one of many iconoclastic musings to be found in the film and its source novel. Equally volatile are the intimations that, as a carpenter, Jesus indifferently shaped the crucifixes for other condemned prisoners long before his own fate was sealed, and that Judas (Harvey Keitel) was literally manipulated into betrayal by a Christ whose preoccuption with his own destiny compelled him to "use" others. None of these departures from the normal interpretation of the scriptures are offered as any more than theory; as such, it was accepted as food for thought by the more open-minded clerics and Biblical scholars who recommended the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, (more)
- 1988
Not really a TV movie, Monster Manor was a two-hour installment of the brief 1988 revival of the old Police Story anthology series. The titular manor is an allegedly haunted mansion in the center of a large city. It is inhabited by a group of police officers who use the mansion as a "rave" site, where they can drink, smoke and party in their off-hours. Since the presence of these revelling cops is an open secret to the Underworld, a team of vice squad officers decide that Monster Manor would be an excellent "cover". Posing as another bunch of fun-loving cops, the vice operatives use the Manor as their headquarters while attempting to break up a thriving call-girl ring. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Written and directed by the ever-unpredictable Jim Jarmusch, Mystery Train is comprised of three short anecdotes involving foreign tourists in Tennessee. Each story is set in a fleabag Memphis hotel which has been redressed as a "tribute" to Elvis Presley. Story #1 involves two Japanese tourists whose devotion to '50s American rock music blinds them to everything around them. Story #2 finds eternal victim Nicoletta Braschi sharing a room with stone-broke Elizabeth Bracco and having her problems solved by a spectral vision of The King. And story #3 offers the further misadventures of Bracco, her no-good boyfriend and her dysfunctional family. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Masatoshi Nagase, Youki Kudoh, (more)
Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play a pair of lovers on the run in David Lynch's surrealist road movie Wild at Heart. Cage's Sailor Ripley is a violent ex-convict with an Elvis Presley fixation who falls in love with Dern's Lula Pace Fortune, the daughter of a rich, but mentally unstable, Southern belle named Marietta (Diane Ladd, Dern's real-life mother). Just after Sailor is released from prison, where he was jailed for brutally killing one of Marietta's thugs, he and Lula take off on a wild cross-country trip, pursued by his parole officer, her mother, criminals, bounty hunters, and detectives. Along the way, Sailor and Lula have a lot of sex, share their pasts, share their respective obsessions for Elvis and The Wizard of Oz, and meet a lot of bizarre characters, including a seedy ex-marine (Willem Dafoe) who persuades Sailor to participate in a bank robbery. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, (more)
- 1992
Musician and independent film personality John Lurie hardly seems like the sort of guy who would host a TV show about fishing. But then again, Fishing With John was hardly a typical nature program; Lurie and guests such as Tom Waits, Dennis Hopper, and Matt Dillon take to the water in search of adventure but usually end up with something else altogether. Discover how to catch fish using cheese and a pistol with Jim Jarmusch, let Tom Waits teach you new ways to store your catch, and build an ice fishing shanty with Willem Dafoe in these surreal, dryly witty outdoor escapades. Fishing With John aired in the U.S. on the Independent Film Channel. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1992
Fishing will never quite be the same after this series, in which some pretty famous anglers share their luck with an eccentric fisherman named John. Traveling to exotic locations, they take on the local flora and fauna in an adventurous and humor-filled series, narrated by Robb Webb. In this episode, Jim Jarmusch gets some wild ideas about fishing with a handgun in the beautiful waters of Montauk. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide
- 1992
This documentary highlights the jazz styling of John Lurie and the eight members of his band, The Lounge Lizards, as they perform fusion-style jazz in nightspots in the Latin quarter of Berlin. While the bulk of the film consists of musical numbers, the star does speak long enough to tell a political shaggy-dog story. Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch has cast the saxophone player in many of his films. Among the songs featured in his performances are an interpretation of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 & 35. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Lurie, Michael Blake, (more)
- 1993
Desmond Denton (Joe Gibbons) is a whacko psychiatrist who has invented a machine that enables him to practice giving himself "personality transplants" using his patients for the source material. When he adopts the personality of a terrorist client, the rest of the world had better watch out: he's getting addicted to this one. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1995
This Slovak black-comedy, featuring a soundtrack from John Lurie & the Lounge Lizards, chronicles the mis-adventures of three anti-heroes who would be art thieves. Their leader is Maros, a womanizer. The other two are Juraj, and Ady, the nerd. Together they create an elaborate plane to steal an Andy Warhol painting. While they await their payment, they embark upon a search for the Russian Mafioso behind the deal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Director Wayne Wang and screenwriter Paul Auster had enough storylines and characters left over from their charming comedy Smoke to make another film, so they shot Blue In The Face immediately after Smoke was completed. The film once again centers on the Brooklyn Cigar Store and manager Auggie (Harvey Keitel), although most of the other characters are different. The store owner's frustrated wife Dot (Roseanne) is one of them, and one of the plotlines follows her attempts to seduce Auggie. Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, and Lou Reed (as himself) also put in appearances. Blue In The Face was shot without a complete script and presents a unique combination of distinctive performances, oddball characters, improvisations, and raffish scenes. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harvey Keitel, Lou Reed, (more)
A Brooklyn cigar shop is the setting for this drama from director Wayne Wang that interweaves the stories of several characters that have fractured family relationships in common. Harvey Keitel is Auggie Wren, poetic owner of the Brooklyn Cigar Company, a store that he considers the center of the world -- a place where all of humanity eventually parades through. One of his regular customers is Paul Benjamin (William Hurt), a writer and a broken shell of a man whose pregnant wife was shot and killed near the store. When Paul's life is saved one day by a young black man named Rashid (Harold Perrineau, Jr., the writer and his rescuer strike up a friendship and begin searching for Rashid's long-lost father (Forest Whitaker). At the store, Auggie is surprised by the appearance of Ruby (Stockard Channing), an ex-girlfriend who informs him that her pregnant, drug-addicted daughter Felicity (Ashley Judd) may also be his -- and is in dire need of help. Screenwriter Paul Auster based the script for Smoke on a 1990 short story he wrote for "The New York Times." He also wrote and directed the film's sequel (of sorts), Blue in the Face (1995). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Hurt, Harvey Keitel, (more)
A gangster is looking to get away from crooked deals and double-crossing people but ends up in the movie business anyway in this comic crime story. Chili Palmer (John Travolta) is a Miami-based loan collector for the mob trying to collect a gambling debt. His assignment takes him to Hollywood to collect money from Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman), a mildly sleazy producer of low-budget horror movies. Although Chili intends to hurt Harry if necessary, he takes a certain liking to him and an even keener interest in Karen (Rene Russo), Harry's girlfriend, whom Chili recognizes from Harry's grade-B monster epics. It seems Harry has a script that he feels is Academy Award material, and he could get the project off the ground if he could get the right actor for the lead -- say, the well-respected but egocentric (and diminutive) Martin Weir (Danny DeVito). Chili thinks he has a feel for the movie business and decides to see what he can do to persuade Weir to get behind the project. Chili soon finds himself hip deep in the film industry, which at least puts him in contact with a higher grade of scumbags than he's used to. But Chili isn't the only criminal Harry's been dealing with; he's been obtaining financing from Bo Catlett (Delroy Lindo), a drug dealer with a highly uncertain temperament. An intelligently constructed crime story and a hilarious look at the absurdities of the film business, Get Shorty was based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard; Leonard based Chili on a real-life former gangster of his acquaintance, though Chili's model never worked in Hollywood. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, Gene Hackman, (more)
The debut feature from writer/director Lisa Krueger stars Scarlett Johansson and Aleksa Palladino as the titular Manny and Lo, orphaned teenaged sisters who avoid foster homes by living on the run, stealing food, and sleeping in random model homes. Older sister Lo is the rude, bossy, incompetent leader, and younger sister Manny is her thoughtful, realistic, logical underling. It quickly becomes apparent that Lo is pregnant and they won't be able to continue their wandering lifestyle of "keep moving and you won't get nailed." After a significant stage of denial, Lo goes to a hospital for an abortion and is denied. Quickly running out of options, Lo comes up with plan that seems ridiculous to the observant narrator Manny. Since they don't know anything about birthing babies, they kidnap Elaine (Mary Kay Place), a middle-aged woman dressed as a nurse who works in a maternity store. Together, the three women squat in an abandoned house in the woods so the disgruntled Lo can have her baby. Eventually, the owner of the house comes home and the captive Elaine resorts to a strange solution to the problem. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scarlett Johansson, Aleksa Palladino, (more)
In this combination caper comedy and offbeat romance, Emily (Alicia Silverstone) is a wealthy but petulant young woman desperate to get the attention of her millionaire father, Alexander Hope (Jack Thompson). In fact, she's so desperate that she decides to stage her own kidnapping; she sends a ransom note, ties herself up, and locks herself in the trunk of her BMW, waiting for daddy to come to the rescue; however, Emily's timing is a bit off, because ten minutes later, hunky car thief Vincent (Benicio Del Toro) steals the BMW with Emily still in it. Vincent and his partner in crime, Greg (Harry Connick Jr.), eventually discover the car's trunk has an unexpected surprise. When Emily is unable to convince them to help her with her scheme, she becomes a problem the carjackers can't get rid of, especially after Alexander refuses to pay her ransom, and his creepy right-hand man, Raymond (Christopher Walken), heads out to find her. Of course, losing 200,000 dollars in mob money is not making Vincent's life any easier, nor is having the emotionally problematic Emily fall in love with him. Excess Baggage was the first feature from Alicia Silverstone's production company First Kiss. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alicia Silverstone, Benicio Del Toro, (more)
