Thank You For Smoking
Dear readers, i apologize for the extended delay. Nevertheless, the fact i have heard few complaints makes me wonder if you really exist anyway. Been busy at work, but watching moovies and books galore, so lots of reviews to come. Also, one serious thing, but we are going to see whether i find a real home for it first, before you get to see it. Here is a flick i went to see at the cinema last Friday. Enjoy!
Thank You For Smoking
Based on a book by Christopher Buckley that is sitting on my bookshelf unread after I persuaded a certain charming someone to buy it, this is a film (and book) about a tobacco lobbyist (Aaron Eckhart) who kind of finds his conscience and moves from lobbying specifically for the tobacco industry to being a general “consultant” in Washington. Along the way he bonds with his son and meets some quirky people in Hollywood.
Seeing this film in Washington was probably the right setting as I recognized most of the background (and DC ultimately is a very pretty city) and the fact that I work with insiders in the policy industry gave me that smug knowing feeling for most of the movie. However, his also meant that the audience was filled with other smug individuals with the same sense, including a seeming army of students who were both charmed by the scenery and enamoured by the fact that they too might one day get the opportunity to grow up and become like him. Considering what an amoral asshole the character is, this does not necessarily bode well for the next generation of Abramoff’s and DeLay’s, but I suppose it is a post-modern characteristic to see oneself as an amoral character occasionally. What makes me wonder is whether such post-modern blankness will foster and allow such amorality to grow to the point of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves the individual with a truly amoral core.
Enough of this philosophical theorising. I have very few gripes with the actual film; I enjoyed it through and through. It was fun, stylishly shot, and took a good dig at Katie Holmes. The character she plays is somewhat slight, but is one that is treated in a fabulously dismissive way in the film. This action was probably never intended as a slight, but it worked out well. Otherwise, Aaron Eckhart was good, Sam Elliot made an unnecessary cameo, Rob Lowe was very amusing (and his assistant alarming – apparently played by someone from The O.C. called Adam Brody), and Robert Duvall played a cliché (that actually delivered the line “tobacco takes care of it’s own,” in the same way that a mob boss might say it in a gangster movie. Argh). Still, it was entertaining, and thankfully did not turn out to have the horrendous ending that I had been led to believe it was going to have (by one of the very people I went to see it with – in fact, the most resistant one – and one who recently concocted a rather complex hoax in which he told me that buildings near our office are named after him (I suppose credulous me for believing him, but…). You know who you are – anyone else want to guess?). I won’t spoil it, but simply say that it does not turn out as sappy as it could have, or at times feels like, it is going to.
Survey says: definitely worth seeing. If not at the cinema then definitely on DVD/video, almost worth owning for the opening credits alone which are done in a fantastically cool way.
Thank You For Smoking
Based on a book by Christopher Buckley that is sitting on my bookshelf unread after I persuaded a certain charming someone to buy it, this is a film (and book) about a tobacco lobbyist (Aaron Eckhart) who kind of finds his conscience and moves from lobbying specifically for the tobacco industry to being a general “consultant” in Washington. Along the way he bonds with his son and meets some quirky people in Hollywood.
Seeing this film in Washington was probably the right setting as I recognized most of the background (and DC ultimately is a very pretty city) and the fact that I work with insiders in the policy industry gave me that smug knowing feeling for most of the movie. However, his also meant that the audience was filled with other smug individuals with the same sense, including a seeming army of students who were both charmed by the scenery and enamoured by the fact that they too might one day get the opportunity to grow up and become like him. Considering what an amoral asshole the character is, this does not necessarily bode well for the next generation of Abramoff’s and DeLay’s, but I suppose it is a post-modern characteristic to see oneself as an amoral character occasionally. What makes me wonder is whether such post-modern blankness will foster and allow such amorality to grow to the point of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves the individual with a truly amoral core.
Enough of this philosophical theorising. I have very few gripes with the actual film; I enjoyed it through and through. It was fun, stylishly shot, and took a good dig at Katie Holmes. The character she plays is somewhat slight, but is one that is treated in a fabulously dismissive way in the film. This action was probably never intended as a slight, but it worked out well. Otherwise, Aaron Eckhart was good, Sam Elliot made an unnecessary cameo, Rob Lowe was very amusing (and his assistant alarming – apparently played by someone from The O.C. called Adam Brody), and Robert Duvall played a cliché (that actually delivered the line “tobacco takes care of it’s own,” in the same way that a mob boss might say it in a gangster movie. Argh). Still, it was entertaining, and thankfully did not turn out to have the horrendous ending that I had been led to believe it was going to have (by one of the very people I went to see it with – in fact, the most resistant one – and one who recently concocted a rather complex hoax in which he told me that buildings near our office are named after him (I suppose credulous me for believing him, but…). You know who you are – anyone else want to guess?). I won’t spoil it, but simply say that it does not turn out as sappy as it could have, or at times feels like, it is going to.
Survey says: definitely worth seeing. If not at the cinema then definitely on DVD/video, almost worth owning for the opening credits alone which are done in a fantastically cool way.
posted by Raff @ 10:26 AM
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