Thank You For Smoking Squanders Its Potential On Derivative Storytelling

Juno was the movie that took director Jason Reitman to a whole new level of fame, but it wasn't his very first foray into the world of feature-length movies. After directing a large number of short films, Reitman made his inaugural foray into this type of directing with Thank You For Smoking, a political satire that establishes the kind of character-informed dark comedy that would be omnipresent in his subsequent works. Unfortunately, the kind of quality that would be found in Reitman's next three features is nowhere near as prominent in Thank You For Smoking, which is a more erratic and frequently frustrating type of Jason Reitman movie.

Monster Trucks Is The Best Movie Of 2017

That headline is technically true since all the other movies I've seen theatrically this year were technically released in 2016. Monster Trucks is the only 2017 movie I've seen theatrically thus far, so, yep, it is indeed the Best Movie Of 2017 for me right now!

Snarky explanation for that clickbait headline out of the way, let's talk about Monster Trucks, the second feature film from Paramount Animation that's been delayed nearly two whole years after its initial May 2015 release date and also serves as the live-action directorial debut for Ice Age director Chris Wedge. It's a live-action movie with a CGI creature best friend for the lead character in the vein of those Smurfs and Alvin And The Chipmunk movies, though this is more like the forgotten 2009 film G-Force in that Monster Trucks is technically an original property. And, thankfully, it's better than all of the other 21st century live-action/CGI family movies I just listed off.

The Interview Review

An Interview To Remember

It's really not hyperbole to say that few features in 2014 have generated as much press as The Interview. There was of course the North Korea kerfuffle, which wound up resulting in nothing despite Sony releasing the film in over 500 theaters. Now the film gets to have one of the shortest windows between theatrical release and being available of Netflix instant streaming. It is by the mighty power of Netflix I was able to finally watch this film and see what Seth Rogens newest cinematic tale was all about.