Favorite Films of All Time, No. 42

 


In 2022 I'm revisiting my favorite films of all time, doing a countdown of the Top 50 throughout the year. Check back each Friday for the latest installment in the countdown of films, which include releases through 2019. Agree? Disagree? Have a thought on the choice? Be sure to share in the comments below!

Nick Naylor: [Narrating] Few people on this planet know what it is to be truly despised. Can you blame them? I earn a living fronting an organizing that kills one thousand two hundred human beings a day; twelve hundred people. We're talking two jumbo jet plane loads of men, women, and children. I mean there's Attila, Genghis, and me, Nick Naylor the face of cigarettes, the colonel sanders of nicotine. This is where I work, the Academy of Tobacco Studies. It was established by seven gentlemen you may recognize from C-Span. These guys realized quick if they were gonna claim cigarettes were not addictive they better have proof. This is the man they rely on, Erhardt Von Grupten Mundt. They found him in Germany. I won't go into the details. He's been testing the link between nicotine and lung cancer for thirty years, and hasn't found any conclusive results. The man's a genius, he could disprove gravity. Then we got our sharks. We draft them out of Ivy League law schools and give them timeshares and sports cars. It's just like a John Grisham novel. Well you know without all the espionage. Most importantly we got spin control. That's where I come in. I get paid to talk. I don't have an MD or law degree. I have a baccalaureate in kicking ass and taking names. You know that guy who can pick up any girl, I'm him on crack.

Thank You For Smoking (2005)
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, David Koechner, Cameron Bright, Katie Holmes, and J.K. Simmons
Director: Jason Reitman
About: I love Reitman as a filmmaker. He's a talented writer and director who has crafted some films I've really enjoyed. This was his first feature film, based on the novel from Christopher Buckley. On the face of it, the film seems like a hard sell. The protagonist is a spokesman for big tobacco. But the writing and direction, paired with a great performance from Eckhart in the lead role is magic. This was among my favorite films the year it was released and among my favorite films from Reitman. There is a comedic sensibility in this film that I really enjoy. The characters pop and the script really hits a sweet spot for me. That quote above is the narration that opens the film and really sets the tone for the journey we're about to embark upon. There are a lot of things I enjoy about the film and what it says about our world and the film industry. Rob Lowe has a great minor role here, too, while Bello and Koechner are a kick as the representatives for alcohol and firearms. Few filmmakers started their run as strongly as Reitman in his first three films. This isn't his only entry on the list, but might be one of the films on this list that the fewest number of people have seen. Regardless, it was an easy pick for me to land on the Top 50 list.

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