Thank You For Smoking

If cigarettes were $5 bills, my parents would have smoked a crap-load of $5 bills. Seriously. Lucky for me, they just smoked tons of cigarettes.

Burning money would have been a waste and bad for the environment. They cared a great deal for the environment and reused whenever possible. For instance, before spending that $5 bill on some smokes, they made sure to roll it up and snort coke with it. Bang! 2 birds, 1 stone. Oooo, they also reused the smoke! Our livingroom was like a big 2nd hand smoke experiment. But before you get all crazy about them exposing us kids to nicotine at such a young age, you should know that they mixed it up with some pot smoke whenever possible. Bang! 2 birds, 1 stoned.I guess you can say I’m not a huge fan of smoking, but I don’t exhale that on others. Unless they are smoking anywhere near me. Then I say, “Hey! Smoke Face! Yeah, you, Smokeback Mountain! Beat it!” OK, well, I think that. What I actually say isn’t really audible to anyone and consists, mostly, of mumbles and tisking sounds. Big Tobacco must have the same problem because they have lobbyists do all their talking. That’s where Thank You for Smoking sets it’s story. Aaron Eckhart, one of my new favorites, plays Nick Naylor, lobbyist for Big Tobacco. What a job. He’s basically a BS artist for a living, a great one. It’s actually fun watching him do his thing. He spins every bad tobacco story to the point that people start to buy his crap. Amazing. Nick struggles with pretending nothing is wrong for a living while his son is watching. You know, for a movie about a tobacco lobbyist there wasn’t much smoking in the movie at all. Hmmm.Thank You For Smoking is based on a novel by Christopher Buckley. I guess it was in movie limbo for a long time. Cheers to Jason, son of Ivan, Reitman for writing and directing a very funny movie! He’s equipped for such things since his dad directed Meatballs, Stripes, Ghost Busters, Kindergarten Cop, etc. I know Jason is his own person with his own talents and whatnot. I’m just sayin’ it doesn’t hurt to have Ivan for yer dad.Oh man! Stand out performance: Rob Lowe! That dude is FUNNY! He plays this Hollywood producer and he’s just hilarious.Thank You For Smoking earns an R rating from the MPAA on account of the F Bombs and the bumping of the uglies. So, leave the kids at home. Preferably with a responsible caretaker. Lucky for you, my folks aren’t available.  I thought about asking my movie buddy, Matt Steele, if he wanted to go bum some smokes afterward. You know, to complete the experience? Kinda like how I constantly go to McDonalds after seeing Super-Size Me. But it was late and smoking sucks. This movie did NOT suck and I did NOT hate it!