Thank You For Smoking (2006) * * *

Directed by:  Jason Reitman

Starring:  Aaron Eckhart, Cameron Bright, Maria Bello, David Koechner, Sam Elliott, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Katie Holmes


The fact that Nick Naylor (Eckhart) is a lobbyist for Big Tobacco doesn't detract from his charm and likability.     When asked why he does it, he replies, "Because I'm good at it."    He is.    Nick is able to go on TV shows defending smoking, even when faced with a cancer-stricken teenager in the midst of chemotherapy treatments.     Thank You For Smoking is a pointed satire of the lobbying industry.    Yes, it is as much an industry as tobacco or auto manufacturing.    Billions of dollars in profits hang in the balance.    

Nick's job is to keep people smoking and keep the government at bay.    He is divorced and has a son, but not many friends.    The closest thing he has to friends are representatives from the Alcohol and Firearms lobbies (Bello and Koechner), whom he meets with once a week over lunch to talk shop.   

Nick's biggest challenge is a congressman from Maine (Macy) who is eager to debate him on the dangers of smoking.     Nick says he can back up claims that smoking isn't bad for you with scientific research conducting by Big Tobacco scientists.    "These guys can disprove gravity."    Lobbying isn't exactly life-affirming work, but it pays the bills.    Eckhart performance is smooth, charismatic, and charming.     He can sell ice to Eskimos.    If he has any reservations about his job, he doesn't show it much.     But yet, he has to know he is helping peddle a lethal product.   

Reitman, like in his other films Up In The Air (2009) and Young Adult (2011) walks the fine line between satire and presenting us with characters who are borderline pathetic.    Do we laugh at them so we may not cry?    Possibly.    There are no real heroes in Thank You For Smoking, just varying degrees of greedy corporate types and sleazy politicians.    It is a tribute to Reitman and Eckhart that they create a mostly likable guy in Nick Naylor who we wish would see the light.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Bryan Singer

Starring:  Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Hoult, Halle Berry, Ellen Page

On the personality scale, X-Men fall short of The Avengers but are more palatable than The Fantastic Four.    They are rather inert, but at least have special, distinct superpowers that can wow us every now and then.    The movies, like the X-Men themselves, leave me with a "meh" feeling.    I'm not bored, but I'm not engrossed.     Try as they might, even the gifted cast can't stop the indifference in me.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is a sequel to X-Men: First Class (2011), which introduced Professor Xavier (McAvoy) and Magneto (Fassbender) as young men learning to deal with their powers.    It also brought into focus the rift in ideaology which created the on-again, off-again friendship between Professor X and Magneto.     I didn't see the first two X-Men movies, truth be told, but nothing about any of their sequels or spinoffs make me want to go back and watch them.   

The plot of this film held promise, mostly because time travel movies are inherently intriguing.    The idea of defeating time and changing the past holds universal appeal.     Days Of Future Past brings together the X-Men as young and older people, sometimes in the same frame.    Wolverine (Jackman) doesn't qualify as young or old because he is immortal, so he is the one chosen to have his mind transferred back to 1973 to prevent mutant Raven (Lawrence) from killing a scientist who is making it his life's mission to destroy mutants.    The assassination led to unintended consequences in which Raven is taken prisoner and her DNA used to create giant robots that can adapt to mutants and destroy them in a worldwide war 50 years later.    It is up to Wolverine to convince the younger Professor X and Magneto to put aside their differences to stop the assassination.    

How Wolverine exactly travels back in time is explained, but not really understood.    We accept that it happens and move on.    Poor Wolverine seems to land the worst jobs and takes the biggest beating of all of the X-Men.     The blades that protrude at will from his knuckles don't do as much damage as the fact that he simply can't be killed.     The other X-Men have wild powers also, but as people they get the short end of the stick in the charisma department.    Jennifer Lawrence is beautiful, of course, but spends a lot of the movie as a blue shape-shifter who could've just as easily walked in from the Avatar set.

There is the occasional fun involving one-liners and some neat effects, plus we get to see actors who enjoy themselves despite slim material.    I won't divulge the outcome of the time travel, except to say that generations of X-Men will be able to attend Professor X's school and learn history from Wolverine.     How much is tuition at that place anyway?  

Lucky You (2007) * * *

Directed by:  Curtis Hanson

Starring:  Eric Bana, Robert Duvall, Drew Barrymore, Debra Messing, Charles Martin Smith

Huck Cheever (Bana) grinds out a living playing poker on the Las Vegas strip.    Things aren't going so well lately.    Desperate to earn the $10,000 entry fee for the upcoming World Series of Poker, Huck hocks his mother's wedding ring and plies his trade at the poker tables.     He is on a first-name basis with casino managers and waitresses, who let him in on the lucrative games.    Huck's skill was learned from his estranged father LC Cheever (Duvall), who is a former world champion back in Vegas trying to reconcile with his son.     Huck hasn't gotten over his father's divorce from his mother.    His play as a "blaster" (a player who bets heavy and fearlessly in order to win money fast) may be attributed to his anger toward his father.     "You play cards like you should live your life and you live your life like you should play cards," LC tells Huck.    Huck doesn't understand that until a woman named Billie (Barrymore) walks into his life.

Huck likes Billie well enough, but he seems to be playing an angle at all times with her.    He is unable to see that she may be good for more than someone to teach poker to.    When he wins her some money at the table, you can sense he will be around later to "borrow" it to play more cards.    Billie, as played by Barrymore, is sweet and a bit naive.    She falls for Huck despite her sister Suzanne's (Messing) advice not to.    Huck is a pleasant guy, but is better at reading people when they play cards than in real life situations.    He doesn't sense his father's desire to reconcile any more than he senses that Billie sees him as a potential lifemate.   

Lucky You is entirely more fascinating when it deals with poker.   It knows its stuff.    We get a sense of the action and we learn the lingo.     Poker is a game of skill and a game in which you sometimes create your own luck.    Of course, landing that third 8 you need to knock your opponent out of a tournament is luck writ large.    But also needed is plenty of character and an ability to bounce back from a bad hand.     The pros seen in this film have made a living at playing the odds and knowing when to fold.    "Sometimes a good fold is as good as a win,"  Huck tells Billie.    There is a payoff later when Billie breaks up with Huck saying, "I'm making a good fold."   

The Huck/Billie romance isn't nearly as interesting.    They have more fights and breakups in their first week of knowing each other than most couples do in a lifetime.     The romance is perfunctory at best.    I'd give it another week until they call it quits for good.    Billie is the catalyst to Huck's realization that life is more than poker, but it seems added to the mix in order to boost the box office.     You get a sense the movie was hedging its bets.

Everything comes down to the final table at the WSOP, in which Huck and LC square off.    There is plenty of suspense in these sequences, especially when Huck and LC go head to head after a heart-to-heart chat in the men's room.     I know Huck forgives his father and all, but damn, throwing away pocket aces in that situation is so extreme we almost can't believe it.    Regardless, I admired Lucky You for its craftsmanship and its strong points, which involve a lot of hands of poker where Huck and LC do their stuff.    

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) * * * *

Directed by:  Woody Allen

Starring:  Woody Allen, Martin Landau, Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterston, Alan Alda, Anjelica Houston, Joanna Gleason, Mia Farrow

Woody Allen's contention in Crimes and Misdemeanors is that we all live in a godless universe, or at least a universe in which God turns a blind eye to evil.    Then what guides us?    During a deep philosophical conversation between a wealthy ophthalmologist named Judah (Landau) and his patient, a rabbi who is going blind (Waterston), the rabbi states, "I don't think I could go on living if I didn't believe there was a moral structure."     Judah chillingly replies, "God is a luxury I can't afford."    The rabbi believes Judah is merely confessing an affair to him, one which has gone on for two years and threatens to turn his world of wealth and privilege upside down.    However, Judah has other plans, which involve hiring a hitman to forever silence his mistress.     At first, such a thought repulses him.   "She's not an insect to be stepped on."   But when the chips are down, Judah decides to arrange the murder with help from his brother, who has Mafia connections.

This is the Crime.    The Misdemeanor involves a struggling documentary filmmaker named Cliff whose marriage has turned platonic and is filming a documentary about his arrogant, rich, and famous brother-in-law whom he envies and hates.   The brother-in-law Lester (Alda) is a sitcom writer and producer who theorizes: "Comedy is tragedy plus time", "If it bends it's funny, if it breaks it isn't" and "Oedipus is the structure of funny."   Cliff can't stand him.  Matters are only made worse when both men vie for the affections of production assistant Halley (Farrow), who likes Cliff well enough but may be more drawn to Lester.   Cliff, although married, is in love with Halley and wants desperately to be with her.    But can he find happiness in a godless universe?    We know he can't compete with the powerful, assertive Lester, but stranger things have happened.    

The film moves effortlessly between the two stories.   Judah's dilemma takes on tragic dimensions, while Cliff's is played like a comedy in which the joke seems to always be on Cliff.    Even Cliff's own documentary on a Holocaust-surviving professor hits a wall when the old man commits suicide out of the clear blue.   "Every day he said yes to life.   Today, he said no."   Cliff is doomed to be unhappy, while Judah may actually come out clean on the other side.   Is this just? 

Crimes and Misdemeanors is one of Allen's best films.   Landau's story takes unexpected turns, including a sudden bout of conscience which causes Judah to revisit the religious upbringing he had once dismissed.    Regardless of Judah's crisis, his mistress is dead and being upset after the fact won't help in God's eyes.    Judah's story is as absorbing as Cliff's is funny.   The two stories which seemingly have little in common are dovetailed nicely during the final wedding sequence.    We find out how things turn out for both Judah and Cliff during an enlightening conversation.   It is telling that the guy who set up the murder of his lover is the happier of the two.   What does that tell you about the universe?  

Dirty Harry (1971) * * *

Directed by:  Don Siegel

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Reni Santoni, Harry Guardino, Andy Robinson

Before Dirty Harry became a popular action star, he was Harry Callahan, who made his debut in this 1971 film as "Dirty Harry", but not for reasons you would expect.    He is a San Francisco detective (or Inspector as called in San Francisco) who is brought in to do the dirty jobs other cops won't touch.   Like talking a guy down who is threatening to jump from atop a tall building.    Or being the bagman holding $200,000 in ransom money to save a kidnapped girl from a psycho named Scorpio, whose letters taunting the city and police are an echo of the Zodiac killer who was terrorizing the city at that time.

Dirty Harry is not simply a well-made thriller, but one that poses questions difficult for anyone, let alone police, to answer.    There are at least two instances in which Harry's treatment of Scorpio violates his civil rights.    Harry shoots Scorpio in the leg and steps on it in order to find out where the missing girl is.    Callahan's reasoning is one we can all identify with, but according to his superiors, "you violated at least the 4th, 5th, 6th, and possibly the 14th amendment."    Most would agree with Callahan's version of justice when it comes to Scorpio, who is a vile, reprehensible man with no redeeming qualities.     But is it legal?   This isn't liberal speak, but a question posed by the creation of the amendments that Callahan violated despite his practical intentions.    

Because Scorpio is such a creep who deserves his fate in the famous "Do I Feel Lucky?" scene, it is easy to root for Harry.    In this film and subsequent Dirty Harry sequels, he states his case that the victims deserve to be spoken for and crimes deserve punishment.     That is what drives him to use extreme methods.     Despite this, some believed Dirty Harry painted Callahan as a facist vigilante.    Magnum Force (1973) was made, I believe, to debunk the notion that his mindset was facist.    I believe the former argument is correct.

Dirty Harry is not a mindless action thriller.    It introduces us to a cop who doesn't stepping on a few toes and civil rights to achieve justice.    Eastwood's persona in many films is that of a man of few words with plenty of simmering emotion underneath.     Like Eastwood the director, Eastwood the actor is economical in every respect.     He doesn't say or do more than is required, which adds to his mystique.    Words come out of his mouth as if there isn't much more where that came from.    He is defined more by action.     Just ask Scorpio, who after kidnapping a busload of kids, is on the receiving end of Dirty Harry's famous .44 Magnum.    Then again, there wouldn't be much left of him to ask.