In recent years, the jukebox musical has proven to be both a creative and lucrative way to set modern pop music to stories. They've flooded both Broadway and London's West End theater district and they have begun to emerge in feature films as well, including Moulin Rouge and Across the Universe.

However, a musical is only as good as the story the songs acts as a backdrop for. This presents a conundrum in the viewing of actor-turned-filmmaker John Turturro's latest film Romance & Cigarettes.

In Queens, New York, Nick Murder's (James Gandolfini) marriage to his wife, Kitty (Susan Sarandon) has hit hard times. It is soon discovered that he is in fact having an affair with a red-haired bombshell named Tula (Kate Winslet).

With incidental moments of song and dance, as the events continue to transgress, dealing with all this are Nick and Kitty's three daughters Rosebud (Aida Turturro), Constance (Mary-Louise Parker), and Baby (Mandy Moore), Kitty's eccentric cousin Bo (Christopher Walken), and Nick's trusted colleague Angelo (Steve Buscemi). However, as the marriage threatens to disintegrate, it's soon up to Nick to decide who he wants to be with most.

John Turturro shows great skill visually as a director and Romance & Cigarettes is occasionally a fascinating urban pastiche that gives a fantastic cast, including great talents like James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, and particularly Kate Winslet and Christopher Walken, a great left-field platform to from which to really show their range as actors. However, what hurts the film considerably is not only a very hysterical, unfocused, and cluttered plot, but a staple of pop songs used as rather incidental musical numbers that fail to effectively gel with it.

The DVD's picture quality is in the 2:35:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, with the sound quality in Dolby Digital Surround 5.1. The DVD also comes packed with plenty of special features.

The first is an introduction by director John Turturro to the film that is fairly sincere, if a bit rambling. He also appears in the film's audio commentary, which more articulately and eloquently provides information into how he made the film.

Another feature is seven deleted scenes, which are pretty fascinating, which each come with introductions from director Turturro. Rounding out the special features is the featurette "Making A Homemade Musical". While it's a bit disappointing that there are only two phone-recorded interviews of actors Susan Sarandon and Kate Winslet, there is plenty of footage that gives an exciting insight behind-the-scenes.

All in all, Turturro shows plenty of skill as a director and benefits from a fantastic cast who often get to do some fairly unusual and against-type performances. However, Romance & Cigarettes' story proves to be too incoherent, scattershot, and over-the-top in tone to work effectively as a film and the songs too much of an afterthought to work