Here’s the trailer for The Limits of Control, a new film by Jim Jarmusch. I’m always very impressed by Jim Jarmusch when he speaks.  Extremely intelligent and serious artist working in film.  In fact, he might be one of the only serious artists working in American film at present.  He’s kind of scary and punkish and seems more like a rock star than a film director.  I’d probably run screaming from the room if he came in to talk to me.  But maybe not.  I always find a person’s weakness and exploit it.  Jarmusch’s weakness is Bill Murray.  Too much focus on stars in Jarmusch films.  He shouldn’t do this.  Great directors in the 21st Century should not cast so many stars.  Stars ruin movies.  Imagine reading a great novel in which every single character is played by a movie star.  Sort of like when you buy a novel that’s been adapted to film and right there on the cover you see a big fat picture of Leonardo DiCaprio.  Ruins the entire book.  Ruins a serious film quite often too.  Why movie stars have become so essential to film is a total mystery.  A great director spends all his energy trying to direct the movie in circles around his star performers.  What a waste.  A movie that becomes a parade of the director’s movie star friends is not worth watching.  He should make new friends.  There’s nothing more time-consuming than watching a movie star pretend to be an artist.  It would serve Mr. Jarmusch better to find people on the street and use them instead.  He needs to get over this Bill Murray fixation and move on.  Murry is a deadly boring actor with a frozen face.  These stars are a major headache and a distraction from what the director has to say with film.  By the way, here’s a fascinating interview with Jim Jarmusch that is casting off sparks of connective ideas all over the place.  They talk about novels, essays, poetry, William Burroughs and the cut-up technique, secret societies, Scientology, Stanley Kubrick, and more.  Fascinating talk.  I really wish he’d stop hiring movie stars.  Jim Jarmusch is not a good director of movie stars.  This guy would be a real artistic threat if he’d just run around with a video camera and work that way.  Why he would want to be eating catered food with the walkie-talkie brigade is simply beyond me.