Stranger Than Paradise written by Jim Jarmusch and John Lurie, directed by the former is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made – not that it matters, but there are a few thousand notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

Stranger Than Paradise written by Jim Jarmusch and John Lurie, directed by the former is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made – not that it matters, but there are a few thousand notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

8 out of 10

 

A rather unusual proposition, the name Stranger Then Paradise could serve as a warning – strange is the name of the game – although on the other hand, we could also say that this looks like a rather banal narrative: this lady lands from Hungary, stays with her cousin for a while, then leaves, he comes after her and they travel to Florida

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life. As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality. Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors…’ we could apply this to films

The quote is from To The Hermitage https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/to-hermitage-by-malcolm-bradbury-author.html and it serves as a litmus test, sometimes in the case of motion pictures like Stranger Than Paradise, when I ask the questions: are these characters ‘deeper, cleverer’, and the rest of the set

 

John Lurie wrote the script with Jim Jarmusch, but he also stars as Willie, one of the two (maybe three) main roles, albeit this is all we have, he takes a call and finds that his cousin is coming for some days, Eszter Balint is Eva, who arrives from Budapest – at some point, she is thinking of taking a flight back there

In some ways, I am reminded of this description of the “Checkoff formula: you take a lot of characters, all miserable because of something they won't do, and let them talk without influencing each other for three acts, and at the last moment you introduce some arbitrary calamity, or some proposed change like a return to Petrograd or a holiday in the Cry-mere, which you know won't make any difference to any of them, and then you go on for ten minutes or so after the thing should have stopped even by your own standards, to show how delicate and unemphatic your art is” evidently, we do not have Crimea here, Putin stole it

 

The above is from https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/memoirs-by-kingsley-amis-author-of-take.html Kingsley Amis, who had other suggestions for writers, I wonder what he would have thought of Stranger Than Paradise and other movies and books, he was hard on Jane Austen, Nabokov, Nathaniel West, Virginia Woolf

In summary, Stranger Than Paradise is good, maybe better than Marty Supreme, Sinners, acclaimed motion pictures, nominated for Oscars this year, when I would give the top prizes to Blue Moon https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/blue-moon-written-by-lorenz-hart-robert.html best film, director, actor, supporting male and female, screenplay…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’