And then to wonder that this movie was never meant to be made!!Thank god for Wayne Wang that after shooting Smoke(which does not even come close to this little gem)he had some more footage to show to us.The leading performance by Harvey Keitel is outstanding,this man can really act! I already was convinced though after seeing Mean Streets,Taxi Driver,Reservoir Dogs,Pulp Fiction,Bad Lieutenant etc. The other performances aren't bad either.And then the (guest)actors.Names like Madonna,Roseanne,Michael J. Fox,Mira Sorvino and Lou Reed have small parts in this movie.Especially Madonna and Michael J. Fox are very funny.Another great part of the movie are the statistics of Brooklyn(Belgian Waffles?!).

Although this movie is always seen as an add-on for Smoke I think that Blue in the Face is far superior to it's older brother and that movie should be more in the spotlights. 10/10

I can see why people might dislike this movie, but I love it. It's a set of improvised scenes and interviews patched together to form a sort of a story. Definitely not an ordinary movie.

It takes place in and around the cigar store at the center of the film Smoke. The only character from Smoke is Auggie, the cigar store manager, played by Harvey Keitel. Past that, it has nothing to do with the storyline of Smoke.

It is really a love letter to the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn, celebrating all the characters who live there. There are so many great standout hilarious scenes in this film. My favorites are the interviews with musician Lou Reed and indie director Jim Jarmusch, as well as the film about the guy who spends his spare time taking plastic shopping bags out of the trees in Prospect Park. Lots of other funny cameos too - Madonna, Mira Sorvino, Giancarlo Esposito, Michael J. Fox, Roseanne and Malik Yoba. And Auggie's hot mama Puerto Rican girlfriend, played by Mel Gorham, is a riot.

I think it is very well executed and should be viewed as a bold, light-hearted experiment. It just looks like the actors are having so much fun, it is hard to resist. Give it a try, preferably as a double-feature with Smoke.

'Blue in the Face' is a low key assortment of ad-libbed scenes, unlikely cameos, and interviews with the real-life inhabitants of Brooklyn. There's no real plot, nothing much happens, and the dialogue has all the incoherence of actual conversation. What it does have is bags of charm, a celebratory spirit, and a huge (physical and spiritual) distance from Hollywood. Well worth watching once.