NEW YORK — Actress Gaby Hoffman, dressed in every color known to punk rockers in the early '80s, looks up at the street sign in New York's East Village and stops short.
"I'm not moving from this corner," she screams in a thick Long Island accent to her friend crossing the notorious Avenue B. "Something terrible is going to happen if you cross that street!"
"I'm going to that party!" yells back Christina Ricci, in the same Long Island accent and dressed in equally cheesy style.
"But you said we were going to SoHo!" whines Hoffman, stamping her foot like a child.
"I said NoHo!" comes the reply.
We are far downtown in Manhattan and we are supposed to be back even further: to 1981, the time when Avenue B still connoted something slightly menacing (today it's trended up with hip eateries and bars). The movie being shot is "200 Cigarettes," and it helps to think "American Graffiti" meets "Desperately Seeking Susan" meets "After Hours." The action all takes place on one New Year's Eve as a dozen or so characters--played by a cast that also includes Ben Affleck, Courtney Love and Paul Rudd in bite-sized roles--head for the same party. If there is a link between them, it is the sassy and streetwise cabdriver played by comic Dave Chappelle.
The movie is in the hands of first-time director Risa Bramon Garcia. For years she has been one of Hollywood's top casting directors, and with this project--a script she has followed closely for some five years as it traveled from studio to studio--she is crossing over into the big time.
Well, small big time, anyway. "200 Cigarettes" is being distributed by a major studio (Paramount) and has a flock of production entities behind it (like MTV Films and director Mike Newell's company Dogstar). But the truth is, it acts, feels (and pays) like an independent. Total cost is less than a superstar's salary these days.
"We've always wanted to keep it true to its independent spirit," says Alan Greenspan, Newell's partner at Dogstar. Newell, best known for "Four Weddings and a Funeral," considered directing it himself but in the end agreed it was the passionate Bramon Garcia who cared most. "She just had the best take on the material," says Greenspan, "and because of her casting background and reputation, she was a great asset in terms of getting actors to do it."
