Thank You for Smoking

Thank You for Smoking is a unique, very funny movie with an outstanding cast. Smoking is a very touchy subject, but the film covers a lot of the nonsense that goes on with the anti-smoking movement without being insensitive to its dangers. Little tangent here, but every single campaign I've seen against cigarettes has been annoying and ineffective. If you've ever seen a commercial from New York's fairly recent series of commercials, you'll know what I mean. They try and shock you into quitting with grotesque imagery and fear mongering in a way that I find more offensive than if a smoker came up to me and blew smoke right into my face. Anyway, Eckhart plays a spokesman for a tobacco lobby who goes on TV and pokes holes in the poor arguments against the product he represents and generally wins at life, at least until the plot gets more serious near the middle. There's a bunch of different characters and subplots he jumps between, and the movie is pretty consistently and enjoyably paced.

After watching Juno, it's nice to see Reitman has some flexibility with the kind of comedy he can handle. Smoking is more mature and explicit, but never gets too base in the content and has a similar sense of intelligent humor. It's not quite the heartwarming film that Juno was, but it was put together just as well. I'm not sure how much of the script came from the book it was based on, but it's really just fun to watch how Eckhart faces each obstacle. I'm finding myself with not much to say here, other than almost every single speaking part was played by someone I know the name of or at least recognize, and that seemed almost odd but was also kind of cool. Really good film.

Get Smart

Get Smart wasn't great, but it was enjoyable enough that I don't feel my New Years Eve was completely wasted. I like Steve Carell a lot, and he stars among a great cast of all kinds of people, from recognizable comedic faces to great classical actors. Unfortunately, most of them aren't used to their full potential. There are just too many jokes that fall flat for it to be a good comedy. At times, it really seems more like a spy movie with some goofy jokes than a comedy movie about spies, which I feel is more how it was advertised. I've never seen Mel Brooks' original series, so I have no idea how well it compares or how true it is to the show's spirit, so I'm not sure what exactly it was supposed to be, but judging by the reactions of others it's not really waht it should have been.

I actually sort of feel like it does the spy thing better than the humor thing, maybe understandable considering Peter Segal's record of directing mediocre comedies. But there are some fairly interesting missions and the climax is genuinely pretty exciting. Anne Hathaway is hot enough to be a real Bond girl, and matches up against Carell pretty well, although the romance seemed forced to me. Alan Arkin reunites with Carell after his questionable Oscar-winning performance in Little Miss Sunshine and plays an interesting take on the veteran chief character, and Dwayne Johnson should really be in more movies. There's really not much more to say about the movie - it was mostly okay with a few moments that were pretty great. Definitely less than I hoped for after the teaser trailer.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

300 posts. I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed of myself.

Talladega Nights was much funnier than I thought it would be. I'm not sure why my expectations were low, I guess I just might be growing out of stupid comedies a bit, but it wasn't as dumb as I assumed. They could have just made fun of rednecks and NASCAR for a couple hours, but there were lots of clever moments and pretty good wordplay that made it quite funny in spots. Even when characters were just insulting each other, the specific insults were usually pretty darn good. It was especially great hearing it from Ricky's two kids, who were horrible brats in the beginning but ended up as articulate gentlemen.

Will Ferrell's schtick of picking a random, usually sports related profession and doing a movie about it is getting a little tiring, but he's been likable whenever I've seen him on the screen (I just realized I've never seen one of his movies in theaters, which is weird), and does a good job carrying this movie. John C. Reilly plays his sidekick and best friend, who's very dedicated but completely lacks common sense. Sacha Baron Cohen is also good as the villain to the story. They use the character as a simple excuse for a lot of French and gay jokes, but he provides a lot of amusement as well. The rest of the cast also does a pretty good job keeping things funny, including known names like Michael Clarke Duncan and Amy Adams. The dialogue is a strong point of the script if the pacing isn't. It felt like Ricky spent too little time doing well and too much wallowing in his own failure before recovering in the obvious return-to-glory storyline. Instead of spending time establishing the situation, there were some pretty drawn-out scenes that were strictly for laughs, although I suppose I can't fault a comedy for having those. In the end, I liked the movie quite a bit.

Reno 911!: Miami

I like Reno 911! well enough, though I never go out of my way to watch it. It's funny, but never that important to really follow it closely, so it's the kind of show you enjoy when it's on but maybe you don't care about it that much. I remember seeing a trailer for the movie, but it came and went without me even being aware it did. When I had the opportunity to check it out, I did.

The movie is chock full of entertaining cameos and funny guest stars. The Rock's one minute of screen time is classic, and Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt are great in their roles. Reno 911! is one of the better current examples of retroscripting, where the plot is known but almost all the dialogue is improvised by the actors. It makes for a slightly different style of humor that comes off as a bit more natural, while still being funny most of the time. They make good use of the movie format. There are a lot of over-the-top deaths in the movie with blood spraying everywhere, and it adds to the absurdity immensely. There's also liberal cursing and sexual humor, especially a great scene where Deputy Jones is running in horror from the sight of his coworkers doing some inappropriate things.

They do actually attempt to do a story with twists and a climax, and for the most part it works out all right. It's all done with a bit of a smirk, and it works out to a very funny movie that anyone who likes the show or characters, or even just the form of comedy, should probably enjoy.