With the dialogue in most movies reduced to either one star screaming at the other star as the car they're driving goes out of control, or one character sitting in front of a computer terminal, and after tapping a few keys, turning to the other characters and saying, "I'm into the system," a little smoke-'em-if-you-got-'em goes a long way. The ponderous, wooden dialogue of the recent Star Wars movies would have seemed zesty and sharp if only Yoda had dangled a Marlboro from his greenish lips. "Begun," he says, taking a long, slow, last drag, "the clone war has." And then he tosses the butt to the ground and grinds it out with his tiny little foot.
And don't get me started on An Inconvenient Truth! Imagine Al Gore in front of that big screen. He shrugs. "We are all," he says, touching a match to the Kool in his lips, "going to die." Puff. Exhale. Pause. He stares at us. Takes another puff. And then moves on. Now that's entertainment.
Read the rest of Rob Long's lament on the removal of cigarettes from films.
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