Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is my favorite Jim Jarmusch movie by far. The acting of John Lurie (Willie), Eszter Balint (Eva) and Richard Edson (Eddie) are extremely believable, to the extent that looks almost documentary, and is easy for the viewer to get familiarize with them.The relationships between the characters are quite realistic, with an extra surreal touch, due to their opposite personalities: Willie and Eddie don't agree about decision making. On the other hand, find it hard to show their feelings about Eva. This fact leads funny and bizarre situations. Despite the "tough guy" look of Willie, he is quite insecure. He even resigns of his own nationality: Hungarian.Some reviewers points that Eszter Balint performance is quite discreet. I disagree. She acts very naturally, with the feeling of a teenager who came alone for the first time from Hungary to New York Jungle.9/10

Long lingering conversations, shots held for much longer than is necessary, and a plot that really goes nowhere: Stranger Than Paradise has all of the hallmarks to make it an art-house auteur classic, but don't mistake Jarmusch's flair for pretension. In fact the lingering shots and stunted conversations found in this film are anything but pretentious, rather they are the core of realism in cinema.We film lovers have long been trained in what to expect from a movie: dialogue has a natural sounding progression that moves us from plot point A to plot point B, characters have motivations that make sense, and stories go forward with an easy momentum. Stranger Than Paradise, contrary to these established modes of film making, just lets events, characters, and dialogue unfold in a manner much more similar to the real world than most other films. Conversations are not directed and shots are not carefully constructed and edited, rather the viewer feels like a fly on the wall as this collection of bored characters try to find something (anything) to talk about.The plot revolves (like many of Jarmusch's movies) around a cast of outsiders drifting aimlessly through life. Willie (John Lurie) is a bored New Yorker with a gambling habit, Eva (Ezter Balint) is his Hungarian immigrant cousin, and Eddie (Richard Edson) is their hopelessly optimistic tag-along friend, and our story follows these three as they travel through their dull lives making an issue out of everything.The actual plot, however, takes a backseat the real goings on in this film. The boredom and pointlessness is not meant to entertain in any usual way, but rather to force the viewer into a mode of existential thinking. These characters are not searching for entertainment or action (although they think they are), they are simply searching for themselves all over America. "What does it mean to be an American?" Jarmusch is asking of us, and furthermore, "what does it mean to simply 'be'?"Stranger Than Paradise provides no answers to these questions, but it does give a deep insight into the issues at hand. Like every single shot the characters fade in, exist for a time, and then fade out. Nothing is achieved, nothing is accomplished, thing just are. And that is where the beauty of the movie lies; in its simple act of existing.I suppose that some might find the whole thing pointless, and I would agree to an extent, but those who dismiss this film for its pointlessness are in for a very heated argument indeed. It's true that this is not the movie you want to throw in the player when you are looking forward to an evening of mindless entertainment with friends, but that doesn't lessen the movie's impact at all. It is a commitment to lock yourself into the film and really work your way through the melange of useless conversation and dead-pan editing, but I would say that it is well worth the effort. There is just so much to be gained from watching this film with an open mind and taking in the sheer beauty of its bared souls.

I first encountered Stranger than Paradise in a Intro to Film tutorial - - I think it was for the week on cinematography. It was only the opening scene, but the visual style grabbed me right away. The grainy black and white, looking not like a 1980s feature film but rather newsreel of some mid-century atrocity, the long opening shot of Eszter Balint's Eva walking away from the airport like an angel of death, the almost-surreal scene of her walking through the streets blaring "I Put A Spell On You"... it stuck with me. A few years later, I finally got around to watching the film in its entirety. The visual style fades after a while and becomes invisible in the way cinematography tends to. But what emerges in its place is a slow but devastating character drama.Stranger than Paradise is really about the immigrant experience in America. In this way it is a strange, low-key response to The Godfather. Whereas Coppola saw the story of the immigrant as one of struggle, seduction, and eventual corruption -- a Hollywood tragedy, in other words -- Jarmusch argues that it is a grind, an endless procession of ungrateful relatives, incomprehensible television, dead-end jobs, and the slow realization that no matter where you go, the banality of real life is always there ahead of you.Jarmusch was a pioneer in independent American cinema. The style of Stranger than Paradise is echoed in any of the countless "mumblecore" films that deal with the mundanity of contemporary existence (and perhaps existence in general). It is frequently a boring film, mainly because it is about boredom and its omnipresence. Certainly it could be aesthetically improved, so that the dialogue and the characters have the same artistic grace as the cinematography. But somehow I like Stranger than Paradise just as it is. Instead of the catharsis of Hollywood, it leaves the viewer with an emptiness, a strange hole in their gut that they can't quite figure out what to do with. But maybe that hole was always there, and the film only cast a revelatory light on it.

My circle of friends has been saying "I am de vinner..." since we first saw this film in the '80s."Stranger than Paradise" was Jarmusch's first film, based on a short film, and I've been a fan ever since.John Lurie is Willie, who has been living in New York City and thinks he's really got it going on in his drab apartment and TV dinners. He is surprised -- and not very happy -- when his cousin Eva shows up from Hungary for a visit. He doesn't want anything to do with the Hungarian language or the old country.Willie is pretty hostile in the beginning, but he and his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) take her along with them (though they continually try to ditch her) on their big road trip, which starts at Aunt Lotte's (Cecillia Stark) house in Cleveland. There they play cards with Aunt Lotte declaring herself "de vinner." Then it's on to Florida, and here's where the story develops a couple of neat twists.This film was made for $90,000 and is considered incredibly successful as it earned something like 20+ times its budget. The photography is stark in black and white and the locations finally elicit an hysterical observation from Eva."Stranger than Paradise" has quirky comedy and a quirky outlook, typical of Jarmusch. There's an underlying feeling of quiet loneliness throughout as the three misfits look, but don't seem to know what they're looking for. The film is set in the '80s, both Willie and Eva don't dress like it, and seem to fit in well with Aunt Lotte's old-fashioned European decor.Though Jarmusch's characters are often a little wacky, you can't help but like them or empathize with them. The story and characters of "Stranger Than Paradise" are oddly unforgettable as Eva looks at America and thinks, so what? And given what she sees, you can't blame her.