mconrad3 Blog

Under discussion:

Thank You for Smoking  (2006)

I fancy myself a cynic and pragmatist. While I do enjoy the flicks that have a bleak outlook on life and the future, I also enjoy a film that can play the proverbial fiddle while Rome burns. Thank You For Smoking is one of those films. It's a shame I didn't get around to seeing it when it was first released, and all along the way I've had people telling me it was one of those flicks I needed to see. Before director Jason Reitman gained his broad success with Juno, he tested the waters of absurdism and surrealism with this film. While some argue Juno was simply "too much", I think Thank You for Smoking manages a good balance, especially when covering an issue that affects many more people than teen pregnancy.

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is a lobbyist for big tobacco and has made his money "selling spin" and keeping the general public from completely turning against the people who make cigarettes. There aren't that many films that share my cynicism, or at the very least lack of humanistic idealism. People use their work to push for one side of an argument and worse yet paint the issue as black and white. What I liked about Thank You for Smoking was that it covered all the bases. You can't leave this movie and say for certain it was for or against tobacco, because it doesn't proport either position. It lets you see it through the eyes of a man who has to play devil's advocate for a living.

Juno was a film heavy on quirky dialogue and it was definitely something that rubbed people the wrong way. Thank You for Smoking is full of snappy dialogue and sardonic quips, but doesn't inundate you with it. You still can feel like there are people on this Earth who talk like the characters in this film. It has more than a few moments that are surreal, but it injects them with enough wryness that we still buy into it. That being said, I don't find many of the things that Naylor says or does to promote big tobacco, or any of the other characters in the movie, push the boundries of the kind of twists in argument someone in their position might use in real life. Naylor even says it's not about proving yourself right, "I've just proven you're wrong. And if you're wrong, I'm right."

It's a film that not only analyzes the issues we find in America today, but how we work with, through, or around them. Thank You for Smoking with feed your inner cynic. It will make you laugh and wryly smile at some of the unfortunate truths in the modern world. It doesn't come out and say that smoking is good or bad. It says the issue isn't that simple; and neither are most issues for that matter.

Under discussion:

Burn After Reading  (2008)

I'm a late bloomer as far as Coen brothers' movies go. Never got around to seeing too much of their stuff when it came out with the exception of  "O Brother Where Art Thou?". I suppose it was the same deal with "Burn After Reading". Despite the name drop, there wasn't much that really got me to go see it in theaters. I finally got the chance to tonight and it was a fun movie, but no masterpiece. The whole story is a somewhat complex string of relationships centering around a stolen disc believed to be state secrets. I didn't bother to try and solve it before the movie was over and found I enjoyed it much more as it simply unfolded before me.

There's quite a cast in this flick and I only wish they all got ample opportunities at screen time. Because the cast was so large, most of them don't get more than twenty minutes or so of screen time. Shotwise, the Coen brothers throw in their fair share of interesting frames. I found the pacing to be a little too slow for my taste. I know they have a penchant for very deliberate filmmaking, but it could have been sped up a bit. Otherwise everything else was up to snuff.

One of the things that bugged me a bit about this movie was that it was labeled as a black/dark comedy. They're one of my favorite types of movies, but it took too long to start introducing the dark humor. Most of my laughs up until the hour mark were for Brad Pitt's character. i thought the introduction of the "**** chair" was pretty novel, but ultimately all the humor based off of death and despair didn't show up until the last twenty minutes of the film.

"Burn After Reading" is a well rounded film. It doesn't make any big mistakes and it does a few good things. That's the standard coming from the Coens I suppose, but it didn't wow me. Expecting a high standard when I find out who's directing something is putting the horse before the cart, but when you're used to the horse pulling a golden cart...it's a little weird when it pulls a silver one.

Under discussion:

Snow Angels  (2008)

Suburban life can be mind numbingly boring, but there are times when the bubble bursts for a while and everybody in town realizes how screwed up things are both in and outside of the borders. Snow Angels, like American Beauty, is one of those films that can really illustrate the kind of messed up crap that happens behind closed doors. The film follows the interactions of a few different people in a small town. It starts with the sound of two gunshots and winds the clocks back to lead you up to where the shots rang out from and why.

It starts off slowly as a normal indie type film, but in the nearly hour long exposition we learn about all the things the main characters are going through. It's not so much as things are starting to fall apart, but that the last few chunks of foundation are going to give way and lead to a total collapse. The only plotline that seems to stay level is the budding romance between the two high school kids played by Juno's Olivia Thirlby and Anthony Angarano. It seems a bit out of place in contrast to all of the failing relationships, but it does serve to convey the message that despite everything that happens, life does go on.

I know the "suburban life isn't what it seems" theme is getting old, but I still think it's a meaningful message if done right. Snow Angels brings enough original material to the plate to keep the theme fresh and not make you think to throw it in the pile with American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, although it certainly is up to the same calibur as those films.

One of the things that really impressed me in this film was the dialogue. It wasn't fancy or flowery, but it was real and felt very natural. It's awkward where it needs to be, sardonic every once in a while, but still very genuine. Between the direction and acting, this film manages to make you cringe in your seat in the last twenty minutes without spilling a drop of blood on screen. Coming from someone who needs to see people on meathooks to get just a little uncomfortable, it was quite an accomplishment. I know a lot of the words I'm using to describe this flick aren't exactly bright and cheery, but that's what makes it so good. It goes for the heart and tugs at it periodically to keep you watching.

It wasn't without it's flaws, though. The odd placement of certain plot elements like the high school romance and the backstory between Angarano and Beckinsale's characters does throw you off a bit. Since there isn't a real resolution to some of them, you wonder why they made it into the final cut. They weren't glaring enough for me to get sucked out of the story, and they still add some extra strokes to the overall painting director David Gordon Green creates for us. If you don't get anything else out of Snow Angels (outside of the "suburban life isn't what it seems" theme that everyone's cashing in on these days) is that you never know what fate has in store for you, and sometimes its best to just go with the flow.