Benefit
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2002
- Messages
- 5,193
Blue in the Face is the companion piece to director Wayne Wang and writer Paul Auster's critically acclaimed Smoke. Both movies were released in 1995 by Miramax, and it was movies like this that made the Weinstein brothers the indie czars that they are.
Blue in the Face utilizes much of the same cast as Smoke, with cameos by Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, Jim Jarmusch, Lou Reed, Roseanne and the Ghost of Jackie Robinson. Using the same set as Smoke, it was shot in 5 days and the acting is mostly improvised. Apparently during filming of Smoke, Wayne Wang and Paul Auster were watching Keitel and some of the other actors improvise in character to warm up and realized there was enough material there to squeeze out another movie. They managed to get some more money out of Miramax, turned the actors loose and let the cameras roll.
The movie is primarily a celebration of Brooklyn; the people, the places, the history. This filmic experiment ends up being half documentary/half improv workshop. They use interview footage of real Brooklyn residents spliced with stock and archival footage that shows Brooklyn neighborhood hangouts and the last days of Ebbets Field. Harvey Keitel reprises his role as cigar store philosopher Auggie Wren from Smoke; a series of slice of life vignettes swirl around him and the cigar shop. There isn't much pretense of a plot at all; the actors are given free reign to just bullshit their way through the scene.
Some of these scenes are gold. Michael J. Fox has an amazing five minute bit as a social researcher. Lily Tomlin plays a homeless man trying to get a Belgian waffle. The archival footage is very cool. Lou Reed is... himself. Some of the scenes are not quite up to par; specifically, anything with Roseanne in it.
If you appreciate good acting, see this movie because it has an abundance of it. The parts that don't quite hit on all cylinders are easily forgiven because the film is only 85 minutes long so if one piece doesn't work for you you'll be onto the next one pretty quickly. As a film about Brooklyn, it works very well. As an experiment in improvisational acting, it doesn't always work but it's always refreshing to see something different.
Blue in the Face utilizes much of the same cast as Smoke, with cameos by Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, Jim Jarmusch, Lou Reed, Roseanne and the Ghost of Jackie Robinson. Using the same set as Smoke, it was shot in 5 days and the acting is mostly improvised. Apparently during filming of Smoke, Wayne Wang and Paul Auster were watching Keitel and some of the other actors improvise in character to warm up and realized there was enough material there to squeeze out another movie. They managed to get some more money out of Miramax, turned the actors loose and let the cameras roll.
The movie is primarily a celebration of Brooklyn; the people, the places, the history. This filmic experiment ends up being half documentary/half improv workshop. They use interview footage of real Brooklyn residents spliced with stock and archival footage that shows Brooklyn neighborhood hangouts and the last days of Ebbets Field. Harvey Keitel reprises his role as cigar store philosopher Auggie Wren from Smoke; a series of slice of life vignettes swirl around him and the cigar shop. There isn't much pretense of a plot at all; the actors are given free reign to just bullshit their way through the scene.
Some of these scenes are gold. Michael J. Fox has an amazing five minute bit as a social researcher. Lily Tomlin plays a homeless man trying to get a Belgian waffle. The archival footage is very cool. Lou Reed is... himself. Some of the scenes are not quite up to par; specifically, anything with Roseanne in it.
If you appreciate good acting, see this movie because it has an abundance of it. The parts that don't quite hit on all cylinders are easily forgiven because the film is only 85 minutes long so if one piece doesn't work for you you'll be onto the next one pretty quickly. As a film about Brooklyn, it works very well. As an experiment in improvisational acting, it doesn't always work but it's always refreshing to see something different.