Films featuring
Katie Holmes

Thank You For Smoking

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This movie wants to be the Dr. Strangelove of the tobacco wars and I’ll be darned if doesn’t almost do it. Some might say that cigarettes are an even more audacious subject for a comedy than nuclear war, since tobacco takes out more people in a given year then the A-bomb has in the history of the human race. Thank You For Smoking certainly aims for big targets, but they are also easy targets. The film’s position, namely that tobacco companies have behaved with the all the moral fiber of Jeffrey Dahmer’s ne’er-do-well brother, is hardly original nor particularly newsworthy. This acid-etched satire, directed by Ivan Reitman’s son, Jason, scores its points with sharply drawn characters.

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Batman Begins

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The first two Batman movies may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but at least they were infused with director Tim Burton’s quirky sensibilities. The second two, directed by Joel Shumacher, were just a train wreck.

The fifth movie does us all a favor by pushing the big cinematic reset button and returning Batman to the beginning, placing him in a universe that has less in common with Edward Scissorhands and the 1960s TV series and more in common with the Batman of the comic books. In other words, the real Batman has made it to the big screen. Finally.

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