Directed by Jim Jarmusch. Starring Cate Blanchett, Alfred Molina, Tom Waits, Cinqué Lee, Roberto Benigni, and Bill Murray. Rated PG.

Opens Friday, May 28, at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas

Coffee and Cigarettes--11 vignettes in search of a movie and some Nicorette--consists entirely of close encounters of the sit-down kind. It was shot over a 17-year period, by four different cinematographers, but director Jim Jarmusch gives the almost-dozen a remarkably unified feel, for better or worse.

The oldest of them, notable mostly for their Kid 'n Play buzz cuts and the sheer quantity of coffee cups per customer, are two Mystery Trainí‚ ­era encounters. One has Stephen Wright and Roberto Benigni as strangers with such drastically different metabolic rates that they hardly seem to inhabit the same dimension. The next has Spike Lee siblings Joie and Cinqué Lee in Memphis, arguing about things twins argue about until interrupted by a hillbilly waiter (Steve Buscemi, the only actor here not playing some version of himself) with an annoying Elvis story.

From 1992 comes a meeting between Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, with the former ingratiating and the latter--who claims to be a doctor in his spare time--testy. Maybe the problem is that they've both quit smoking. (So whose pack of Marlboros is that on the table?) Also irritable, in more recent segments, are African actors Alex Descas (Lumumba) and Isaach De Bankolé (Ghost Dog) as old friends not quite sure why they're meeting, and Renee French, inexplicably thumbing through a gun catalogue while server E. J. Rodriguez keeps finding reasons to bug her and "Crimson and Clover" plays in the background.

By far the best filmlets are built around British actors not normally known for their deadpan Jarmuschian output. One has Cate Blanchett sending herself up as a sleek movie star in L.A. for a quick press junket--and as her skanky cousin and rock 'n' roll hanger-on who can barely hide deep-seated resentment of her famous relative. "It is swag, isn't it?" the cuz asks when handed a bottle of expensive perfume.

The other great segment also involves cousins, of a sort. At least that's what is thought by the genealogy-obsessed Alfred Molina, slightly down on his luck and also living in Los Angeles after a failed sitcom, begging a meeting from Steve Coogan, the English TV star hot off his success with 24 Hour Party People. Coogan finds Molina pathetic, until he finds out that he might be better connected than he realized. They both still prefer tea to coffee.

Still other bits are more gimmicky than good, but that's pretty much okay. Rockers Jack and Meg White (he can act a little, she can't) meet in the back room at a no-name café to discuss esoteric facts about Nikola Tesla, a theme that comes up again in the closing section, with elderly art scenesters Bill Rice and Taylor Mead hearing a haunting Gustav Mahler song reverberate in the Manhattan night. Some of the dialogue from the Iggy/Waits visit resurfaces when Bill Murray appears as a waiter who asks Wu Tang Clan founders GZA and RZA not to blow his cover. "We won't tell anyone, Bill Murray," they keep assuring him.

These echoes and motifs don't seem particularly well considered and I'm not sure that the little tales add up to more than time wasted in amiable company. But sometimes that's enough. And--what? Oh, sure, I'll have another...