[.ca] Bagdad Cafe (Widescreen)

From Amazon.com:
Jasmin (Marianne Sägebrecht), a German tourist, has just walked off from her husband at the side of the road in the middle of the Mojave Desert; Brenda (CCH Pounder) has just kicked her husband out of the roadside cafe-motel they operate. When Jasmin arrives at the cafe, the two begin developing a prickly but ultimately rewarding friendship. Many other movies have tried to duplicate Bagdad Cafe's mixture of loose storytelling, off-kilter metaphors, and rich emotions, but most often these imitators leave out the random chaos of life and the awkward pain of change that Bagdad Cafe captures with such a gentle touch. Bagdad Cafe earns both its quirkiness and its sentiment by keeping one foot firmly rooted in reality. Director Percy Adlon teamed with star Sägebrecht in two other similarly offbeat movies, Sugarbaby and Rosalie Goes Shopping; his more recent features without her haven't been as successful. Still, he continues to be noted for his odd but lively use of color filters and jagged editing. Bagdad Cafe also features the great Jack Palance (Shane, Requiem for a Heavyweight, City Slickers) playing an easy-going painter; the opportunity to be an ordinary person, rather than his usual wicked fiends, brings out a delightful mischief in Palance. Pounder, who usually gets small supporting parts, deserves another role like this to take advantage of her remarkable range. All in all, an eccentric and wonderful film. --Bret Fetzer

My favorite movie of all time:
This movie is just perfect. It deserves all the oscars in the world. After watching this movie, you feel good about life....

Few words....:
I guess when I was about 11 I was asked to learn a song called "Calling you"....A hard job but I did like my voice sounded while I was interpreting that song. I could hardly understand the lyrics but I could feel the whole thing was great. I heard this song was in the O.S.T of a movie called "Bagdad Cafè". I had to see it. I needed to see it. It was hard to find the VHS at the time for in Italy good movies and good music are not really appreciated. Whatever. It moved me. I cried. I learned something about life in general from that movie. Silly me... tonight I watched again this movie...on an unknown tv channel....and i cried again. I have no many words to say. I don't want to run the risk to be more silly than this. It's quite enough. And, you know what? There's no need to say too many words. You gotta see it to understand why so many people loved it. and still love it. The best words to describe it are these "A desert road from Vegas to nowhere/ someplace better than where you've been/ a coffee machine that needs some fixing/ in a little cafè just around the bend/ a hot dry wind blows right through me/ the baby's crying and I can't sleep/ but I can feel a change is coming/ coming closer/ sweet release....I am calling you / Can't you hear me / I am calling you" Love Sarah Micòl

Yawn.:
I'd heard nothing but good things about this movie from critics and family members. Clearly, a lot of folks like this movie. It didn't do a lot for me, though. It had its moments.

Different:
Reviewed and summed up well by others, I'll just add that from a truck enthusiast's perspective, this movie contains bonus footage and sounds of a tidy Barstow Cat-powered peterbilt and GM-powered 4070 International, plus background shots of various highway rigs and freight trains. A wonderful movie

Different Worlds Harmonize -- Quiet Gem of a Film:
When a middle aged Bavarian Tourist lands in a remote, scarcely populated California desert town, she creates not only a stir with the locals, but eventually brightens the spirits of her host family as well as all the "regulars" who pass through the "Bagdad Cafe". What started out as a "big mistake" soon looks like divine providence. "Miss Jasmin" (the German lady with a matching accent) and "Miss Brenda" (the rough-talking owner of a greasy-spoon restaurant who employs Jasmin and gives her a home) become close friends. An aging "showbusiness man" (brilliantly played by pre-City-Slickers Jack Palance) views Miss Jasmin as his "muse" and is inspired to paint her portrait. When word gets out that her tourist visa had expired, the local Sheriff forces Jasmin to return to Germany. Sadness canvases the place where Jasmin had been embraced as a welcome change of schedule. The life she had brought with her seemed drained away with her departure. There isn't much plot to stretch the running time (the original German cut runs nearly 2 hours), however there are many bittersweet moments in this simple, but beautiful film. The last few scenes deliver the inevidible (thus predictable) conclusion. A little on the "artsy" side and clearly without a multi-million dollar budget, but still a palatable final product.****