Jim Jarmusch's MYSTERY TRAIN

By Dennis D. McDonald

This 1989 movie tells three stories about people in Memphis whose lives almost intersect based on their staying one night in the same seedy hotel.

The common thread of the stories is not the people or how their stories interact — they don’t, really — but the city of Memphis itself.

Having myself visited cities outside the U.S. and having spent much shoeleather walking from place to place, Jarmusch has accurately portrayed what you see as an outsider, even in the most “upscale” of physical locations.

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