![\"Maria](\"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/thankyousmoking.jpg\" "\\"thankyousmoking\\"")
Maria Bello, David Koechner, and Aaron Eckhart represent Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Jason Reitman's debut movie, "Thank You for Smoking"<\/p><\/div>\n
Reitman Lights Up the Screen<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n[xrr rating=4\/5]<\/span><\/p>\nThank You for Smoking<\/em>. Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, William H. Macy, David Koechner, J.K. Simmons, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes, Sam Elliott, and Robert Duvall. Screenplay by Jason Reitman. Based on the novel by Christopher Buckley.\u00a0Directed by Jason Reitman. (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2005, Color, 92 minutes. MPAA Rating: R.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cMichael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus are we introduced to the protagonist of\u00a0Thank You for Smoking<\/em>\u2014the chisel-chinned, smooth-talking Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), who relishes the daily, daunting challenges presented by his thankless job as lobbyist for Big Tobacco.<\/p>\nTurning a withering eye on Washington pressure-group politics,\u00a0Thank You for Smoking<\/em>\u00a0is an intelligent comedy whose laughs come frequently and naturally. Amidst today\u2019s predictable, mindless comedies and manipulative PC \u201cmessage\u201d movies, director Jason Reitman\u2019s first feature-length film is a breath of fresh air\u2014albeit suddenly engulfed by that heavy cloud emanating from the Camel held casually between a chain-smoker\u2019s yellowing fingertips. And thanks to Reitman\u2019s adroit direction and insistence on faithfully adapting novelist Christopher Buckley\u2019s black comedy to the screen, Nick Naylor has been winning over audiences with his upbeat, audacious portrayal of \u201cthe Sultan of Spin.\u201d<\/p>\nThe film opens with a TV segment from the syndicated\u00a0Joan Lunden Show<\/em>, where Naylor finds himself the lone spokesman for cigarettes, and pitted against a stacked panel of governmental and non-profit agency health officials. To make matters worse, he\u2019s seated right next to a teenaged victim of tobacco\u2014bald chemo head, hopeless facial expression, and all. Confronted by a bureaucrat about Cancer Boy\u2019s impending demise, by the charge that tobacco companies are profiting off children\u2019s deaths, and by a hostile, booing audience, Naylor appears to be painted into a corner. But instead of backing down and conceding, the supremely self-confident spokesman suavely seizes the offensive:<\/p>\nHow on earth would Big Tobacco profit off of the loss of this young man? I hate to think in such callous terms, but if anything, we\u2019d be losing a customer. It\u2019s not only our hope. It\u2019s in our best interest to keep Robin alive and smoking.<\/p>\n
By the program\u2019s end, Naylor not only has turned the audience in his favor, he\u2019s even won over Cancer Boy.<\/p>\n
An amoralist who can deftly swing any argument in his favor, Naylor tries to justify himself to his intelligent and inquisitive son, Joey (Cameron Bright). \u201cMy job requires a certain…moral flexibility.\u201d He\u2019s a working-class guy who loves his work and prides himself for getting ahead in life through his debating skills alone: \u201cI don\u2019t have an M.D. or law degree. I have a Bachelor\u2019s in kicking ass and taking names.\u201d His latest mission: to get smoking back into movies\u2014and to put the\u00a0sex<\/em>\u00a0back into smoking.<\/p>\nThough some viewers may regard Naylor as morally repugnant, I think they\u2019re missing the point: This is a\u00a0comedy,<\/em>\u00a0people, not a sermon. The scoundrel-as-hero is a time-honored device in motion pictures that deal with the theme of liberty versus repression. Think of Melvyn Douglas\u2019s parasite playboy, Count Leon d\u2019Algout, in Ernst Lubitsch\u2019s 1939 anti-communist farce,\u00a0Ninotchka<\/em>\u2014or Jimmy Cagney\u2019s boisterous, \u201cugly American\u201d Coca-Cola exec in Billy Wilder\u2019s 1961 Berlin Wall satire,\u00a0One, Two, Three\u00a0<\/em>\u2014or, more recently, Laura Dern\u2019s trailer-trash paint huffer, Ruth Stoops, inCitizen Ruth<\/em>, Alexander Payne\u2019s 1996 skewering of pro-life and pro-choice movement zealots.<\/em>\u00a0Nick Naylor belongs in the same august company as these celluloid rogues.<\/p>\nA high point in the movie\u2019s hilarity takes place when Nick lunches at an old, oak-paneled club with a couple of fellow lobbyists: Polly Bailey (played smart and sultry by the lovely Maria Bello), who fronts for the liquor industry, and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner, at his good-ol\u2019-boy best), who represents an NRA-like gun group. It\u2019s a gut-busting scene in which the three\u2014who unofficially refer to themselves by the morbid label \u201cthe MOD squad\u201d (Merchants Of Death)\u2014heatedly debate whose industry can take credit for more deaths. Watching Nick beam proudly while Polly and Bobby Jay sulk, because tobacco kills more than booze and guns\u00a0combined<\/em>, is simply priceless.<\/p>\n\u201cThis movie\u2019s libertarian,\u201d Reitman has said of its politics, noting that college students have been particularly receptive to its message: that even though big business can often be sleazy and manipulative, the alternative\u2014intrusive and restrictive big government\u2014is a far greater threat.<\/p>\n
Here, big government is personified by the meddling PC-environmentalist-liberal Senator Ortolan K. Finisterre (typical Buckley wit\u2014\u201cFinisterre\u201d is a French compound word meaning \u201cend of the world\u201d), played priggishly puritanical by gifted character actor William H. Macy. Finisterre won\u2019t rest until a skull-and-crossbones label is emblazoned on every pack of cigarettes sold in the U.S., because\u2014although most Americans know smoking is bad for them by reading the Surgeon General\u2019s warning\u2014current labeling\u00a0discriminates<\/em>\u00a0against the illiterate and non-English speaking!<\/p>\nNaylor\u2019s appearance before the senator\u2019s rigged subcommittee hearing is a gem that spotlights the real issue at stake: not whether cigarette smoking is harmful, but whether people have the right to choose to use that harmful product. For just a moment, the movie turns serious as Naylor summons what integrity he has left to defend his industry\u2019s right to sell its products, and consumers\u2019 rights to think and choose for themselves. It\u2019s a stirring, unambiguous defense of liberty that one seldom encounters in today\u2019s culture, especially in Hollywood.<\/p>\n
With a light touch, Reitman draws great performances from a stellar supporting cast: Rob Lowe as pretentious and unctuous Hollywood mega-agent Jeff Megall; the kittenish Katie Holmes as ambitious investigative journalist Heather Holloway, who\u00a0<\/strong>comes on to Nick like catnip and ends up using him as a scratching post; J.K. Simmons as Nick\u2019s gruff boss, B.R., who barks four-letter words at his staff; Sam Elliott as the ex-Marlboro Man, now quietly, bitterly dying of emphysema; and Robert Duvall as \u201cthe Captain,\u201d the last great Southern-gentleman tobacco baron, who takes Nick under his wing and teaches him the secret of making a perfect mint julep.<\/p>\nThe result is that rare serious movie you don\u2019t have to take too seriously. With this, his feature-film directorial debut, Jason Reitman has proven himself already the comedic equal of his father, director Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Ghostbusters, Kindergarten Cop<\/em>). Full of dry wit and hysterical satire, intellectually stimulating and highly entertaining\u2014but never heavy-handed\u2014Thank You for Smoking<\/em>\u00a0is one of the best comedies I\u2019ve seen in years.<\/p>\nRobert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Reitman Lights Up the Screen [xrr rating=4\/5] Thank You for Smoking. Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, William H. Macy, David Koechner, J.K. Simmons, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes, Sam Elliott, and Robert Duvall. Screenplay by Jason Reitman. Based on the novel by Christopher Buckley.\u00a0Directed by Jason Reitman. (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2005, Color, 92 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,38,37,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-comedies","category-comedies","category-independent-films","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Thank You for Smoking<\/em>. Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, William H. Macy, David Koechner, J.K. Simmons, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes, Sam Elliott, and Robert Duvall. Screenplay by Jason Reitman. Based on the novel by Christopher Buckley.\u00a0Directed by Jason Reitman. (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2005, Color, 92 minutes. MPAA Rating: R.)<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMichael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I talk.\u201d<\/p>\n Thus are we introduced to the protagonist of\u00a0Thank You for Smoking<\/em>\u2014the chisel-chinned, smooth-talking Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), who relishes the daily, daunting challenges presented by his thankless job as lobbyist for Big Tobacco.<\/p>\n Turning a withering eye on Washington pressure-group politics,\u00a0Thank You for Smoking<\/em>\u00a0is an intelligent comedy whose laughs come frequently and naturally. Amidst today\u2019s predictable, mindless comedies and manipulative PC \u201cmessage\u201d movies, director Jason Reitman\u2019s first feature-length film is a breath of fresh air\u2014albeit suddenly engulfed by that heavy cloud emanating from the Camel held casually between a chain-smoker\u2019s yellowing fingertips. And thanks to Reitman\u2019s adroit direction and insistence on faithfully adapting novelist Christopher Buckley\u2019s black comedy to the screen, Nick Naylor has been winning over audiences with his upbeat, audacious portrayal of \u201cthe Sultan of Spin.\u201d<\/p>\n The film opens with a TV segment from the syndicated\u00a0Joan Lunden Show<\/em>, where Naylor finds himself the lone spokesman for cigarettes, and pitted against a stacked panel of governmental and non-profit agency health officials. To make matters worse, he\u2019s seated right next to a teenaged victim of tobacco\u2014bald chemo head, hopeless facial expression, and all. Confronted by a bureaucrat about Cancer Boy\u2019s impending demise, by the charge that tobacco companies are profiting off children\u2019s deaths, and by a hostile, booing audience, Naylor appears to be painted into a corner. But instead of backing down and conceding, the supremely self-confident spokesman suavely seizes the offensive:<\/p>\n How on earth would Big Tobacco profit off of the loss of this young man? I hate to think in such callous terms, but if anything, we\u2019d be losing a customer. It\u2019s not only our hope. It\u2019s in our best interest to keep Robin alive and smoking.<\/p>\n By the program\u2019s end, Naylor not only has turned the audience in his favor, he\u2019s even won over Cancer Boy.<\/p>\n An amoralist who can deftly swing any argument in his favor, Naylor tries to justify himself to his intelligent and inquisitive son, Joey (Cameron Bright). \u201cMy job requires a certain…moral flexibility.\u201d He\u2019s a working-class guy who loves his work and prides himself for getting ahead in life through his debating skills alone: \u201cI don\u2019t have an M.D. or law degree. I have a Bachelor\u2019s in kicking ass and taking names.\u201d His latest mission: to get smoking back into movies\u2014and to put the\u00a0sex<\/em>\u00a0back into smoking.<\/p>\n Though some viewers may regard Naylor as morally repugnant, I think they\u2019re missing the point: This is a\u00a0comedy,<\/em>\u00a0people, not a sermon. The scoundrel-as-hero is a time-honored device in motion pictures that deal with the theme of liberty versus repression. Think of Melvyn Douglas\u2019s parasite playboy, Count Leon d\u2019Algout, in Ernst Lubitsch\u2019s 1939 anti-communist farce,\u00a0Ninotchka<\/em>\u2014or Jimmy Cagney\u2019s boisterous, \u201cugly American\u201d Coca-Cola exec in Billy Wilder\u2019s 1961 Berlin Wall satire,\u00a0One, Two, Three\u00a0<\/em>\u2014or, more recently, Laura Dern\u2019s trailer-trash paint huffer, Ruth Stoops, inCitizen Ruth<\/em>, Alexander Payne\u2019s 1996 skewering of pro-life and pro-choice movement zealots.<\/em>\u00a0Nick Naylor belongs in the same august company as these celluloid rogues.<\/p>\n A high point in the movie\u2019s hilarity takes place when Nick lunches at an old, oak-paneled club with a couple of fellow lobbyists: Polly Bailey (played smart and sultry by the lovely Maria Bello), who fronts for the liquor industry, and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner, at his good-ol\u2019-boy best), who represents an NRA-like gun group. It\u2019s a gut-busting scene in which the three\u2014who unofficially refer to themselves by the morbid label \u201cthe MOD squad\u201d (Merchants Of Death)\u2014heatedly debate whose industry can take credit for more deaths. Watching Nick beam proudly while Polly and Bobby Jay sulk, because tobacco kills more than booze and guns\u00a0combined<\/em>, is simply priceless.<\/p>\n \u201cThis movie\u2019s libertarian,\u201d Reitman has said of its politics, noting that college students have been particularly receptive to its message: that even though big business can often be sleazy and manipulative, the alternative\u2014intrusive and restrictive big government\u2014is a far greater threat.<\/p>\n Here, big government is personified by the meddling PC-environmentalist-liberal Senator Ortolan K. Finisterre (typical Buckley wit\u2014\u201cFinisterre\u201d is a French compound word meaning \u201cend of the world\u201d), played priggishly puritanical by gifted character actor William H. Macy. Finisterre won\u2019t rest until a skull-and-crossbones label is emblazoned on every pack of cigarettes sold in the U.S., because\u2014although most Americans know smoking is bad for them by reading the Surgeon General\u2019s warning\u2014current labeling\u00a0discriminates<\/em>\u00a0against the illiterate and non-English speaking!<\/p>\n Naylor\u2019s appearance before the senator\u2019s rigged subcommittee hearing is a gem that spotlights the real issue at stake: not whether cigarette smoking is harmful, but whether people have the right to choose to use that harmful product. For just a moment, the movie turns serious as Naylor summons what integrity he has left to defend his industry\u2019s right to sell its products, and consumers\u2019 rights to think and choose for themselves. It\u2019s a stirring, unambiguous defense of liberty that one seldom encounters in today\u2019s culture, especially in Hollywood.<\/p>\n With a light touch, Reitman draws great performances from a stellar supporting cast: Rob Lowe as pretentious and unctuous Hollywood mega-agent Jeff Megall; the kittenish Katie Holmes as ambitious investigative journalist Heather Holloway, who\u00a0<\/strong>comes on to Nick like catnip and ends up using him as a scratching post; J.K. Simmons as Nick\u2019s gruff boss, B.R., who barks four-letter words at his staff; Sam Elliott as the ex-Marlboro Man, now quietly, bitterly dying of emphysema; and Robert Duvall as \u201cthe Captain,\u201d the last great Southern-gentleman tobacco baron, who takes Nick under his wing and teaches him the secret of making a perfect mint julep.<\/p>\n The result is that rare serious movie you don\u2019t have to take too seriously. With this, his feature-film directorial debut, Jason Reitman has proven himself already the comedic equal of his father, director Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Ghostbusters, Kindergarten Cop<\/em>). Full of dry wit and hysterical satire, intellectually stimulating and highly entertaining\u2014but never heavy-handed\u2014Thank You for Smoking<\/em>\u00a0is one of the best comedies I\u2019ve seen in years.<\/p>\n Robert L. Jones is a photojournalist living and working in Minnesota. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Black & White Magazine<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Hoy! New York<\/span><\/span>, the New York\u00a0<\/span>Post<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>RCA Victor\u00a0<\/span>(Japan)<\/span><\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>Scene in San Antonio<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Spirit Magazine<\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Canada),\u00a0<\/span>Top Producer<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0 and the Trenton\u00a0<\/span>Times<\/span><\/span>. Mr. Jones is a past entertainment editor of\u00a0<\/span>The New Individualist<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Reitman Lights Up the Screen [xrr rating=4\/5] Thank You for Smoking. Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, William H. Macy, David Koechner, J.K. Simmons, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes, Sam Elliott, and Robert Duvall. Screenplay by Jason Reitman. Based on the novel by Christopher Buckley.\u00a0Directed by Jason Reitman. (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2005, Color, 92 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,38,37,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-comedies","category-comedies","category-independent-films","category-mreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonesing4movies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}