My problem is a form of spamming that uses friends and colleagues that usually email me with messages I'd like to read.
When I open one of these malware emails I am presented with a message that I must "see this" and a link to a weight-reduction plan video. The "from" line has my friend's name and the "subject" line is innocuous enough to not raise my suspiciion. How do I filter these devils out?
Your problem with emails derives from your friends' email accounts being compromised by hackers; the villains discover the password, access the email account and send spam messages to all the contacts in the address book. The emails get through your spam filters because they are genuinely from a trusted source - someone in you own contacts list.
It's very hard to prevent, but what you should do is to warn the friend who has been hacked; all they need to do is change the password on their email account, and the nuisance will stop (until the next time!). In fact, it is good practice for us all to change our email password every few months, irritating though it is.
Please DO NOT click on links within the suspect emails, you never know what horrors that might lead to. At best it will be an advert for something you don't want, but more often it will open the door to your own computer being infected by some virus or other.