10 Movies That Make Us Wanna Smoke
'Mad Men' is bringing tobacco back to the small screen with its endless cigarettes and liquid lunches, but smoking in the movies just isn't quite the same any more. Here are our favorite big screen nicotine treats.
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That primal craving to take a long smooth drag from a cigarette doesn't just come after sex. The need for nicotine can hit after a night of heavy drinking, a hearty meal, a bar brawl, or surviving an accidental drug overdose. If you've been glued to the TV wondering how it is the nostalgia and romance for the tobacco leaf has replaced those pesky fears of cancer, then blame the AMC series Mad Men. Indeed, William Morris has long kept the bigwigs at Philip Morris rich and happy. Here are 10 films that have us feigning so hard for a cig, we had to press pause and take a smoke break.
Coffee and Cigarettes
Jim Jarmusch's black and white film, which is supposedly a tribute to these two vices after the cool NYC director finally gave them up, is a series of vignettes made up of awkward, bizarre, and just plain hilarious conversations over cups of joe and endless cigarettes. The strange pairings include Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina, and two Cate Blanchetts as cousins. The vignette with the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA and GZA and Bill Murray is a gem — as RZA and GZA lecture Bill about the evils of caffeine and tobacco, he gulps his brew straight from the pot, pausing only to puff.
200 Cigarettes
While 1999's 200 Cigarettes didn't exactly garner critical acclaim, we can all relate to the characters' goal to have the best possible time (and get laid or find love) on New Year's Eve. The stellar cast of hip stars, including Christina Ricci, Paul Rudd, Martha Plimpton, Ben and Casey Affleck, Janeane Garofalo, and Dave Chappelle, play an eclectic group of artists, punks, teens, and weirdoes chain-smoking their way to the new year. Not only did the East Village seem much cooler in 1981, cigarettes were also so much cheaper.
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Wild at Heart
Though we doubt shock-haired auteur David Lynch actually got kickbacks from Marlboro, there's no doubt that Sailor's brand of smokes are as important to him as his snakeskin jacket. Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and his girlfriend Lula (Laura Dern), who are on the run from a variety of wackos hired by Lula's mom to kill her, are constantly smoking (especially after their sweaty hotel romps) — sometimes more than one cigarette at a time. Sailor even tells Lula he began smoking when he was four! Fire and smoking are a recurring theme in this wild and weird love story, as is The Wizard of Oz. But it probably won't make you want to reach for a munchkin.
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The Royal Tenenbaums
In what is easily Wes Anderson's best portrait of utter family dysfunction, Gwyneth Paltrow's mopey Margot Tenenbaum has us waiting to exhale. Margot, a playwright prodigy with half a finger missing, spends her days secretly smoking and smoking and smoking — be it in the bathtub, watching TV, or hiding out on the roof. Like the rest of the Tenenbaums (an eccentric group played by Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Gene Hackman, and Anjelica Huston), Margot suffers from repressed desire and unrequited love — two emotions smoking certainly helps to distract from. With her stick straight blond bob pinned back with barrettes, heavily made-up eyes, perpetual frown, and slow drags, Paltrow makes feeling tortured, forgotten, and plain old sad look enchanting.
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The Departed
The stress Leonardo DiCaprio's character Billy Costigan endures throughout The Departed as an undercover cop, and the two-and-a-half hours of epic violence and double-crossing, warrants an entire pack of smokes. Don't know who to trust? Smoke a cigarette. Nearly die? Smoke a cigarette. About to die? Smoke a cigarette. Witness almost every character in the film murdered in cold blood? Smoke a cigarette. Cops, crime, and gangsters are solid formula for a successful smoking flick. This is Scorsese's return to form. Wanna go through a carton? Watch Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas too. Tough guys smoking and hanging around in murky neighborhood bars are just doing what badasses who you don't want to mess with do.
Pulp Fiction
We all remember the Royale with cheese, Jules Winnfield's wallet, and "Bring out the gimp!" but Uma Thurman as mob wife Mia Wallace dominated the ad campaign, the DVD cover, and posters on countless college walls across the nation. The nonlinear story telling, motor mouth dialogue, and gratuitous violence mixed with black humor and pop culture references got Tarantino where he is today. In one of the movie's most memorable scenes, Mia is at a '50s style restaurant called Jack Rabbit Slim's with her husband's go-to guy Vincent Vega (John Travolta). Before they participate in a tripped-out Twist contest, she asks him to roll her a cigarette. Vega, who was told to entertain his boss's wife for the evening, is mesmerized by her long, pale fingers casually holding the cigarette to her crimson mouth. And even after Mia is revived from a drug overdose thanks to a shot of adrenaline to the heart, she keeps her cool by lighting up again.
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Casablanca
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman were icons of the Golden Age of cinema, when stars were allegedly paid big money by tobacco companies to help perpetuate the myth of smoking as the cool thing to do. The witty and tender Casablanca seems that much more romantic and tragic thanks to that little cancer stick; you would be hard pressed to find a scene where Bogart is without one. Critics and even scholars have been fascinated by Casablanca's use of cigarettes and its effects on culture, but all we know is that lost love has never seemed so glamorous.
Kalifornia
Juliette Lewis' Adele is forbidden to smoke by her serial-killin' boyfriend Early (played with red-necked glee by Brad Pitt); in fact, she confides to the black-clad Carrie, he beats her when she does. However, Carrie, played by Michelle Forbes, smokes like a chimney in nearly a dozen scenes and even gets Adele to indulge. With a cigarette dangling from her lips, Carrie's inhaling and exhaling is audible to the audience. This don't make Early too happy.
Thank You For Smoking
Even though sardonic Smoking is all about one Big Tobacco spinmeister's moral dilemma and the evils of the cigarette industry, all this talk of smoking... makes us want to smoke.
Reality Bites
Ben Stiller's directorial debut succeeds with the following classic formula: anxiety + sex + creative ambitions + hipsters = smoking. Winona Ryder's Lelaina and Ethan Hawke's Troy chain-smoke through the entire film, whether they're walking, talking, or kissing. Themes like breaking free from parents and being recognized as an adult in the adult world are smoke-worthy issues! Camel wasn't the only brand being touted by the crew; 7-Eleven was also one of the many product placement coups; Lelaina explains in one scene that the Big Gulp is "the most profound invention of my generation."
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Honorable mentions:
Mad Men
Ahhh, the safety of cable television. It's a long time since we've been able to see Mad Men's level of wanton smoking on our boob tubes. The characters are constantly lighting up in the office, at home, in cars, and on trains. There is no after-dinner smoke in Mad Men because people smoke before, during, and after meals. One character even smokes in a psychiatrist's office! Rumor has it that while some of the cast used to smoke cigarettes, no one in real life calls them a smoker anyone. Those actors are inhaling herbal cigarettes — chemical- and nicotine-free.
No Cure For Cancer
Denis Leary's televised standup act No Cure For Cancer shows the foul-mouthed comedian with a cigarette practically stapled to his lips. "The filter's the best part. That's where they put the heroin!" shouts Leary. Anyone who says they covet a tracheotomy in order to inhale two cigarettes at once is truly a man who wants a lot of bang for his buck. And on the sitcom "Rescue Me," Leary played a fire fighter who saw nothing wrong with lighting up next to a fire truck and a raging blaze.
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