Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Hamlet 2 (2008) -vs- Mr. Holland's Opus (1995)

Back-to-Back School

The Smackdown. All over the country, kids savor the last gasp of summer and trudge back to school, looseleaf notebooks and lunch money clutched ever so tightly in their hands. Teachers meet and greet the bright and shiny new faces of their overcrowded classes and embark on a shared adventure that lasts till June. The good ones know that the influence of these encounters can last a lifetime.

No surprise then that impactful teachers inspire a huge genre of films. And with arts in education perpetually on the budgetary chopping block, the besieged arts teacher occupies a sacred little corner of the shelf. Two prime examples of the sub-genre climb into the Smackdown ring. In this corner, defending champion Glenn Holland, full-time music teacher and part-time composer. Stumbling clumsily into the ring, wearing roller skates and a caftan commando-style, it’s failed actor and drama teacher, Dana Marschz. Let’s check your work carefully, gentlemen. Everything counts in determining your final grade.

The Challenger.  In “Hamlet 2," aspiring, untalented, failed actor Dana Marschz (the brilliantly inimitable Steve Coogan) moves to Tucson, Arizona to teach Drama. Once there, his misguided attempts at original theater meet with even more abject failure and derision. Finally judged irrelevant and not worth saving, his drama program is canceled. Never one to accept defeat as much more than a speed bump, Mister M and his ragtag bunch of moppets and thugs put on one last show, swinging for the bleachers this time. Sound like you’ve seen this one before? Trust me. You haven’t.

Primary Colors (1998) -vs- The Candidate (1972)

 Absolute Politics Corrupts Absolutely

 The Smackdown. With the 2008 election now entering the home stretch, it seems right to take a glance in the rear-view mirror of our campaign bus and check out two classic election films. "The Candidate" really established the genre 35 years ago, giving us Robert Redford at the height of his charismatic on-screen presence as a JFK-like California senatorial candidate who wants to run on issues but ends up running on great hair and piercing eyes.  It's a good study of the quest for charisma in our candidates that has lead us to the success of Obama.  A quarter of a century later, we got "Primary Colors" with John Travolta standing in for that horny guy who couldn't keep it zipped on the campaign trail or in the Oval Office and his wife who was the discipline behind the team. So those are the two nominees on our ballot. Let's see who's got the goods to win this cinematic election -- Redford/Obama or Travolta/Clinton.

The Challenger. The film comes from quite a pedigree: political writer Joe Klein wrote the book (originally as "Anonymous"), and the film was written by Elaine May and directed by Mike Nichols. Everything inside is paper-thin disguised as being about the 1992 Clinton campaign for the White House. John Travolta's Jack Stanton loves politics just like the real character he's based on and really cares about people, some of them so much he can't resist having sex with them. The reason to watch the film today, of course, is for insight into the Hillary character, Susan Stanton, as played by Emma Thompson (if you can get past how her repression of her British accent seems to give her Susan a sort of non-American blandness).

Into the Wild (2007) -vs- Cast Away (2000)

All By Myself

The Smackdown. The hardships in my life are pretty much defined by modern inconvenience: missing plane flights, being cut off in traffic, nosebleed seats at a Springsteen concert and restaurant food that is brought to the table cold. Maybe that's why I find both of these films so damn compelling. Within a context of modern society, they strip away all the physical and mental support structures we live surrounded by and reduce their characters to the grim basics of survival. We're not talking about "Survivor" like challenges, but the real deal, where the stakes aren't being voted of the island or eating an insect, just the implacable logic of complete self-sufficiency with an ultimate penalty for failure. My youngest son and I for years have had this affection for "Cast Away" -- having seen it together in the theater, then several more home viewings -- always compelled by the hardship of truly living on a deserted island. We saw "Into the Wild" when it came out in the theaters and again this evening on DVD, knowing that it was a true story, and more than ready to go back to this wild place that has touched us.  (FYI: There's a poll at the end of the review if you want to express yourself, too.)

The Challenger. "Into the Wild" tells the true story of Christopher McCandless (played brilliantly by Emile Hirsch) and is based on the best-selling non-fiction book by outdoors journalist Jon Krakauer. It is hardly a spoiler to point out at this stage that the film ends badly for McCandless. It's not about his ending; it's about his journey. And what a journey it is. After graduating from Emory, the 20-year-old McCandless comes unhinged from his ties to family, to friends, to things and, ultimately, to civilization. Along the way, he meets a collection of colorful characters, all based on true people, and played by a sensational ensemble of actors like Hal Holbrook, William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Vince Vaughn and Catherine Keener. This journey will lead him to the Alaska wilderness where much of the film takes place, intercut through flashbacks to his travels. Finally, though, McCandless is alone in the wild, with no one to count on but himself and, sadly, that is not enough.

Without Limits (1998) -vs- Prefontaine (1997)

Speed Kills: The Role of a (Short) Lifetime

The Smackdown. When the track events are run at the Olympics as they were just this month, it's always a safe bet that plenty of people remember the gutsy runner who pretty much owned distance running back in the day, Steve Prefontaine.  It's been a decade since Hollywood bizarrely made two films back-to-back about the legendary distance runner, and you may be tempted to go rent one of them to see for yourself what the fuss was all about.

Track's been on my mind for other reasons, too.  My wife and I have a film that just finished shooting out here in Los Angeles, "Miles from Nowhere," about a high-school athlete who decides to go for a sub-four minute mile.  During the time we were polishing up our screenplay's last draft before production, we looked for a little inspiration and watched both "Prefontaine" and "Without Limits" within a couple of days of each other. It was like a film school assignment to see what different production teams and actors could do with essentially the same source material. But there was another element here, for me, that put even this challenge through a separate creative filter.

Steve Prefontaine wasn't actually a legend to me, you see, because I was there when he was breaking all these incredible records.

As a native Oregonian I had seen him win the state high school two-mile in a barn-burning race when I was just a kid, then I had gone to the University of Oregon at the same time he attended and ran, and was working at a local TV station as an intern at the time of his death. Later, I used to log a lot of miles running on the wood-chip trail dedicated to him, "Pre's Trail." I can't claim that I knew him, but I saw him on campus (vividly remember watching him chug some beer at Duffy's Tavern) and when he ran at Hayward field during my freshman year, my dorm (Douglass-Walton) faced the track and we literally watched and cheered from our room window.

I don't imagine too many people are ever going to watch both of these films so our Smackdown answers a practical question: if you want to see one single film that captures the essence of Steve Prefontaine, which one should you see?

Meet the MOVIE SMACKDOWN Critics

In its three years of existence (2005-2008), Movie Smackdown has published the reviews of seventeen different critics (sometimes known as SmackRefs). As a group, they represent a diverse range of opinions: older/younger, men/women, Hollywood/non-Hollywood, working/students, tall/short... well, you get the idea. 

Although there is no specific criteria for inclusion besides a love of film and a knowledge of film history, almost all of the contributors have either studied film in college, done professional film reviews in other contexts, had a professional writing or broadcasting background or worked as writers, directors or producers in the entertainment industry.  The point is that most of them are biting the hands that feed them (which makes their opinions all the more interesting). Here they are, by way of introduction, listed in order of the number of reviews they've done for the site:

Bryce Zabel  (read Bryce's 221 posts)  EDITOR | CRITIC-IN-CHIEF

Drawing inspiration from career experiences as a CNN correspondent, TV Academy chairman, and fast-food cook, Bryce Zabel is the Founding Father of Smackdown! and freely admits to having written the reviewer-savaged "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation."

• Quote: "Only HBO had the courage to give us the behind-the-scenes truth about the two greatest contests affecting our civilization in recent memory: the battle to decide the election between George Bush and Al Gore and, perhaps more importantly, the NBC decision about whether Jay Leno or David Letterman would get to host the Tonight Show and, thus, change life as we know it."

• From the Smack: Recount (2008) -vs- The Late Shift (1995)
  

Mark Sanchez (read Mark's 31 posts) SENIOR CRITIC

Oregon based media and communications consultant Mark Sanchez is on the fifth or sixth step of his recovery program from his career as a television news reporter, primarily at Portland's KOIN-TV. And that's the way it is.

• Quote: "You feel all the dust and empty space of west Texas that McCarthy wrote into "No Country." You also sense a dread that overpowers. You know nothing good will come of Llewelyn's decision to keep the drug money. Something deadly and inescapable is on the loose, Anton Chigurh."

• From the Smack: No Country for Old Men (2007) -vs- Fargo (1996)

Jay Amicarella (read Jay's 14 posts)

A professional tower climber, technician, and amateur movie critic, Jay Amicarella sustains the belief that all life's pitfalls and personal bad moods can be coped with by choosing just the right movie.

• Quote: "The formula for... loners with iconoclastic personalities has now been copied endlessly, until our very definitions of both heroes and villains have been changed forever."

• From the Smack: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) -vs- Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Beau DeMayo (read Beau's 13 posts)

After graduating with a BA in History, self-described "comic book nerd" Beau DeMayo now attends Florida State’s Film School, where he hopes to begin his journey towards becoming a jaded screenwriter whose work is simply too intelligent to be understood by others.

• Quote: "The only thing 'Spider-Man 3' holds true to are the words of its bombastic climax's verbose newscaster as he says, 'This might be the end of Spider-Man.'"

• From the Smack: Spider-Man 3 (2007) -vs- Spider-Man 2 (2004)