“Now I’m going to light this. And I’m going to wait for the coffee to be poured. Because that is the correct order of business.”

Before Paul Thomas Anderson altered and expanded on his short film, reworking it to serve as the prologue of his debut feature Hard Eight (1996), Cigarettes & Coffee was a hit at Sundance. Shot for twenty grand on a borrowed camera, the film is a tight little story propelled by the burgeoning director’s penchant for rich dialogue. The film’s success at Sundance in 1993 led to him being invited to the Sundance Institute to work on the feature length version (incidentally, while waiting for Hard Eight to begin shooting, he wrote Boogie Nights).

Starring Philip Baker Hall (who would reprise his role in Hard Eight), the film also features Kirk Baltz (probably best known as Officer Nash in Reservoir Dogs) and Miguel Ferrer. The entire story unfolds within a half an hour at a diner, with references and brief cuts to events that occurred previously.

The plot concerns a fated $20 bill that Douglas had signed with a marker for good luck. Before he could gamble it away, he had lent it to his friend Steve who he was sure would pay it back later. When he got back to his hotel room, his wife told him that they would be meeting Steve and his wife for dinner later that evening. His world turns upside down when he sees his signed $20 bill lying on the floor. The film begins with him asking his mentor for advice over cigarettes and coffee at the diner.

The intricacy and inventiveness of Anderson, which allows the film to be contained so tightly in both time and space, is what makes it so remarkable. The chronological order of events are much less exciting than the way the story is presented to us, much like Tarantino’s first two films, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Being able to pull in known actors to fill in the main cast really helps, but all the credit for this belongs to Anderson.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anything better than a VHS rip available to watch, but at least you can watch it for free.