Blue in the Face

Set in and around a Brooklyn cigar shop, Blue in the Face follows Auggie Wren, the store's philosophically minded proprietor, as a steady flow of neighborhood regulars passes through his door. Customers air their troubles, test their charms on each other, fill out questionnaires and smoke what may be their last cigarettes. The shop's easy rhythm is threatened when the building's owner, Vinnie, plans to sell the space to a health-food chain that would replace it with a vegetarian restaurant. The locals, who treat the place as their own, push back in whatever ways they can.

Wayne Wang directed and wrote the film with Paul Auster, the same pair behind Smoke, released earlier the same year. Coming between The Joy Luck Club and Anywhere but Here in Wang's filmography, it shares Smoke's setting and several of its cast members, among them Harvey Keitel as Auggie, Victor Argo as Vinnie and Mel Gorham as Violet, with Roseanne Barr, Giancarlo Esposito and Jared Harris also appearing across a credited cast of 21. Much of the material was improvised during a shoot reported to have lasted only a few days.

The film was made for about 2 million USD and took roughly 1 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.6/10 from 11,000 votes and on TMDB 6.5/10 from 192 votes, while a critics' rating stands at 5.7/10 from 24 reviews, placing critical opinion below the audience scores.