Thank You For Smoking

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: March 17th, 2006 (limited)

Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Robert Duvall, Katie Holmes, William H. Macy, Sam Elliott, Maria Bello, J. K. Simmons

Writers: Christopher Buckley (based on his novel), Jason Reitman

Director: Jason Reitman

Premise: Satirical comedy follows the machinations of Big Tobacco's chief spokesman, Nick Naylor, who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son.

[ono]

Premise sounds stupid, trailer makes it look good, and since that's a tool of the devil, who knows what the final outcome will be.  Still, the cast is the greatest promise that this will be a decent flick in the midst of all spring dreck.

[Kal]

I like the trailer and I like the casting... looks funny

[Pubrick]

looks like a

A wildly original, off-the-wall comedy

it's a good premise. it could only fail if it ends up the dude aaron eckhart gets cancer and can't go to his son's soccer game. the cigarette ppl hav to win to some extent.. or it better be a damn good comeuppance.

[Garam]

'Easy fix...one line: "Thank God we created the...whatever...device." '


Eheheh. That was a good'un.

[Ravi]

"The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese."

Funny trailer.

[MacGuffin]

No "Smoking" Sex for Katie

The biggest mystery at this year's Sundance Film Festival: Who gave Katie Holmes the snip?

At a sold-out screening for his new satirical comedy, Thank You for Smoking, rookie filmmaker Jason "Son of Ivan" Reitman was shocked--shocked!--to discover that a 12-second scene of a hookup between Holmes' journalist character and a tobacco lobbyist played by Aaron Eckhart had vanished.

"We were sitting there in shock," the movie's writer-director told the Los Angeles Times. "And I turned to other people who had worked on the film, and were completely confused. But the audience didn't seem to notice or care."

Following the screening, Reitman immediately addressed the audience, which included Holmes and Eckhart, explaining that the scene was missing and "something went wrong with he reel." (The steamy encounter between Holmes and Eckhart's characters were in the version screened at last fall's Toronto Film Festival.) His remarks instead drew grumblings, and even a few boos, from the crowd.

Thus began the Case of the Missing Sex Scene.

News of Holmes' disappearing act spread quickly around the mountain town of Park City, Utah, and became fodder for the gossip mill. Several publications posited that the missing scene was somehow the work of Holmes' fiance, Tom Cruise, who, the theory goes, is so protective of his future missus that he didn't want her to be seen cavorting in the nude.

And while another Holmes romp later in the film remained intact in the Sundance print, the Cruise conspiracy theorists were undaunted.

Us Weekly, for instance, quoted one unnamed insider as saying "industry people started whispering that Tom Cruise didn't want the scene in there because it was dirtier than he was comfortable with." Another anonymous wag tells the magazine that the Cruise-is-culpable theory "was the first thing that went through everyone's mind!"

Holmes, who's pregnant with the Mission: Impossible star's first biological offspring (Cruise adopted two children, Isabella and Connor, with Nicole Kidman), wasn't available for comment. Cruise's camp rejected assertions the couch-jumping thespian and self-proclaimed sonogram expert had anything to do with the edit.

Cruise himself was said to have ditched the screening to hit the slopes, according to TMZ.com.

It was up to Reitman to clear Cruise's name and solve the mystery. He told the Times that the scene was accidentally cut when two reels were spliced together in Los Angeles as filmmakers prepared a print for Smoking's four festival screenings.

In any case, Reitman said he plans to restore the sex scene when Fox Searchlight releases Thank You for Smoking in theaters on Mar. 17.

[SiliasRuby]

OoooOoo, another wonderful conspiracy, are you listening Oliver?

[matt35mm]

Even thinking that Cruise could be involved is just stupid.  First of all: Nicole Kidman is one of the most nuded actresses around, most of all in a film co-starring Cruise.  Second of all: Holmes has been nude in a film before, and we all know that the GASP! value of nudity is effectively an all-or-nothing deal, as in once we've seen it, we've seen it.

So Cruise has been acting differently for the past year, but that doesn't mean he's stupid or has forgotten how movies are and should be, or Holmes's perrogatives as an actress, or Reitman's perrogatives as a filmmaker.  To even suggest that Cruise would sneakily have a scene cut is vile.

I mean I really find it offensive that people would think that for a second.

Although that would be pretty fishy if the sex scene wasn't at the end or beginning of the reel... but I have no way of knowing that.  It'd just be interesting is all.

[hedwig]

wow, are you tom cruise's mother?

[matt35mm]

I'm not offended for Cruise's sake.  I'm offended that people are so unreasonable.

But I wouldn't be surprised if only a small handful of people even thought of Cruise, and whoever wrote the article just wanted to spice things up by making it seem like it was the talk of the town.  It's not like anything else seems to be happening at Sundance.  Reporters gotta write about somethin'.

[Pozer]

Yeah, but Cruise wasn't crazy back in the Nicole Kidmen days.  Little peculiar at least that it happened to be that scene that was accidentally cut out.  It's far fetched indeed, but not a mission, I believe, that would be... impossible. 
Oh no he didn't.

[polkablues]

If it weren't for Tom Cruise's behavior over the past year, there's no way a rumor like this could have taken hold.  But the dude's been so crazy, most people hear something like that and think, "Well, it sure sounds like something he might do...."

[modage]

the very definition of a rental.  some good moments (unfortunately almost all of which are in the trailer) sprinkled through an otherwise okay film.  i thought this would be more of a cutting satire, but besides the David Koechner gun lobbyist it all seemed pretty grounded to me.  i thought satire was really pushing things for comic effect?  eckhart is good but its sort of what you'd expect.  what you wouldnt expect or need is the sons sweet story getting in the way of what could've been a more ruthless satire.  it just sort of tip toes when it should stomp.  rent it if you must.

[Ravi]

Sucks to hear that, since the trailer is so good.