Blue In The Face (1995)

Blue In The Face (R) The second collaboration between director Wayne Wang and novelist-screenwriter Paul Auster is set in the same cozy-seedy Brooklyn cigar store that served as the hub for their art-house hit, Smoke. This time, no one's minding the store. Shot in less than seven days, Blue in the Face is a semi-improvisatory funk vaudeville — a rambling series of actors' riffs on the Brooklyn state of mind. Wang and Auster throw fragmentary comic bits in the air like so much confetti, hoping that the result coheres into a rowdy cinematic block party. It doesn't, but there are some highlights. Lou Reed proves a zestfully dry raconteur, and director Jim Jarmusch disarms the film's contortions with his relaxed wit. But most of the actors seem stranded in a sitcom without a situation. C