by Kevin Kelly
So, yesterday we caught director Jason Reitman's (son of Ivan) hilarious film, Thank You For Smoking, which is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Buckley (son of William F.). Before the film rolled, Jason got up to let us know that a scene was missing from the film. Not just any scene, but a Katie Holmes sex scene. According to Jason, there was a "projection error in Los Angeles" that resulted in that scene being trimmed from the second reel.
Now, call us conspiracy happy, but we smell the heavy hand of the Scientologists, and/or Tom Cruise at work here. How is it that a projection error resulted in ONLY the Katie Holmes scene getting trimmed? Several times in the film they reference her, and we are directly quoting here, "glorious tits"...did Tom Cruise decide to drop the hammer and cut this scene out? Or perhaps the Scientologists got involved and flexed their Hollywood muscle to pressure Jason Reitman. Maybe they threatened to withhold his dental insurance through the DGA (like his dad, Jason has some massive pearly white choppers). We imagine Tom in his The Last Samurai garb, using a katana to do a little film editing on his own. Beware the wrath of Cruise. You have been warned. If this post and/or the author somehow disappear, I have left instructions in a sealed envelope inside the LAist safety deposit box so that my disappearance can be investigated and blogged about dutifully.
In other news, the film is excellent, is being released in March, and has the best performance ever from Aaron Eckhart.