ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE: Jarmusch as Vampirically Cool Genre Equalizer
Jim Jarmusch is cool. Very few would have the misguided nerve to argue against this claim. His writing is cool, his directing is cool and his hair is very cool. His scripts seem to be written with the implicit intent of being undersold while his directing technique routinely undermines flash and outright refuses to sizzle. He often casts musicians like Tom Waits (who might be the epitome of cool) in leading roles and he is never afraid to let a shot linger glacially long enough to outlast contemporary audience expectations of what is appropriate.
Jarmusch is cool enough that venues should consider starting his movies an hour after the listed showtime in order to allow the images to arrive fashionably late to the eyeballs.
Illustration by Max Brown