Reminiscing (in tempo) leads to a spate of subtly related, almost lost to time ideas or past experiences. That’s almost what Blue in the Face, the kinda follow-up to Paul Auster’s Smoke, is comprised of.

Convincing Miramax to spring for a bit more film and the like, the cast assembled for Smoke, between takes, finds itself working to create a narrative snatched from bits of improvised scenes and guest appearances. It works sometimes. And sometimes it doesn’t. But for the most part, the performances aren’t too bad.

Issued the same year as its predecessor, Blue in the Face doesn’t concern itself with characterization as much as place. In contrast to the prior effort, this film disavows following a set of characters through an oddly stapled together narrative. Instead, the fate of Auggie’s smoke shop is in the balance.

It’s revealed that the joint’s owner, who isn’t making a profit on the place any longer, is in negotiations to sell the place. When Auggie objects, his boss tells him that there’s no reason to grow old behind the counter.

Of course, the same man is married to Roseanne, who makes two brief and clumsy appearances in the film. She’s the one noticeable detractor from the improvised film. Despite those brief moments of awkwardness, the proper players in the film all perform more than adequately, with Jim Jarmusch’s various scenes being relative high points.

As calm as ever, Jarmusch rhapsodizes about his last cigarette, which he’s come to share with Auggie, the man whose spent years selling him tobacco. The Keitel and Jarmusch characters, seated in stools, bs about anything and everything with the best moments coming as the elder performer genuinely chuckles at some stray observation.

Those moments most true to life are the ones worth waiting for here. But in an odd choice, obviously tied to the store’s functionality as a neighborhood meeting place, there’s a rather in-depth discussion of the psychic wounds Brooklyn received when the Dodgers left town – Jackie Robinson even makes an appearance.

In this strain of the films pseudo-narrative, there’re a few documentary style inserts of actual Brooklynites recalling the devastating time in the borough’s history. If that’s all the movie comprised, the scenes would have worked. But as asides, they’re only distractions – uneven interviewees, odd film stock and varied color palettes disallow from these brief insights functioning well in this particular setting. Even with those diversions, the improvised portions of Blue in the Face are worth the hour and twenty minutes it takes to make it through.