Movie Smackdown®

Man of Steel (2013) vs. Superman: The Movies (1978/1980)

It’s axiomatic when discussing Superman to know that the only one who can give Superman a fair fight is himself, or a close approximation of himself. That’s why the comics, TV and film have consistently given us Evil Superman, Clone Superman, Bizarro Superman and, of course, Other Kryptonian Supermen. The latter, of course, is what drove the Richard Donner-directed first two Superman films in 1978 and 1980, with the climactic arrival of General Zod and his superpowered villains, all of whom with the same powers as Superman, released from the Phantom Zone. Now, along comes Man of Steel, directed by Zack [more]

After Earth (2013) vs. Oblivion (2013)

The latest trend in sci-fi seems to be returning to a post-apocalyptic Earth, trashed after a run-in with extraterrestrials, and still coming out on top. Both Tom Cruise with Oblivion and Will Smith with After Earth have taken a crack at it. As opposed to other apocalyptic visions from recent years, like The Road and Book of Eli, which basically say once things go south on us, we land in a shithole we’re not likely to recover from, these two new contenders in the realm of post-Earth survival manage to leap past tragic events to a time of return where [more]

Now You See Me (2013) vs. The Prestige (2006)

Magic. Now there’s a subject that, over the years, hasn’t gotten a great deal of cinematic attention. Reason being, one surmises, that magic acts need the immediacy of live (or at least taped live) performance to preserve their thrill... and if we’re being honest here, most of them don’t have that much thrill to preserve in the first place. So wouldn’t you know it, after humming along for so many years all but magic-free, in 2006, Hollywood not only coughs up two magic-themed movies within weeks of each other but two turn-of-the-century Europe magic-themed movies. (Now that’s a [more]

42 (2013) vs. Remember the Titans (2000)

There are few conflicts more dramatic than the battle for racial integration, particularly during the turbulent years of the mid-twentieth century America. 42’s Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), the first player of color in Major League Baseball, is a ferociously talented athlete who struggles to overcome the rampant bigotry of the game in the post-WWII era. A quarter-century later, Remember the Titans’ ace football coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) faces the unenviable task of integrating two racially separated high school football squads in Virginia, the cradle of the Confederacy. Both of these characters are resilient, heroic fighters who triumphed over the narrow-mindedness [more]

Admission (2013) vs. About a Boy (2002)

Even the most intelligent, wealthy, successful adults can be pretty clueless about raising kids. Think about the living hell these folks must endure -- all that time, freedom and discretionary income on their hands, but no one for their inner children to play with! Luckily, in the world of producer/director Paul Weitz, there’s always a chance that a kid might unexpectedly enter their lives and rouse them from their self-absorbed, myopic, world view. Weitz recreates the formula that worked so well in About a Boy in his new romantic comedy, Admission, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. Both movies have appealing [more]

Oz the Great and Powerful (2012) vs. The NeverEnding Story (1984)

Let’s exit Earth for a while and travel to colorful lands distant from our own. Our contestants in this Smack are a pair of big-budget fantasy epics adapted from popular books. Hailing from storm-wracked Kansas is our challenger, Oz the Great and Powerful, a reimagining of one of the most beloved family films of all time. In this new version, our focus has shifted to the title character, a two-bit carnival magician with a grand stage name. He’s transported to the vibrant land bearing his name and gets thrown into a civil war among several bickering witches. Flying in from Germany [more]

Dark Skies (2013) vs. Dark Skies (1996)

Who here has seen that identity thief movie? And by that we don’t mean the one in which Melissa McCarthy schools Jason Bateman on new levels of quasi-comedic rudeness, but the one that actually is an Identity Thief. Yep, we’re talking about Dark Skies -- the movie about terrifying alien invaders that appropriated its genre and title from the scary, 1996-97 TV series of the same name. In Hollywood, as in any business, a name is everything. It's your brand, it’s who you are. The old Hill Street Blues television series had fun with this idea in a classic episode that [more]

Oscar Wrap-Up 2013

Two years ago, the Oscars crossed the line from Annual Guilty Pleasure into Annual Torturous Ritual, and by the look of things last night, that’s where it’s planting its feet. The main issue I raised in this space about last year’s telecast remains unsolved, namely that apparently no one running the thing actually comprehends why people watch the show in the first place. (HINT: Because they love movies and the people who’ve made them great. It’s not rocket science, folks.) Once again, we get a bare minimum of movie clips, save for a stingy sprinkling of them throughout the well-produced In [more]

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) vs. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

What’s better than an adventure movie featuring a rugged, two-fisted hero? An adventure movie featuring a father and son team of rugged, two-fisted heroes, of course. Today’s competitors are a pair of sequels, each of which brings either a progenitor or an offspring into the proceedings. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – the third Indy movie and last one before that set of films’ loooong hiatus and better-forgotten, 2008 finale – everybody’s favorite archeologist is joined by his grumpy dad Dr. Henry Jones Sr., played by Sean Connery (you did know that Indy’s real name is Henry, right?). It’s [more]

Oscar Smack-a-thon!

Have you finalized your picks for the current crop of Oscar hopefuls yet? No? Well, allow us to help you. In this, our second annual Oscar Smackdown, we pit the nominees for Best Picture against each other. We’ve Smacked most of them at one time or another over the past year, but never in direct competition. With nine contenders, we can’t make this a series of pure one-on-one contests. Instead, we spice up the event card by featuring a trio of main bouts, plus a three-way slugfest in the finale. That anyone-could-win feeling is what we’re trying to engender here, kind of [more]

The Tiersky Top Ten, 2012

2012 was a year of countless blockbuster disappointments, a handful of sleeper gems, several overhyped critical darlings, some masterful documentaries and foreign films, loads of forgettable dreck, a couple of delightful surprises, and no genuine masterpieces, but a fair amount of solidly entertaining nights at the movies. Which is to say that it was fairly indistinguishable from the past few years. The point is, as Top Ten lists go, you could do a lot worse than these films, several of which I had the pleasure of Smacking in previous columns. The list is alphabetical, as ranking choices this disparate would just [more]

Smackdown Smacks Down the 2013 Oscar Nominees

Movie Smackdown loves a good old fashioned film fight — it's something we do every day that Hollywood does once a year during awards season. Who among us can't appreciate putting some films in a cage and letting them duke it out until there's only one left standing? This year there were nine nominations out of a possibility of ten in the "Best Picture" category. We've had most of the nominated "Best Picture" films in the Smack ring already. This offers us the chance, here in this single post, to create a gateway for you to lots of fresh writing, keen [more]