Night on Earth review

 Number 478 on the top 1000 films of all time is Jim Jarmusch's comedy-drama anthology 'Night on Earth.'

Night on Earth tells five vignettes of five taxi drivers and their relationships with their passengers all on the same night across five different cities: Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rome and Helsinki.

Night on Earth was a charming film that deftly navigated a number of themes including heartbreak, connection and comedy all while getting you to care about its characters in a limited space of time. Across five different short films with all different casts, we get to see what makes us different, but more importantly the same.

The first vignette focusses on LA taxi driver Corky (Wionna Ryder.) Corky is a tomboy and has no great aspirations in life beyond being a taxi driver and a mechanic. This is in contrast with her upper-class passenger, casting director Victoria Snelling (Gena Rowlands.) Despite their differences, they form a certain rapport and understanding by the end of their journey together. Victoria even wants to cast Corky in her latest film, but Corky is happy with her current direction in life. It was a nice little insight into how we work as people. Not everybody has lofty aspirations. Some people are happy with whatever they have and that's okay.

The second vignette is probably the funniest. It follows the relationship between East German immigrant Helmut's (Armin Mueller-Stahl's) first night as a taxi driver in New York. His passenger is the loud-mouthed and obnoxious Yo-Yo (Giancarlo Esposito) who startled at Helmut's seeming incompetence decides to drive the taxi instead. The two characters could not have been more different from each other yet they embodied a brilliant odd-couple relationship. Helmut was endearing and although Yo-Yo was a bit annoying at first, he ended up being likeable too.

Our third vignette takes us to Paris where after an unnamed Ivorian taxi driver (Isaach de Bankole) abruptly turfs out two rude passengers, he accepts a new fare of a blind woman (Beatrice Dalle.) It was a pleasant enough story but largely forgettable compared to the others. Although there were a few moments of humour.

The fourth story set in Rome was probably my least favourite. It focussed on eccentric taxi driver Gino (Roberto Benigni) who after picking up a priest (Paolo Bonecelli,) proceeds to make a toe-curling confession which is almost too much for the priest to bear. Although this story was played for laughs with Benigni largely improvising, I did find it far too zany and over-the-top for my tastes. Benigni was so over-the-top, he became rather annoying.

Thankfully, we had the final Helsinki storyline as a touching palate cleanser. It focusses on Finnish taxi driver Mika (Matti Pellonpaa) who relates his tragic personal history to his drunk passengers. It was bittersweet way of ending the film, but also helped to offset some of the Night on Earth's zanier storylines. It was one of my favourite stories of the five.

Being an anthology film, naturally some of the vignettes were better than others. However, I think the film worked both as a whole and individually. I definitely recommend it.

Menace II Society review

  Number 807 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Hughes' brother 1993 teen-crime drama Menace II Society.

Caine Lawson (Tyrin Turner) and Kevin "O-Dog" Anderson" (Larenz Tate) are two boys growing up in the rough streets of Crenshaw, Los Angeles. Together they need to navigate the dangerous life of gang violence and drugs.

To any budding film-makers out there, I'll give you some unsolicited advice. Don't do what the Hughes Brothers did and have your two main characters shoot to death an innocent Korean couple who are just running their shop. It isn't a great way to get me to care about your characters. It's not like it was an accident or the boys felt guilty; on the contrast, O-Dog constantly boasts about his crime.

It was a bad start and things only got worse from there. Menace II Society offered a superficial surface look at a deeply-nuanced issue. It's difficult not to draw comparisons to the the 1991 Boyz n the Hood which has similar subject matter.

The main comparison is one of quality. Whereas Boyz n the Hood was good, Menace II Society was not. Tonally, it was all wrong. The Hughes Brothers, wanting to contrast with the hopeful Boyz n the Hood, were aiming for a more nihilistic tone. Yet, I detected little nihilism. It wasn't like the characters were bitterly resigned to their situations; they were embracing them. O-Dog constantly shows the CCTV footage of him shooting the Korean couple to anybody who's interested. Again, why am I supposed to care about or like this character?

The dialogue was also incredibly ham-fisted. I was rolling my eyes so much that at point they got stuck in my skull. It reminded me of Green Street Hooligans where Charlie Hunnum had to recite the Cockney rhyming dictionary.

It didn't help that the actors didn't believe what they were saying either. All round, the acting wasn't great. I want to say something about Jada Pinkett Smith who debuted in this film, but Will doesn't like it when his wife's name is in other people's mouths.

I didn't like this film at all. The characters were horrible, the dialogue was corny and there was nothing nihilistic about it.