200 CIGARETTES (38)

Directed by: Risa Bramon Garcia

Starring: Ben Affleck, Paul Rudd, Courtney Love, Christina Ricci

The Pitch: New Year's Eve, 1981 : a motley group of revellers make their separate ways to a big party.

Theo Sez: Teen-Flick Trends, 1999 Edition : (i) Sex is back in style, it appears, what with CRUEL INTENTIONS and the threesome in GO and now this multi-strand comedy, in which mucho 'relationship talk' doesn't quite disguise a rampant horniness ; can we now start talking of a post-Aids generation? (ii) Films set in the 80s suck (see also THE WEDDING SINGER), especially if they're simultaneously trying to rope in those born too late for the nostalgia factor ; (iii) Elvis Costello - Man Or Icon? Object of hysterical desire here, trundled on for a cameo in AUSTIN POWERS, singing "She" in (the European version of) NOTTING HILL - not bad for an ageing, funny-looking songsmith with a voice like a strangled gerbil. So much for the trend-spotting : the film itself is low on wit but amusingly lively, even if the titular cigarettes are pretty much its only period trapping. Could've used more Janeane Garofalo ("These matches are disappointing me!"), rather less of Dave Chappelle's funky cabbie ; and did I imagine it, or does someone really say "I feel so ... tainted" just before Soft Cell's best-known hit hits the soundtrack?...