More an actors' and directors' workshop than a movie, Wang and Auster follow up Smoke by surrounding Auggie (Keitel) with a series of bizarre occurrences that he describes in the beginning and which make up the remainder of the movie.

A singing telegram by Madonna, a long lost schoolmate running a dodgy survey business (Fox), the frustrated wife of his boss (Roseanne) and more comprise the heart in what's also a documentary about the locality Wang and Auster obviously love.

The history and character of Brooklyn are broadly painted thanks to 'stop them in the street' style video interviews, neighbourhood citizens giving various statistics and a running commentary on the heartbreak of the beloved local baseball team's abrupt departure in the 1960s all intersperse Auggie and his friends' few strange weeks.

More interesting than Smoke from a filmmaking point of view, almost as if the directors and writer took the aesthetic they liked in that film and transposed it to a semi doco on the essential Brooklyn.