Blue in the Face
As a stand-alone movie or as a companion to the critically acclaimed Wayne Wang movie Smoke, Blue in the Face succeeds. The faux-documentary captures improvised scenes using the same cast as Wang's movie and others who dropped by during filming. Interesting appearances include Lily Tomlin as a man searching for Belgian waffles, Michael J. Fox as a survey taker, Madonna delivering a singing telegram … and more.
Member Reviews
equal amounts of inspiration and embarrassment - clauditorium
Improvised follow-up to Smoke, featuring some of the same characters. A friendly, funny comedy. As with any improv there are equal amounts of inspiration and embarrassment.
Mel Golham, Jim Jarmusch, Lou Reed, and Roseanne come off best out of the cast. Golham’s hilarious, sexy rendition of “Fever” is the highlight. However, Harvey Keitel’s character here becomes so saccharine you’ll want to retch.two stars is too low a rating actually - Moir
The title for this review is an attempt to indicate the ambivalence I feel about reviewing this. What category does this fit into? As a film, I found it very disappointing.
The talent of the people in it however is impressive, at least as a kind of talent show.. Keitel, for example, seems staggeringly talented.. [how he deals with scenes when others are doing things, enriching the background and in no way stealing the scenes so I had to watch him to see what he was doing impressed me greatly] as does almost everyone else - at filling the screen and making noise, radiating energy, etc. with charm and ... whatever it is that feels so 'American' ... insofar at least as one can talk of such cultural oversimplificaitons as if they were a kind of scented after shave.
If I wanted a 'boxed' image of an aspect of America and American culture, I think it would blow me away. [I am perhaps allergic from over exposure - all too often too many places now seeming to bump into it - and feel it as attractive as a bad case of car sickness - I know some 'Americans' in the States who I think feel this way also]. I can see why it might have intrigued a certain number of Japanese enthused with 'experiencing' a vivid image of the phenomenon of 'America' not the country and its people but a certain image.
Member Reviews
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equal amounts of inspiration and embarrassment - clauditorium
Improvised follow-up to Smoke, featuring some of the same characters. A friendly, funny comedy. As with any improv there are equal amounts of inspiration and embarrassment.
Mel Golham, Jim Jarmusch, Lou Reed, and Roseanne come off best out of the cast. ...two stars is too low a rating actually - Moir
The title for this review is an attempt to indicate the ambivalence I feel about reviewing this. What category does this fit into? As a film, I found it very disappointing.
The talent of the people in it however is impressive, at least as a kind of ...