Thank You for Smoking : 4 of 5

My pal Ernesto and I saw the trailer for this film together a while back, and it looked totally hilarious, so we decided to see if the trailer was truthful. It definitely was - this is a really smart, semi-intellectual, and really funny movie (which is a rare combination, I would say!). The story is about the best "spin man" for the tobacco industry (played well by Aaron Eckhart), who has the job of convincing the media that smoking is a choice. The public pretty much sees him as the devil, but he is brilliant in the way he can smooth-talk anyone into changing their opinion. Many of the lines that make you think are about this very topic, usually in conversations with his son, whom he teaches how to BS on an essay, and how you can always be "right" if you argue properly. Katie Holmes plays a supposedly seductive (I would say semi-seductive) reporter who nearly ruins his career, so there's a nice arc in what at first seems to be an episodic plot. There are hundreds of one-liners and laugh-out-loud moments, many of which give you the guilty pleasure of "should I be laughing at this?", but they're the kind of jokes that make you giggle and wonder at the same time. No industry escapes satire, including the Hollywood film industry, especially with Rob Lowe's totally bizarre Asian-overdosed producer role, who only sleeps on Sunday. From the fantastic opening titles spoofing cigarette labels, to the great choices in music, and right up to the closing narrative, this is the kind of movie that I wish were made more often!