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<TITLE>Movie review for "Thank You For Smoking" at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana"><B>This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...<BR>
</B><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#800000"><H2>Thank You For Smoking (R)<BR>
</H2></FONT><B>Thursday, Friday & Saturday, June 22, 23, & 24<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Sunday, June 25<BR>
4:45 & 7:00 PM<BR>
</B>$5/adult<BR>
KFS pass accepted for Sunday movies<BR>
<B>(See movie review below)<BR>
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Next week at the Kenworthy-<BR>
<BR>
Sponsored by <I>BookPeople of Moscow<BR>
</I></B><FONT COLOR="#000080"><H2>Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (G)<BR>
</H2></FONT><B>Wednesday, June 28<BR>
1:00 PM<BR>
</B>$4/adult, $1/child 12 or younger<BR>
<B>* * *<BR>
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<B>Coming in July:<BR>
</B> <BR>
Kinky Boots<BR>
July 6 - 9<BR>
<BR>
X-Men<BR>
July 13 - 16 <BR>
<BR>
DaVinci Code<BR>
July 21 – 23<BR>
<BR>
Ice Age 2 The Meltdown<BR>
July 26 – 30<BR>
<BR>
Goal: The Dream Begins<BR>
Aug 3 - 6<BR>
<BR>
Regular movie prices: $5/adult, $3/child 12 or younger<BR>
Wednesday matinee prices: $4/adult, $1/child 12 or younger<BR>
KFS series pass prices: $30/10 films, $75/30 films. KFS pass good only for Sunday movies.<BR>
<BR>
For more information on movies, events, rental rates, and/or to download a schedule, visit our website at www.kenworthy.org<BR>
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This week’s movie review-<BR>
<BR>
</B><FONT COLOR="#800000"><H2>Thank You For Smoking<BR>
</H2></FONT><BR>
Directed by Jason Reitman<BR>
Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes, William H. Macy, Maria Bello, Robert Duvall<BR>
Rated R for strong language and simulated sex<BR>
Running Time: 1 hour, 32 minutes<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Steve Persall writing for the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
<U>Thank You for Smoking</U> is a breathlessly satirical look at the tobacco industry and those who would shut it down. Jason Reitman's assured film debut works hard to reverse everyone's spin on the subject, lobbyists and busybodies alike. It is that rare scattershot spoof that hits most of its targets, sometimes fatally so we'll never be bothered by them again.<BR>
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The story, based on Christopher Buckley's novel, focuses on Nick Naylor Aaron Eckhart, lead lobbyist for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, established as a sham of Big Tobacco's concern about dying customers. Of course their research shows no connection between smoking and cancer. Antismoking forces protest, and Nick responds with machine-gun baloney.<BR>
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Nick can turn the tables on a talk show by claiming anti-smokers want to see children contract cancer in order to justify their own existence. The tobacco industry, he counters, wouldn't want to lose a customer. He can debate a fifth-grader's belief in what her mother told her about cigarettes until she slinks low behind her desk. He can fluster a U.S. senator (William H. Macy) pushing for skull-and-crossbones symbols on cigarette packs by arguing the politician's home state clogs more arteries with maple syrup and cheese. Oh, he's good.<BR>
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Nick lunches and does happy hour regularly with two other lobbyists forming the MOD squad, meaning "merchants of death.'' Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) shills for alcohol, while Bobby Joe Bliss (David Koechner) works for firearms manufacturers. Whose clients kill more people is their polite table talk. There's also the Captain (Robert Duvall), the tobacco czar who wants Nick to keep up the good fight, and a reporter (Katie Holmes) literally in bed with her expose subject.<BR>
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Somehow in all this spin-controlling, Nick finds time to raise his son Joey (Cameron Bright) but not too responsibly. Joey tags along on some of Dad's lobbying trips, including a visit with a former Marlboro Man-style ad figure (Sam Elliott) dying of lung cancer. Joey also meets a Hollywood producer (Rob Lowe) who'll make astronauts smoke in a sci-fi flick if the price is right. Not exactly Disney World or a ball game, is it?<BR>
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Reitman's film usually does a good job of capturing Buckley's digressive style, using flashbacks, literal visions of Nick's narration and animated annotations. Thank You for Smoking has a lot going on around the edges, either sight gags or sly remarks begging to be reheard. The movie was almost over before I realized that nobody had been shown smoking, so deftly does Reitman handle the subject. Thank You for Smoking is like a perfectly executed smoke ring: something to marvel at before it dissipates, and a minor joy to remember.<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Sean Axmaker writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
Tobacco industry lobbyist Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is a manipulative, glib, proudly obfuscating "Yuppie Mephistopheles," according to his detractors. He's also our hero.<BR>
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With brazen righteousness, Naylor zealously defends the right of "defenseless" corporate giants to market products that, when used as directed, likely will kill their clientele. His nemesis is a social nanny of an anti-tobacco senator (William H. Macy), an amateur in the art of spin compared to spinmaster Naylor.<BR>
<BR>
It's hard not to admire the sheer gall of his medicine-show patter and con-man guile. Under his chummy but compassionless smile, Eckhart radiates charm and Naylor's true joys: manipulating arguments, steering debate, cooking words. As he explains to his enamored son (Cameron Bright), being a lobbyist "requires a moral flexibility that is beyond most people."<BR>
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Reitman's witty adaptation keeps the satirical jabs coming fast and furious, from an inspired assassination attempt by anti-smoking guerrillas to Naylor's monthly meetings with the M.O.D. squad ("Merchants of Death" -- he vies with fellow lobbyists over bragging rights to the biggest killer: guns, alcohol or tobacco). But it also allows Naylor to see himself reflected in his son's eyes.<BR>
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The moral of the film turns the issue of cigarettes and cancer and corporate responsibility into a cry for freedom of choice, fine on its face as long as we don't wade into the murkier waters of big-tobacco influence and its impact.<BR>
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"Thank You" is a sly, smart and very funny caricature of corporate politics and image culture. Reitman neither takes sides nor holds anyone accountable, a frustration to be sure, but he skewers the spin machine with such wicked wit that you can't help but laugh at the whole perverse, corrupt culture.<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Mark Kermode writing for The Observer (London)<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
There's been much critical puffing of <U>Thank You for Smoking</U>, a sly adaptation of Christopher Buckley's 1994 novel about the rise of spin culture. Aaron Eckhart is perfectly cast as smug slug Nick Naylor who lobbies for people's right to give themselves cancer, and who encourages kids at St Euthanasias high school to decide for themselves whether cigarettes are really as bad as mum and dad say. <BR>
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In his lunch breaks Nick trades body counts with his 'Merchants of Death' cohorts in the booze and firearms business, beautifully sketched by the boisterous David Koechner and the magnificently mercurial Maria Bello. Nick's newest mission is to seal a deal putting cigs back into cinema, with plans for Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones to blow zero-gravity smoke rings around their naked bodies in some seven-figure sci-fi product placement. Only a senator (William H Macy), a tumour-ridden cowboy (Sam Elliott) and a death threat stand between Naylor and his mortgage payments. While the set-up is a scorcher, Jason Reitman's sassy feature debut loses some steam as we get closer to the narrative butt. The one-liners still sting but, in the wake of a kidnapping and some father-son bonding, the story starts to drag. <BR>
<BR>
As an attack on the smoking lobby, it has none of the fire of Michael Mann's <U>The Insider</U>, while <U>Wag the Dog</U> walked a similarly poisonous PR line. Still, there's enough bite in the dialogue and performances to provoke a hacking cough of approval, and the laugh-out-loud moments are many, not least in scenes featuring Rob Lowe's unctuous Hollywood agent<BR>
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<I>Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart<BR>
</I><B>* * *<BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#800000"><FONT SIZE="5"><B>Take a seat!</B></FONT></FONT> We mean that literally. The Kenworthy is offering you the opportunity to purchase one of a limited number of theater chairs in the main auditorium. Your gift will entitle you to an engraved, brass name plate mounted on the back of the seat of your choice (based upon availability). One individual or business name per seat, please.<BR>
<BR>
This naming opportunity, back by popular demand, is available for a donation of $500 per chair. You may purchase a chair in two installments of $250 over two years, or in three installments of $200 over three years.<BR>
<BR>
Your gift will assist with the ongoing operation and renovation of the Kenworthy Theater and fulfillment of our mission to be Moscow's premiere, historic, downtown, community performing arts venue and cinematic art house.<BR>
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For information about the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, call Julie Ketchum, Executive Director, at 208-882-4127.<BR>
<B>* * *<BR>
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<I>Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
</I>508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho<BR>
</B>208-882-4127<BR>
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</U></FONT>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<BR>
PAMELA PALMER, <B>Volunteer<BR>
</B>Mailto:ppalmer@moscow.com<BR>
Film and Events Committee <BR>
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
<BR>
http://www.kenworthy.org<BR>
To speak with a KPAC staff member, <BR>
call (208) 882-4127<BR>
Mailto:kpac@moscow.com<BR>
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