What unites everything is Jarmusch's playful, hang-dog absurdism.

By Jarmusch's own previously set standards in such films as Stranger Than Paradise, Ghost Dog, and Dead Man, Coffee and Cigarettes serves up a weak brew.

The film is a series of scenes, skits, episodes, that show two or sometimes three people smoking and sipping and conversing, usually in grungy places and usually improvising -- at least that's the intended impression.

... an anthology of curiosities, some more curious than others, wound around a diverse cast paired off for random ramblings over caffeine and nicotine.