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Mystery Train

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Aloof teenage Japanese tourists, a frazzled Italian widow, and a disgruntled British immigrant all converge in the city of dreams—which, in Mystery Train, from Jim Jarmusch, is Memphis. Made with its director’s customary precision and wit, Mystery Train is a triptych of stories that pay playful tribute to the home of Stax Records, Sun Studio, Graceland, Carl Perkins, and, of course, the King himself, who presides over the film like a spirit. Mystery Train is one of Jarmusch’s very best movies, a boozy and beautiful pilgrimage to an iconic American ghost town and a paean to the music it gave the world.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- Two video Q&As with Jarmusch, one from the 2009 All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New York and one in which he responds to questions sent in by fans
- Original documentary on Mystery Train’s locations and Memphis’s rich social and musical history
- On-set photos by Masayoshi Sukita, and behind-the-scenes photos
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by writers Peter Guralnick and Dennis Lim, as well as a collectible poster

Also available on Blu-ray.

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I love this movie for the same reasons that I love most of his others, it creates such a languid, c o o l mood for you to slip into for an hour or two. Jarmusch has a gift for making the seediness of a city extremely alluring... the glimpses of fleapit hotels, vacant, darkened streets, ramshackle buildings, loitering unsavory characters, are infused with this smoldering grimy poetry that it makes me want to visit Memphis immediately. (I had the same intense desire to visit New Orleans after I saw Down By Law for the first time.)

Besides the thrill of revisiting this on blu-ray, I'm also really looking forward to seeing that Memphis documentary extra.

Great to have Guralnick involved. Sweet Soul Music is essential reading and of course his Elvis bio is perhaps the best.

Crap, according to Criterion, Mystery Train is related in some way to Border Radio. I'm afraid I have no choice but to retroactively hate this movie now.

Criterion's site now only lists the one Q&A with Jarmusch answering fan questions.

Why is this an upper-tier title? The supplements seem quite slim, unless the original doc is full-length.

I think that a title released on both formats can only be an upper-tier title.

- Excerpts from the 2001 documentary Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on Me

...was added to the list of specs, though it is still a single disc DVD release.

The Blu-ray looks gorgeous, putting the MGM DVD to shame. The worst aspect of the picture is a spec of debris here and there throughout, but the transfer itself is perfect. I've never seen the film look this good and forgot how much fun it actually is.

I have yet to make it through the supplements but the Q&A section has 35 (I think) responses from Jarmusch. When I can I'll list the questions he responds to so you guys can see if one of yours was answered.

Holy Shit, Tom Noonan is in this (per a picture of him at the bottom of the beaver pics)? "Mystery Train" just went from 'WGAF' to 'must rent.'

dad1153 wrote:Holy Shit, Tom Noonan is in this (per a picture of him at the bottom of the beaver pics)? "Mystery Train" just went from 'WGAF' to 'must rent.'

EVERYONE is in this movie. I remember watching it years ago and loving it. Now, when am I ever going to get around to "Limits Of Control"....?

My intent was to actually list names and the questions being asked, but Jarmusch butchers so many of the names I just couldn’t do it (and this is no criticism against Jarmusch since I’d probably butcher them, too, one of the key reasons I’m not going to list them.)

Cool. I sent in a question and I have a last name that's hard for some people to pronounce, so here's hoping.

I've only had time to watch the film and the Q&A with Jarmusch tonight but so far I'm very pleased: I've not seen this particular Jarmusch before but it's easily among my top three choices among all the films he's made. Could be that the 1080p presentation played no insignificant part in this as the image is sensational for a 20 year old film; purely in terms of the video, this is, I think, a contender for the Best of the Year crown. Jim's Q&A is quite good though I'm amazed that he mentioned Strangers in favour of The Lady Vanishes when it came to the "favourite train films" question (he does mention he's not a Hitchcock fan so he may not have seen the latter). Appreciated the shoutout to Bava and he piqued my interest with his mentioning of a few films I hadn't heard of before (such as the Lee Marvin title Violent Saturday). Looking forward to the Jay Hawkins doc tomorrow.