Blue in the Face

REVIEW
Not really a sequel, the ingratiating Blue in the Face is a new collection of stories which concentrate on the customers of a Brooklyn smoke shop which was first featured in Smoke. Keitel returns as Auggie, the gregarious sales clerk who acts as both father confessor and camp counselor to a fresh crop of playmates. Told in a semidocumentary and more fragmented style than the previous film, Blue in the Face, as with Smoke, revels in the diversity of its Park Slope neighborhood, here through the many talking-heads interviews, anecdotes, monologues and fictionalized stories which populate this funny film. An eclectic, engaging cast weaves its way through the skimpy narrative. Though not as totally successful or in-depth as the first film, this outing's goals are simpler but nevertheless appealingly met.