hyped garbage

From my favorite movies..

Beautiful, moving film.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

As a long time Jim Jarmusch fan, I'm only finally getting to his older work. Permanent Vacation was a pleasant look at his roots and early style, but is seriously lacking in substance. The film plays like a character study. There isn't much of a story, and the movie is short enough that it's over before you realize it is. The voice over could have worked, but the script was weak and occasionally cliche, and no one in this movie was a professional actor. What this movie does have is an enthralling soundtrack and raw sound. The combination of sound and grainy footage gives the movie a powerful atmosphere that can be hard to find in recent Hollywood films. However, Jarmusch's later movies like Ghost Dog and Only Lovers Left Alive reproduce the urban jungle, with the added bonus of being better films overall. This is not a movie for the uninitiated, and it offers little that wasn't improved in Jarmusch's later work.

People seem to like this movie only because it's a Jim Jarmusch movie. Now, i'm not knocking Jarmusch, I loved Down by Law, but sometimes his films get a tad too pretentious for me. But I can usually overlook that. But this movie! I hated the main actor, I hated the dialogue (seriously, not even most hipsters talk like that!)and I hated the plot. There were some good shots in there, but all in all I found it irritating, and Aloysius reminded me of why I hate hipsters so much. Every time he opened his mouth I wanted to punch him in the face. Whenever he tried to act cook in front of the girl, I wanted to close my laptop screen and just abandon it. I ended up making it through about forty minutes before turning it off. So I don't know, maybe this was a hidden masterpiece. But I sincerely doubt it, and I don't intend on re watching it to find out. I rate it as a three only because of some of the cinematography.

Jim Jarmusch's debut 'Permanent Vacation' is said to be his student film. It does have a certain student-film feel to it mostly because of the minimalism and the actors. It is an exceptionally well shot film. However, it also felt somewhat sketchy and a few dialogues felt out of place.In a way, 'Permanent Vacation' reminded me of 'Catcher In The Rye' as the story here follows a slacker in search for meaning in New York city (it's refreshing to see the non-glamorous, non-typical Hollywoodized but rawer side of the city) before taking a permanent vacation. The plot does sound simplistic and perhaps even uninteresting to some but the film is engaging as Jarmusch immediately gets his viewers involved into the subjective world of Allie. Whereas most of Jarmusch's films are conversational, 'Permanent Vacation' is more of a wandering. The story itself may be familiar in the filmworld but it also applies to today's society. The film's also tedious at times.Chris Parker is quite effective as Allie Parker. The rest of the actors, with the exception of Frankie Faison, aren't particularly impressive but that doesn't ruin the film.Although it may have some faults, Jarmusch's first experimental film is quite a compelling debut.

Jim Jarmusch is a filmmaker I'll always admire and will see anything he puts out. Perhaps though my expectations of his student film, Permanent Vacation, were a little high as I thought this could be the link to Stranger Than Paradise as Who's That Knocking and Mean Streets were perfectly connected for Scorsese. This is not the case, at least from what I got from the film. It's an exercise in the mundane and plot less, a tale of a vagabond type character who may or may not be nuts, who has an insane mother, and usually just loafs around the more deconstructed and decaying parts of lower Manhattan. There are some chances for it becoming more interesting than it does, and it's really because it's a case of a filmmaker finding his footing and not getting there yet. A few bits are noteworthy in the kind of fascination that comes with watching Jarmusch's characters- like when Allie (Chris Parker) dances to the jazz record in his apartment, or the very random scene on the island. And there's a grin for a bit part for John Lurie. But there almost comes a point where the randomness becomes too diverting, and the script and (obvious) amateurs don't help matters. A monologue in a movie theater- which another commenter said was beautiful- is rambling and loses its point even as Jarmusch sorta goes back to it. Part of that scene is interesting, but it's before the monologue with the Nicholas Ray movie. Parker as an actor has that cool, quiet swagger that would be found in Stranger Than Paradise, but he also can't carry the dialog that well (particularly in the odd voice-overs). The end of the film caps it off as he just decides to leave New York City for good on a ship. This might have a little more resonance if what led up to it had one feeling much more for Parker than distance. Permanent Vacation is like a condensed, rough, patch-work example of everything that is wrong and sometimes right with Jarmusch's work, like an early demo from some rocker who hasn't quite got the gist of everything from his inspirations. What's right with the work is that it's very well shot, particularly for an ultra low-budget drama, co-DP'd by later talent Tom DiCillo. In the end, I almost found that the film was like a Godard work, though the ones really from the 80s as opposed to those of the 60s. It's got an artist's eye and the occasional touch of grace, but it's also a jumble of a sketchpad of what's really in the filmmaker's gifts. It is unique in that you can tell who made it, that it's not another write-off of a future hack. That it doesn't really spell the promise of Jarmusch's other 80's classics is harder to figure.