Cigarettes & Coffee

[theyarelegion]

from www.slashfilm.com:

"In a previous edition of Big Directors Small Films, we took a look at Paul Thomas Anderson’s first film, a 1988 short fictional documentary that inspired Boogie Nights titled The Dirk Diggler Story. From there, Paul went on to attend New York University, but quit after only two days of classes. He became a production assistant on a bunch of made for television movies, television game shows and independent film projects. In this time he developed his second serious short film project made up of five vignettes set in a diner with Philip Baker Hall (who later went on to become a PTA regular) and Miguel Ferrer among the cast.

Cigarettes & Coffee premiered at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, where he gained the attention needed to be accepted into the Sundance Institute’s filmmaker workshop program where he developed, adapted, and expanded the idea into his first feature film — Hard Eight. In this short you can see the early inspiration of Robert Altman, with Anderson cutting between three stories which somehow intersect. Many thanks to /Film reader Kendrick T who submitted the Vimo link over the weekend."

http://vimeo.com/2447683?pg=embed&sec=2447683

Nice!

[Big Owl]

Watched this yesterday, pretty good short, you can really see his style of writing coming out. I thought the opening moments were really great.

That guy on the phone probably brought his best performance to the table since Blank Check

Let me get something straight with the end... the note with the name on it was given in by the guy on the phone, who i assumed is the hitman. So basically the guy paid a Hitman with the 20 bucks he put his name on in with the other money. This guys a class act. I wonder if the hit only cost $20... if so thats a very competitive price

[Reelist]

This was shot in color? No shit, I've only seen it in B&W. God, it looked terrible.

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

I originally got this on VHS 7 years ago...glad to see it's online!

It's got a little bit more of that 90's flair to it...stories that quickly intersect and minor bits of flashback, an ending that leads you to believe where the story goes after this.

It also feels weird to see Kirk Baltz not covered in sweat or gasoline or blood and with his right ear intact.

[Pubrick]

old thread about his first short, the Dirk Diggler story.. wherein I review Cigs and Coffee:

speakin of doofy looking fools, has anyone seen Cigarettes and Coffee? man that dude who is talking to PBH almost ruins the damn movie, can he close his mouth???? the whole time it's like sumone is pulling down his lower lip. it's effing distracting and stupit.

(been wanting to get that off my chest for a while)

he looked like a goddamn fish, and his eyebrow action didn't help either.

i guess it's a silly little movie about the first thing PT ever noticed while doing absolutely nothing.

the idea of the movie is that, before u do anything, u hav to smoke/drink sum coffee. it's obvious why he's embarassed by it now, u know, u don't use ur most profound material on ur first proffessional short. but u get the impression at the time, he did think it was the most profound thing.