|
Article
Smoke Screen Cliché? Perhaps. But thanks to Eastwood, Pacino and the rest, your lit cigar is now officially equated with having a pair of epic cojones — a message burned even further into the collective memory by the following films. April 2008 , Page 68Smoke Screen (cont.)Wall Street (1987): “Greed is good.” Twenty-odd years after every trader’s favorite movie hit the street, a lot of hardcore raider Gordon Gekko’s trappings of wealth seem downright ludicrous: the “portable phone” hefty enough to kill a Bronx cockroach, the big-shouldered suits and blindingly colorful suspenders, the bulletproof hair. One thing, however, hasn’t gone out of style — toasting up a hefty stick to celebrate ‘liberating’ yet another company from all those pesky assets weighing it down. Burn, baby, burn. Predator (1987): The future governator of California enjoys a pre-carnage cigar before mowing down acres of prime South American jungle and one severely irate alien.
Cape Fear (1991): As Max Cady, a tattooed, cigar-chomping sociopath with a marked inability to let things go, Robert De Niro does an Oscar-winner’s take on a B-movie slasher — in marked contrast to the original film’s Robert Mitchum, who was a cool hepcat with the occasional bad habit of strangling people. But all of his dog-killing, family-terrorizing, and lawyer-beating aside, you know De Niro’s Cady is really evil because he keeps lighting his Casa Blanca Half Jeroboam Maduro with what looks like a butane lighter.
Reservoir Dogs (1992): Before the shootin’ and the screamin’ (but not before the cursin’), before Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) does a little bit more than talk a cop’s ear off, before Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) learns what an after school special might call A Valuable Lesson in Trust, Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut starts with a bunch of suited men in a coffee shop, talking about Madonna and tipping etiquette ... while Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker) puffs on a cigar. In fact, all the fun-lovin’ criminals in this California noir smoke like fiends — definitely a tempting course of action once a jewelry-store robbery goes wrong and your life expectancy starts being measured in minutes.
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994): When the head of your corporation carefully sets their cigar in the nearest ashtray and takes a flying leap out the nearest window, there’s only one thing to do — at least if you’re fellow fat-cat Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman): pick up that mostly-unsmoked stogie and growl, “It’s a pity to waste a whole Monte Cristo.” Sure, sure, Mussburger continues to chew roughly a cigar a minute as he concocts a plan to have “imbecile” mailroom boy Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) become the new CEO, in order to depress the stock — but it’s Norville who really uses the opportunity to enact some plans of his own. Crimson Tide (1995): The film that redefines “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” award-winning scene-chewers Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman star as Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter and Captain Frank Ramsey, respectively, on a nuclear submarine whose crew is having a very bad day. Attacked by a hostile Russian submarine, suffering major damage, and ordered to possibly launch a shipload of nukes at a friendly nation, the two officers battle over whether they should hit that Big Red Button — and take the time to smoke a few sticks. “Don’t like it too much,” the Captain advises his subordinate as they torch up. “They’re more expensive than drugs.” Not exactly something to worry about when the world stands on the verge of a major holocaust. Smoke (1995): The title says it all — this Wayne Wang-directed, Paul Auster-written film centers around a Brooklyn smoke shop run by the profane but charming Auggie (Harvey Keitel), whose outbursts nonetheless seem to endear him to a neighborhood of colorful characters, including a traumatized writer (William Hurt) and a teenager (Harold Perrineau Jr.) searching for his father. While the film manages to compress several tragedies into its brisk running time, true smoke-hounds may find the one where thousands of dollars’ worth of fine Cubans end up destroyed to be the most poignant — of course, we wept.
Die Another Day (2002): James Bond’s twentieth outing features a pit stop in Cuba, where everybody’s favorite hedonistic secret agent swings by a cigar factory and puffs away at some of the local product. Here’s to hoping he secreted a few sticks away before leaving the country — given the subsequent explosions (and honestly, how did anyone not see those coming?), it’s unlikely that 007 will be welcomed back to Havana anytime soon. Got a favorite smokin'-hot movie of your own? Tell us about it in the Comments section below.
NO COMMENTS YET
ADD YOUR COMMENT
|
|
