Fishing With John (1992) review

Cult TV show from one of Basquiat's old friends, John Lurie, as he manages to get funding from God-knows-who to take celebrity friends across the world fishing. The description says something about how Lurie knows nothing about fishing, but that's only partly true; he seems to have a better knowledge of the 'sport' than his comrades, who range from Tom Waits to Matt Dillon (who proves to me that he, in his movies, is actually playing himself). The show plays out like one of Lurie's early films, the Jim Jarmusch directed "Stranger Than Paradise," as most of the episodes contain very little conversation, just blank looks and awkward silences ("Real men don't talk," the commentator could have said). Willem Dafoe and Dennis Hopper are pretty spritely (well, actually, Hopper is sorta up-and-down, elated and frustrated) - Dafoe impresses most, and you'd swear the guy was trained by the British SAS.