It's some sort of "plot point" in the film that Bradley Cooper's cheating husband is also lying about having quit smoking. His wife, Jennifer Connelly, (um, spoiler alert?) eventually leaves him. Not because of the cheating, because of the smoking. She writes a note for him that says "I want a divorce" and then tacks it onto a carton of bright yellow American Spirit Lights (mmm...) So though the message is totally anti-smoking, the AMA thinks it's shameful of the film to use an actual brand-name cigarette, and demands to know whether or not Warner Bros. received any product placement monies.

They claim that some 200,000 kids start smoking every year, because they're influenced by characters who smoke, in movies like Frozen River and I've Loved You So Long. Though really, what youths are going to see this thing? Wee scarf-clad Gideon and his bestie Tamara? Lonely Lois and her bucket of popcorn? The kind of teened agers who would go see this film probably should start smoking, at least then they'd seem cool and maybe make some friends.

Really, though, the AMA is right. There's no reason to put brand-name cigarettes in the movie. It adds some verité perhaps. But we are, again, talking about a movie whose thesis is that the unendingly complex communications between people can be boiled down to something like "men are mean, and women are shrill and lonely." So.

Don't go see this movie. It might make you start smoking! (Though, sadly, not in an after-sex kinda way.)

Boomp3.com

It looks like Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl fell off the non-smoking wagon once again. Heigl had a good excuse for her return to the addictive habit: driving on the 405 freeway. Heigl had to swing down to Snoop Town aka Long Beach to pick up her mother from the local airport and what should have been a quick trip turned into hour of sitting still. Heigl said, “I don’t get it. I thought we were in a gas crunch and people were driving less these days. Wrong! Nope. Apparently, everybody is still driving and they’re on the 405 when I have to pick up my momager. She was so cheesed off.” With the mounting stress, Heigl turned the only thing she knew that would relieve the tension. Heigl added, “I was doing so well, but I guess I’m not strong enough to face the 405 yet.”

[Photo Credit: X17]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

“Shame on ‘The Incredible Hulk’ for unnecessarily adding smoking to a sequel that would have been just as exciting and believable without it,” said Dianne Fenyk, President of the [American Medical Association (AMA) Alliance]. “Universal Studios and the other Hollywood studios should be especially embarrassed for using comic book movies, which they market to children and know youth will want to see, to promote tobacco.” [...]

The AMA Alliance is encouraging its 27,000 members to alert their local media and communities about the smoking in ”The Incredible Hulk,” as well as to continue pressuring the MPAA, Universal Studios and its other studio members to remove smoking once-and-for-all from youth-rated films.

Universal counters that they've made all the necessary MPAA-requested adjustments to their marketing materials; further, once the context for the film's tobacco-use is fully grasped, impressionable youths all over America will be turning "green with rage" at having to inhale second-hand smoke, and wind up "smaaaashing out" butts, just like their gargantuan hero. We're not entirely convinced, however, as the above tie-in with smooth, refreshing Kool-brand menthol cigarettes suggests to us that this is one superhero franchise that may be on the Big Tobacco take.

• americanlegacy.org
• incrediblehulk.marvel.com

CORRECTION! We just re-read the WaPo piece and apologize for insinuating that Heigl still bums cigarettes. It appears she has been buying her own packs for years.

• A Puff Of Fresh Air [WaPo via People.com]

Unsurprisingly, the MPAA's token efforts have not satisfied the 31 state Attorneys General who know that each instance of smoking on the big screen creates thousands of helpless new tobacco addicts; today, they hit back at the industry by taking out full-page ads in the trades, shaming them for their indifference to the health of impressionable moviegoers. Should this warning shot fail to register with Hollywood's influencers, they'll follow it up with a dramatic two-page spread depicting the cherubic faces of the future lung cancer victims created by a single Brad Pitt drag from a Parliament in the upcoming Ocean's 13.

[Ad via Digital Variety]

• Previously: MPAA To Now Designate Movies As Rated Light, Ultra Light, And Menthol [Defamer]