Movie Review Black Los Angeles

BlackNLA Movie Reviews

*****THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*****

by Edwardo Jackson

BIASES: 30 (yikes!) year old black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (R)

MOVIE BIASES: I hate smoking but love the reviews. Pre-sold.

MAJOR PLAYERS: Aaron Eckhart (In the Company of Men), Cameron Bright
(Ultraviolet), William H. Macy (State & Main), and writer/director Jason Reitman

Full disclosure: I HATE smoking. Not only does it smell bad, invade my privacy to breathe free, but also I'm allergic to it (lucky for me, I live in the most smoke-free state, California, where even smoking at the beach is banned - good times!). Yet when faced with watching a movie that gleefully defends such an ugly, hazardous habit (true, I love salt, but it's only killing me, not everyone around me, too) via its main character, believe it or not, I lit up (inside).

"Few people know what its like to be truly despised," opines Nick Naylor (Eckhart), spinmeister extraordinaire and the face of Big Tobacco as the VP of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. As one-third of the M.O.D. (Merchants of Death) Squad - which includes alcohol and firearms lobbyists Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner), respectively - Naylor turns a tour de force performance on a TV talk show into a career launching pad for advancing the cause of smoking in films. While an unethical reporter (Katie Holmes) "researches" him intimately, the divorced Nick heads off to California with his young, admiring son Joey (Bright) in tow, ready to ply his charms on Hollywood's top agent, Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe) of the E.G.O. agency. Looming in the background is a Congressional showdown with Vermont Senator Ortolan Finistirre (Macy), who aims to put a skull and crossbones symbol on every pack of cigarettes to drive Big Tobacco out of business.

Where do you begin with a movie that's nearly perfect in every way? Begin at the beginning, I suppose: Jason Reitman makes an astonishing, thoroughly confident feature debut in this adaptation of the Christopher Buckley novel. With accomplished bloodlines ("Stripes," "Dave," and "Ghostbusters" director Ivan Reitman is his dad), Reitman's script is a polished, intelligent, and relentlessly
hilarious assemblage of satirical dialogue, realistically humorous characters, and statistical information (1200 smokers a day die, 435,000 a year, etc.). Using sardonic, smoking-themed songs in the soundtrack, Reitman's "Smoking" is chock full of directorial jokes, clever sight gags, and freeze framed voiceovers that belie the
serious, anti-smoking message beneath by fearlessly, recklessly playing against it.

The strong ensemble cast is more than up to the challenge of this flawlessly executed script. Forming the other two-thirds of their own little ATF of destruction, Bello and Koechner are wonderfully amoral compadres to Naylor, with their characters not only supporting their cigarette-lobbying friend but also comparing product-related fatalities as a game of one-upsmanship (Nick to firearms' Bobby Jay: "What do you kill, only 11,000 a year?"). Katie Holmes is fine as the reporter doing an article on Nick (although her much ballyhooed nude scene is, still, curiously missing) and Cameron Bright, once again, is routinely great (with seven movies in the last two years, let's just call him the Male Dakota Fanning) as Nick's sponge-like son who shares a bond with his dad ("Please don't ruin my childhood," he implores at Parent Career Day) that definitely goes beyond DNA. Even Rob Lowe, as sleep-deprived, kimono-wearing uber-agent Jeff "Invented Product
Placement" Megall, registers nicely, playing the head of an agency so esoteric and self-important it boasts indoor koi ponds, a silent sandbox raker, and stealth moving elevators.

All this is nice; however, I have seen the face of the devil - and it is the blond-haired, blue-eyed, and gleaming smile visage of Aaron Eckhart. Truly believing that "If it's your job to be right, you're never wrong," Eckhart's Naylor is that most dangerous of all weapons, the poison pill in the pretty package. Dubbed a "yuppie Mephistopheles," Naylor is an expert at spinning any kind of debate in his favor ("That's the beauty of argument; if you argue correctly, you're never wrong"). Eckhart, all cleft chin and middle-America self-confidence, was born to play this role in all its/his exuberance. Proudly proclaiming that his job "requires a moral flexibility" to let him sink to the depths he does to defend Big Tobacco, Eckhart is in such command of being Nick Naylor, he actually has you rooting for the vilest of the vile: a TOBACCO. LOBBYIST! If Eckhart as Naylor's enthusiastic (but flawed) defense of argumentation isn't downright inspiring in and of itself, his passionate protection of personal liberties before Congress is so persuasive, it turns into an informal tract for good parenting. While in defense of smoking. UN-believable!
If that isn't enough to start up the Aaron Eckhart for Oscar bandwagon, I'll drive the bus myself.

Make no mistake, I don't hate smokers, I hate smoking. Hate the sin, not the sinner, right? I only hate them when they intrude on my personal liberty with their secondhand smoke and bad manners. But if they, and their habit, were ever to have a champion, it would be this movie, this man, Nick Naylor. And, by default, his blindly unethical, hilarious crusade makes this movie the biggest anti-smoking message Truth.com could never afford. No matter which end of the cancer stick
you lie, this much cannot be denied: "Michael Jordan plays ball; Charles Manson kills people; I talk. Everybody has a talent." Yes, Nick/Aaron, yes you do.

@@@@ REELS
(FOUR REELS)
An urban legend/instant classic.

Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com!

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com




			BlackNLA Movie Reviews ***THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*** by Edwardo Jackson BIASES: 30 (yikes!) year old black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (R) MOVIE BIASES: I hate smoking but love the reviews. Pre-sold. MAJOR PLAYERS: Aaron Eckhart (In the Company of Men), Cameron Bright (Ultraviolet), William H. Macy (State & Main), and writer/director Jason Reitman Full disclosure: I HATE smoking. Not only does it smell bad, invade my privacy to breathe free, but also I'm allergic to it (lucky for me, I live in the most smoke-free state, California, where even smoking at the beach is banned - good times!). Yet when faced with watching a movie that gleefully defends such an ugly, hazardous habit (true, I love salt, but it's only killing me, not everyone around me, too) via its main character, believe it or not, I lit up (inside). "Few people know what its like to be truly despised," opines Nick Naylor (Eckhart), spinmeister extraordinaire and the face of Big Tobacco as the VP of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. As one-third of the M.O.D. (Merchants of Death) Squad - which includes alcohol and firearms lobbyists Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner), respectively - Naylor turns a tour de force performance on a TV talk show into a career launching pad for advancing the cause of smoking in films. While an unethical reporter (Katie Holmes) "researches" him intimately, the divorced Nick heads off to California with his young, admiring son Joey (Bright) in tow, ready to ply his charms on Hollywood's top agent, Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe) of the E.G.O. agency. Looming in the background is a Congressional showdown with Vermont Senator Ortolan Finistirre (Macy), who aims to put a skull and crossbones symbol on every pack of cigarettes to drive Big Tobacco out of business. Where do you begin with a movie that's nearly perfect in every way? Begin at the beginning, I suppose: Jason Reitman makes an astonishing, thoroughly confident feature debut in this adaptation of the Christopher Buckley novel. With accomplished bloodlines ("Stripes," "Dave," and "Ghostbusters" director Ivan Reitman is his dad), Reitman's script is a polished, intelligent, and relentlessly hilarious assemblage of satirical dialogue, realistically humorous characters, and statistical information (1200 smokers a day die, 435,000 a year, etc.). Using sardonic, smoking-themed songs in the soundtrack, Reitman's "Smoking" is chock full of directorial jokes, clever sight gags, and freeze framed voiceovers that belie the serious, anti-smoking message beneath by fearlessly, recklessly playing against it. The strong ensemble cast is more than up to the challenge of this flawlessly executed script. Forming the other two-thirds of their own little ATF of destruction, Bello and Koechner are wonderfully amoral compadres to Naylor, with their characters not only supporting their cigarette-lobbying friend but also comparing product-related fatalities as a game of one-upsmanship (Nick to firearms' Bobby Jay: "What do you kill, only 11,000 a year?"). Katie Holmes is fine as the reporter doing an article on Nick (although her much ballyhooed nude scene is, still, curiously missing) and Cameron Bright, once again, is routinely great (with seven movies in the last two years, let's just call him the Male Dakota Fanning) as Nick's sponge-like son who shares a bond with his dad ("Please don't ruin my childhood," he implores at Parent Career Day) that definitely goes beyond DNA. Even Rob Lowe, as sleep-deprived, kimono-wearing uber-agent Jeff "Invented Product Placement" Megall, registers nicely, playing the head of an agency so esoteric and self-important it boasts indoor koi ponds, a silent sandbox raker, and stealth moving elevators. All this is nice; however, I have seen the face of the devil - and it is the blond-haired, blue-eyed, and gleaming smile visage of Aaron Eckhart. Truly believing that "If it's your job to be right, you're never wrong," Eckhart's Naylor is that most dangerous of all weapons, the poison pill in the pretty package. Dubbed a "yuppie Mephistopheles," Naylor is an expert at spinning any kind of debate in his favor ("That's the beauty of argument; if you argue correctly, you're never wrong"). Eckhart, all cleft chin and middle-America self-confidence, was born to play this role in all its/his exuberance. Proudly proclaiming that his job "requires a moral flexibility" to let him sink to the depths he does to defend Big Tobacco, Eckhart is in such command of being Nick Naylor, he actually has you rooting for the vilest of the vile: a TOBACCO. LOBBYIST! If Eckhart as Naylor's enthusiastic (but flawed) defense of argumentation isn't downright inspiring in and of itself, his passionate protection of personal liberties before Congress is so persuasive, it turns into an informal tract for good parenting. While in defense of smoking. UN-believable! If that isn't enough to start up the Aaron Eckhart for Oscar bandwagon, I'll drive the bus myself. Make no mistake, I don't hate smokers, I hate smoking. Hate the sin, not the sinner, right? I only hate them when they intrude on my personal liberty with their secondhand smoke and bad manners. But if they, and their habit, were ever to have a champion, it would be this movie, this man, Nick Naylor. And, by default, his blindly unethical, hilarious crusade makes this movie the biggest anti-smoking message Truth.com could never afford. No matter which end of the cancer stick you lie, this much cannot be denied: "Michael Jordan plays ball; Charles Manson kills people; I talk. Everybody has a talent." Yes, Nick/Aaron, yes you do. @@@@ REELS (FOUR REELS) An urban legend/instant classic. Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com! Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com © 2004, Edwardo Jackson