Akira Kurosawa's Ran
Jim Jarmusch, the much-heralded indie director responsible for such minimal masterpieces as "Dead Man," Mystery Train," and "Stranger than Paradise," has received unfair criticism regarding "Ghost Dog," his seventh fictional escapade. Critics complain that his existential exercises ignore narrative logic. Characters "act irrationally" so Jarmusch might force-feed thematic content-often through an incomprehensible twist of events.