Ahoy, squirts! Quint here in the wee hours of the morning after my first full day at SXSW. I'm exhausted, having juggled organizing a last minute trip to Las Vegas for ShoWest, which has me leaving in a few short days, with my regular SXSW schedule. I saw 3 movies today and interviewed a PTA regular one on one style.
I'm on 20 hours of consciousness, so forgive me if the below is incoherent or brief.
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
This was the second time I've seen the movie. I saw it for the first time at the Santa Barbara Film Festival a couple weeks back.
I had a blast with the movie. It's fun, witty and incredibly entertaining with great performances all across the board. From Aaron Eckhart's lead character of tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor to William H. Macy as the ultra-ridiculously liberal senator to Katie Holmes' sexpot, dirt-digging reporter to J.K. Simmons doing what he does best... yelling and being a hardass. Everyone is great, including Rob Lowe as the "funny because it's true" stereotypical big Hollywood Agent and Naylor's lobbyist friends, Maria Bello (alcohol) and David Koechner (firearms).
Whew, that was a bunch of information in tight, little compact place.
If you haven't seen the trailer, I implore you... avoid it. It is a great trailer... if you've seen the movie. If you haven't, it gives away way, way, way, way, way too much.
All you need to know is Jason Reitman crafted a smart comedy that avoids being preachy anti-smoker or defiantly pro-smoker. The hero of the story is a despicable tobacco lobbyist... despicable, but really charming and likable.
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING is one of the most enjoyable films I've seen this year. Look out for a show-stealing performance from Adam Brody as Lowe's creepily enthusiastic assistant. Anyone who has had to deal with the fakeness of the Hollywood industry will recognize that character.
God, this review sucks... I'm sorry I'm fucking this one up. Just go see the movie. It's good. You'll like it, honest injun.
THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED
Moriarty wrote a great, in-depth review of this film RIGHT HERE!... I just want to add that this documentary, which is basically filmmaker Kirby Dick pulling the curtain back on the MPAA revealing the dirty old man hiding behind it, is a must see if you're a movie fan.
In fact, I'd say that this film should be required viewing for people considering getting into the industry... hell, for all high school kids and their parents.
THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED is one of those rare documentaries that is both important and entertaining. Dick and his mother/daughter investigator team staking out the MPAA and following the needlessly anonymous censors, putting faces to names and names to faces results in a lot of exciting and just plain hilarious exclamations of triumph and joy.
My only critique of the film is I wish Kirby had spent more time illustrating just how specifically the MPAA uses the ratings system as a censoring tool. Sure, they're not forcing filmmakers to cut to make an R. That's their choice... They can always release their film Unrated or NC-17... But they know that the majority of newspapers and TV stations won't carry advertising for NC-17 films and a lot of national chains won't carry them. They know that if they rate a film NC-17 it's the same as killing it. They might not have forced the newspapers, TV and theater chains to be so harsh against NC-17 films, but they certainly exploit it and for sometimes petty reasons as you see in the doc.
There's an interesting argument made by a first amendment lawyer in the doc that really fascinated me and I would have liked to have seen more on that as well. He was essentially saying that there'd be almost no chance of the government stepping in to censor films, but if they did set up a governmental censor board it'd be better than what we have now as at least the government would be subjected to the judiciary, not anonymous. There'd be the ability to fight for your film in the public eye.
Tons of filmmakers chime in with their thoughts on the MPAA, including funny bits from Matt Stone and Kevin Smith. But you also hear from Atom Egoyan, Darren Aronofsky, Mary Harron and John Waters.
I can't see one person seeing this documentary, seeing the hypocrisy and corruption within the MPAA , and not believe that it's time for reform in the movie rating system. It's been a long time coming, for sure, but Kirby Dick has made a quick, entertaining, but extremely informative film that wraps it all up in a nice little box. It's not a perfect documentary, but it could be the beginning of big changes if there's enough of a push and enough people see it. If you treasure film at all, try to find this one at a film fest near you. IFC has it, so hopefully it'll get around.
So, that's me. I'm about to collapse. Be back tomorrow with more. Hope I was at least somewhat coherent.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
