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| Night on Earth - Criterion Collection | 
 enlarge | Director: Jim Jarmusch
Actors: Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder, Lisanne Falk, Alan Randolph Scott, Anthony Portillo
Studio: Criterion Collection
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $24.50
You Save: $15.45 (39%)
New (45) Used (7) from $24.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 12133
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Finnish (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language), Italian (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 128
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: CC1711DDVD
UPC: 715515025423
EAN: 0715515025423
ASIN: B000SFJ4IQ
Theatrical Release Date: 1991
Release Date: September 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Item is original U.S. release, brand new, shrink wrapped, direct from the distributor.
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| Customer Reviews:
 If you love Jim Jarmusch, you'll love this. November 18, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The music is great: Tom Waits.
Roberto Benigni and Winona Ryder are great.
It's just an overall funny movie that leaves you thinking.
Jarmusch's masterpiece and one of the top twenty American films of the Nineties! November 13, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Night on earth" may be seen as a earthly anecdote - taking into account it's a comedy , at a fist glance - but, since we refer to Jim Jarmusch, the most emblematic and irreverent American filmmaker by then, some additional reflections should be made.
L.A. , N.Y.C., Paris, Rome and Helsinki. Five well different stories, surrounded by a same circumstance, casual encounters between cab driver and passenger.
As you se, an innovative proposal that preceded by years to the multidimensional stages in which movies like Crash and Babel were elaborated under similar patterns.
Everyone of these exhilarating dialogues are very absorbing and magnificently written. Since the surrealistic episode in Rome (in which Jarmusch pays a heartfelt tribute to Luis Bunuel) until the overwhelming conversation in N.Y.C.
To my view, this is until this date the most complete and ambitious project of the smart filmmaker. Supported by a splendid cast and edition process.
Night on Earth October 6, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a great movie. All of the stories are different and very well done. It is one of my favorite moves.
 Taxicab confessions September 27, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
If there is a "sleeper" in the Jarmusch catalog, it would have to his ode to taxi drivers, "Night on Earth".The film is framed by a structural device that Jarmusch previously utilized in his 1989 film "Mystery Train"; it is a collection of loosely connected vignettes that all take place in the course of one evening. Instead of taking place in one location, however, "Night on Earth" is spread out over five cities and two continents.
The film gets off to a shaky start in Los Angeles, with a relatively flat segment. Wynona Rider plays an outspoken, gum cracking cabbie who picks up a fare at the airport (Gena Rowlands) who turns out to be a Hollywood casting director (er-guess what happens). It's worth sitting through just to see these two interesting actresses working together, if nothing else.
Don't let the bland appetizer put you off, however, because things improve rapidly with the second vignette. Spike Lee regulars Giancarlo Esposito and Rosie Perez hitch a ride to Brooklyn with an amiable German cabbie (Armin Mueller-Stahl) whose driving skills (and sense of NYC geography) are marginal at best. Jamusch milks maximum laughs out of the cross-cultural pollination that ensues (a recurring theme in his films).
Next, we jump the pond over to Paris, where an African immigrant cab driver (Isaach De Bankole) has endured a long night of racist insults and obnoxious passengers. He spots a blind woman (Beatrice Dalle, who dazzled in one of my favorite French films, "Betty Blue") and offers her a ride, thinking "at least she won't cause me any trouble". Naturally, he's wrong! A clever parable about stereotyping.
Comic actor Roberto Benigni takes the driver's seat as the story moves to Rome. Veteran character actor Paolo Bonacelli (you may recall his memorable turn as Brad Davis' arch-nemesis, the creepy jailhouse toady in "Midnight Express") plays a priest who is in for the shock of his life after getting into Benigni's cab. Bonacelli, an actor with a marvelously expressive face, is a joy to watch as he registers steadily increasing horror while Benigni cheerfully and matter-of-factly recounts a lifetime's list of "sins" in an unsolicited taxicab Confession that gets exponentially funnier along with the steadily escalating depravity of the acts being described. It's hilarious.
The final segment makes for a bittersweet dessert. Jarmusch pays homage to his favorite director, Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki (I loved his 2002 film "The Man Without a Past"-a real gem). A Helsinki cab driver (Matti Pellonpa) picks up a trio of working stiffs who are stumbling home after a long night of drinking. The vignette is alternately sad and darkly funny as passengers and driver compete to top each other's sob story in order to establish which one of them is leading the most depressing and miserable existence(some form of traditional Finnish male bonding?). Three of the actors in the piece are Kaurismaki regulars.
Overall, "Night on Earth" achieves a satisfying synchronicity as a thoughtful meditation on certain universal truths that govern the human condition, regardless of cultural orientation or geographical location (and delivers it in a much more entertaining and less heavy handed manner than the recent spate of dreary, overrated, self-important "message" films like "21 Grams", "Babel" and the particularly execrable "Crash").
 Interesting concept September 19, 2007
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film
"Night on Earth" is five seperate plotlines each taking place in a taxi in a different city. The cities are Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helskini. The native language of each city is spoken for each segment.
The film is a comedy although is very risque in the Rome segment.
In the Los Angeles segment the driver (Winona Ryder) picks up a casting agent, in New York the driver can't drive the taxi well so the patron drives, in the Paris segment the driver picks up a blind woman, in the Rome segment the driver (Roberto Begnini) picks up a priest. In the Helsinki segment the driver picks up three men one of whom is dead drunk and being escorted home.
The risque segment in the Rome segment involves the driver confessing his sins to the priest in which he graphically describes his sexual escapades. The priest is such shock that he franticallly tries to retrieve his nitro pills but drops them and has a heart attack.
The concept of this film is very unique and I would like to see more films like this.
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