The Steve Coogan scene was by far the best. Bill Murray/GZA/RZA was also good. You're right though, overall, it was kind of boring. I saw it in the theatre, and I remember thinking to myself, "O..K?" after many of the scenes. It always seemed like one person was ****ed off and the other was trying be compassionate, but it just kind of plateaued and then went into the next scene. It's no Down By Law, but it did have the Waits/Benigni element which is nice.

It's not the idea of it that I dislike, it's the execution. Wayne Wang did the same thing with a movie called BLUE IN THE FACE <http://imdb.com/title/tt0112541/>, in which he basically used the store in which some of his film SMOKE was set, and used the actors from that movie (as well as a slew of additional actors) to improvise scenes together. The results are uneven but there is some really funny, really entertaining stuff in there. Jim Jarmusch even makes an appearance and has a hilarious monologue. That's what I thought COFFEE & CIGARETTES would be, but was disappointed to find most the vignettes completely dull. I just did some research and found out that Jarmusch has been making these COFFEE & CIGARETTES short films for 18 years now, and they have been released separately at various times (1986, 1989, 1993). The COFFEE & CIGARETTES film that was released this year was just a compilation of all these old short films, with a few new ones added. I guess it's an admirable attempt at something creative, I just didn't find the finished product entertaining.

Big fan of Smoke, watched it several times. Granted that Harvey Keitel's story telling ability can carry a lot of movies, this one is a little gem. He and William Hurt play well off each other (Is it just me or has Hurt been typecast as a whiner?). How about that cameo by hotty pants Ashley Judd as a crack head bitch?