200 Cigarettes (1999)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Beautiful, moving film.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I usually enjoy most movies, but this was a real hard one to get through. For starters, it's New Years Eve in New York - Yes, December 31, - and yet there's a guy riding a motorcycle, there's no snow at all, and everyone is dressed like it's September. Now to the story. Wow, is this bad. I understand where they were trying to go with this but seriously, huge fail. I'm pretty sure the audition for everyone in this movie went something like "So, can you chain smoke cigarettes, because you'll be puffing on one every two seconds for the entire movie! The characters and lude and crude, with absolutely no redeeming qualities in any of them. The worst part was Gaby Hoffman and Christina Ricci. Seriously? Take the two girls who have already appeared together, dress them in ridiculous costumes and try using cheesy and phony New York accents that are so over the top it's ridiculous. Oh, and also, ,big sideburns were NOT in fashion in 1982. Maybe in 72,, but not ten years later. Wow. What a dog.

200 Cigarettes (1999): Dir: Risa Bramon Garcia / Cast: Christina Ricci, Courtney Love, Dave Chappelle, Casey Affleck, Martha Plimpton: Bringing back memories of "Bette Davis Eyes" and "Tainted Love", which graced the music scene in 1981, which is where this film is set. It is New Years Eve 1981 where girls wonder the street in search of the big party. This is in fact a party that no one has shown up to and the hostess is literally counting the minutes. There is a virgin experiencing sex, a guy who spends the evening complaining about the women who dumped him, a bartender who constantly gets stood up. The energy is there in the setup and director Risa Bramon Garcia follows each individual about interesting locations and situations. It is basically a series of subplots with an ending where everybody seems to wake up with somebody. Great ensemble cast including Christina Ricci who searches for the party. Courtney Love celebrates her friend's birthday before countering his complaints with sex. Dave Chappelle plays a cab driver who sees all and is the film's observer. Casey Affleck mourns over broken relationships. Martha Plimpton plans a big party but is disappointed when only one person appears while others form the other subplots. It relates to the teenage fearless persona where actions are believed to have no consequences. Entertaining film right down to the last cigarette. Score: 7 / 10

200 Cigarettes is described as an episodic film. It follows around a number of people on New Years Eve of 1981 and climaxes at one huge party. These people seem to miss each other, yet also go through their own problems to try and understand themselves and their part in life. Some of them realise the truth about themselves, while others of them simply continue to go on as they were. To really understand the movie we have to look at the characters, some of them individually, while others together. The first two are a couple of friends, yet in a way a lot more. The movie opens with them in the "disco cab" (more on this later) and the cynic is simply whining about how his girlfriend left him and that New Years Eve always sucks because it is also his birthday and as such the expectation is doubly high. These two form a major focus of the relationship aspect of the film as they both try to understand what the whole purpose of it is. One simply feels that he cannot hold down a girlfriend because he changes for her only to have her turn against him. The other simply does not care and will sleep with any man she can. It is then that her eyes are opened in a sexual encounter with the guy in a toilet cubicle. She realises that the way she treats sex is really meaningless and that making it a cheap thrill destroys the whole purpose of it. He, on the other hand, has realised that the one girl that is good for him is the girl that knows him. The problem he faces is that the girls he dates really don't know him that well, and as such they end up leaving him after they decide they do not like him. On the other hand, she has been a friend of his for a while and they can both say that they know each other. As such it is inevitable that they end up together. The next couple are a couple of girls who simply want to get laid and end up fighting other the guys that they are with. They dump Eric, the Irish artist, because they decide that he is no good in bed. They then travel the city trying to find dates for the night, but cannot. The only time they find somebody is a single bartender, who they ditch because he is a yuppie. It is when they are told that they way they are behaving will destroy their friendship. To them, having dates should not be important but rather they should focus on their friendship. They end up getting dates, but remain secretive about it because they realise that to do otherwise will undermine their friendship. Eric is a rather pitiable guy as he also can never seem to hold down a girlfriend, but this time it is because he is no good in bed. He is one of the first at Monica's house, the place where they are having the party, and tries to come to terms with what he learns from Monica. His realisation at the end of the movie is that he is bad in bed, and there is really little that he can do about it. Monica is frantic because she is organising a New Years Eve party, even though she hates parties, and finds that nobody turns up. When Eric does, they talk and try to come to terms with their inadequacies, but when her friend arrives, she takes Eric away leaving Monica alone again. Monica is simply very tense and this tenseness means that she drinks so much that she passes out and ends up missing out on the party that she so really wanted to experience. Jack is an interesting character because he believes that he is curse. It appears to be a sweet individual and the girl that he is out with lost her virginity to him the night before. At first it seems that these two are the perfect couple, but this is soon destroyed when we learn that Jack has more than one girlfriend. So we discover that Jack is simply a sleaze who does not want girls attached to him. After his current girlfriend admits that she loves him, he tells her that he is cursed because he simply cannot stop girls from falling in love with him. To this she retorts that he really doesn't understand his fortune for there are many people who spend their entire lives looking for a woman to fall in love with them while Jack simply takes it for granted. He does not grow, for in the end he is still annoyed when Rita throws herself upon him proclaiming her undying love for him. What we know that he doesn't, is that Rita is actually quite fickle. This is the essence of the movie: relationships and the failure to relate to people. This is basically what everybody struggles with in the movie, and by the end some have overcome their struggles, while others are still simply blind to their problems. Jack and Dave are the two that are blind to their faults while Eric is left a broken man when the truth of his sexual inadequacy hits home. He is left with a problem that is simply not as easily solved as the rest. I guess the reason here is that relationships cannot be based on sex, and Eric uses sex as a crutch to support his inadequacy in relating to people, while Jack simply refuses to form a deep relationship and Dave is oblivious to everything. The Cynic throws away his cigarettes symbolising his realisation that he no longer needs a crutch to relate to anybody, while Eric, Dave, and Jack are left with their crutches and are not able to let go of them.

it just a simple movie about guys going to a party and getting it all mixed up, messed up., nice when you see how love works even when we all hide behind the smoke of your cigarette. the quest for love, for fun, for a party is very well portrayed. different characters, different situations, kind of make you feel you are in the middle of the desperation on new years eve, i think 1981 1982 was a great time to place it.the speeches and quotes and the way they develop a love and funny story is very nice. i t has a lot of characters making you crazy going from here to there on new year's eve. the humor is stool, and smart, i t has a great soundtrack, and in the end, it all turns out very well.