Blue In The Face Details

A funny thing happened after director Wayne Wang and novelist Paul Auster completed Smoke, their excellent look at Brooklyn life as distilled through Harvey Keitel's cigar shop. The actors had had such a good time making it, they didn't want to go home, and Wang and Auster had the set for another week. Hence this bookend featuring mainly improvised scenes from everyone, including Madonna, Roseanne, Jim Jarmusch and Lou Reed, on the power of the weed, mixed in with video documentary footage. It's self-indulgent at times, and distinctly different from the original, but in its own small way equally as entertaining.

A semi-improvised piece that grew out of rehearsals for Smoke (qv), its more structured companion piece; it may well be rewarding for those who enjoyed that film, but is otherwise of limited interest.