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."
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)
Jonathan Zabel (read Jonathan's 8 posts)
As a USC student who graduated with a double-major in Interactive Entertainment and East Asian Area Studies, Jonathan Zabel still enjoys taking time away from his busy gaming and work schedule to watch movies.
- Quote: "Quentin Tarantino is a man dangerously close to something... acceptable answers would include: (1) falling in love with his own myth, (2) never being able to eclipse the shadow already cast by his cinematic legacy, or (3) genius."
- From the Smack: Grindhouse (2007) -vs- Pulp Fiction (1994)
Lauren Zabel (read Lauren's 6 posts)
Attending the University of California at Santa Barbara where she's a Department of Film and Media major, Lauren Zabel has no spare time, but thinks of romantic comedies as she does air or water, necessary for life.
- Quote: "So, if you you're looking to find love with an older British man of a certain wit, shall we say, there's just no one out there who can make you like him more -- even when he's playing a man with 'issues' -- than Hugh Grant. I really don't care to know what he did on Sunset Boulevard. That was a long time ago."
- From the Smack: Music and Lyrics (2007) -vs- Wimbledon (2004)
Sherry Coben (read Sherry's 4 posts)
A comedy writer who created the 1980s hit show "Kate & Allie," Sherry Coben coaches a high school ComedySportz team in SoCal where, tired of years malingering in development hell, she's currently making a no-budget, high-ambition webisode series.
- Quote: "If Sophie is twenty, that means disco was alive in 1988 and that flower children wore spandex and platform boots, making a bit of a hash of the cultural history of the last half of the twentieth century. Hippie dippie free love and disco? In the last of the Reagan years?"
Bob Nowotny (read Bob's 4 posts)
Having spent enough years at UT Austin to earn a BA and a Master's, Bob Nowotny emerged with his spirit still intact, turning to independent film production, authoring the definitive book on color film and seeking the perfect beer.
- Quote: "Don't underestimate the impact of a little cloud coming over the horizon -- and I don't mean the mushroom variety. You see, some types of ground-hugging hazy vapors possess evil things which brutally attack isolated villages and wreak more havoc than this year's BCS situation."
- From the Smack: The Mist (2007) -vs- The Fog (1980)
Scott Baradell (read Scott's 4 posts)
An accomplished brand strategist, Scott Baradell leads the Idea Grove agency in Dallas where he maintains the Dirt 100, an authoritative ranking of the top gossip and entertainment blogs, as well as the Spin Thicket community site and the Media Orchard blog.
- Quote: "While Apatow has been a proud papa at the box office, spawning an ever-growing family of 'Knocked Up' siblings, Hughes opted to abandon his offspring in a Blockbuster parking lot. The movie's financial failure drove him into the arms of Macaulay Culkin; 'She's Having a Baby' was his last real attempt at a comedy for adults."
- From the Smack: Knocked Up (2007) -vs- She's Having a Baby (1988)
Randal Cohen (read Randal's 4 posts)
A music attorney who managed to pass the bar at the age of 25 pre-Red Bull, Randal Cohen supports capital punishment for illegal downloads and first began going to movies as a way to satisfy his addiction to low-quality popcorn products.
- Quote: "The formula is simple: take enormously likable screen stars and let them fall, under unlikely circumstances, for women who prove to be just what they need at the moment in their lives when they are ready for change. Complicate with a healthy dose of parenthood."
- From the Smack: Dan in Real Life (2007) -vs- About a Boy (2002)
An actor/writer and a recent graduate of USC's Marshall School of Business, Lak Rana promises not to subject his Smackdown! readers to such soporific analyses as the ones he was forced to endure over the past two years.
- Quote: "'Simpsons' stays true to the form that has made it a cultural phenomenon for the the past two decades--quick, clean, and sharp wit--and unlike 'South Park,' does not try too hard just because it's on the big screen."
- From the Smack: The Simpsons Movie (2007) -vs- South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut
Tyger Torrez (read Tyger's 3 posts)
An Army veteran who'd rather write than fight, Tyger Torrez grew up in East Los Angeles, attended UCLA, lived in Hawaii, won the Scriptapalooza TV competition...twice, and doesn't know you well enough to tell you the story about the tatoo above his right eyebrow.
- Quote: "Maxwell Smart is a bumbling spy, who despite his unknowing ineptitude, thwarted comedic villains intent on world domination every week on TV. As a kid, I so badly wanted some shoes with a secret phone in them. I still do. With merchandising what it is, I'll probably get a pair that'll hold an iPhone."
- From the Smack: Get Smart (2008) -vs- The Nude Bomb (1980)
Stephen Bell (read Stephen's 3 posts)
A Boston native and production student at the Florida State Film School, writer/director Stephen Bell urges you to realize that the only chance we have of defeating the movies is by turning them against one another!
- Quote: "On-the-nose material such as humanity's progression toward mass-obesity, multimedia obsession, mental lethargy and planetary irresponsibility could have called attention to themselves if mishandled, but the creators never allow these ideas to overshadow the narrative and always keep the audience with the two lovers."
- From the Smack: Wall-E (2008) -vs- Toy Story (1995)
Lorianne Tibbets (read Lorianne's 2 posts)
A writer of children's projects, Lorianne Tibbets' credits include ABC Family, Discovery Kids, a historical fantasy book series and two rambunctious daughters who keep her out of the theaters and churning through one DVD release after another instead.
- Quote: "What's more inevitable than death and taxes? Family events! Funerals, weddings, wakes, baptisms, a briss... what they have in common is that you're required to be there and even if you don't want to be present, British propriety demands you learn to fake it well."
Joe Rassulo (read Joe's 2 posts)
A prolific writer, Emmy-winning director and dogged producer, Joe Rassulo has put it all together in his recent divorce drama "Bull Run" which he claims will need to be Smacked down with "Kramer-vs-Kramer" to make it a fair fight.
- Quote: "'The Squid and the Whale' is populated with people you truly believe in as human beings, as a family and as individuals trying to find themselves without purposefully hurting one another. You die a little when they do, laugh a little when they do, and cry a little when they do. Because they are like all of us. We relate."
- From the Smack: Margot at the Wedding (2007) -vs- The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Sloane Hayes Skala (read Sloane's 2 posts)
On the lucky end of a genetic lineage to film that includes a grandfather who wrote Rear Window, Sloane Hayes Skala attends USC's School of Cinematic Arts where she has decided that critical studies are fine but what she really wants to do is produce.
- Quote: "“Juno” is decidedly indie, with an emo-folksy soundtrack to match. “Knocked Up” is not. “Juno” feels slightly self-aware, like it’s trying to be artsy, while “Knocked Up” feels like it could have been entirely improv-ed."
- From the Smack: Juno (2007) -vs- Knocked Up (2007)
Sarah Harding (read Sarah's 1 post)
Since graduating from Massachusetts College of Art with a degree in Film and Video, professional Anglophile Sarah Harding has been busy perfecting her British accent and plotting to take Hollywood by storm.
- Quote: "There's no doubt that superheroes and stoners are king at this summer's box office, but if you're craving a little romanticism - oh hell, a LOT of romanticism - and stories that don't rely on car chases, Swedish pop music or the wit of forty year old adolescents, then Julian Jarrold's "Brideshead Revisited" may be exactly what you're looking for."
- From the Smack: Brideshead Revisited (2008) -vs- Atonement (2007)
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