News Ticker

It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching can help.

Popular Articles

  • Deep Impact (1998) -vs- Armageddon (1998)

    August 22, 2008 106

    It’s the End of the World as We Know It. Back in 1998, during the Year of Lewinsky, Paramount/DreamWorks got into a game of chicken with Touchstone. The result was two disaster films about comets that were about to crash into the Earth and destroy all life. The two films could share a single log-line:

    When a “planet-killer” sized comet is discovered to be on an imminent collision course with Earth, an international space effort — led by the United States — sets out to deflect the object by setting off nuclear weapons deep inside its core so that it will miss Earth and, therefore, save humanity.

    I won’t tell you how the Earth fared yet, but I can tell you that the point of impact in the theaters was about two months apart. Talk about operational redundancy!

    Even though Deep Impact was the first in the theaters, for our purposes, we’re giving the “Defending Champion” designation to Armageddon because it won at the box-office. Armageddon grossed $553-million world-wide to the Deep Impact gross of $349-million. Incredibly, IMDB (the Internet Movie Database) has it as a virtual tie with both films scoring a 5.9 out of ten audience rating. […]

  • Wyatt Earp (1994) -vs- Tombstone (1993)

    June 29, 2011 84
  • Without Limits (1998) -vs- Prefontaine (1997)

    July 14, 2007 44
  • Hairspray (2007) -vs- Hairspray (1988)

    August 6, 2007 38
  • Warrior (2011) -vs- The Fighter (2010)

    September 6, 2011 35

Random Articles

  • 40th Anniversary Smack: The Godfather (1972) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

    October 26, 2008 14

    By now it’s all become a part of our collective cultural memory — the horse’s head showing up in the bed, the making of an offer that can’t be refused, and that haunting score by Nino Rota. What some don’t remember, after all the plotting, double-dealing and bloodshed, is that The Godfather, released four decades ago back in 1972, was one of the great family dramas ever filmed. And not just crime family either. The dynamics of the Corleone clan would be worthy of study in advanced courses in psychology, not to mention undertaking.

    What is most astonishing about The Godfather, which won Oscars for best picture, lead actor (Marlon Brando) and screenplay adaptation (Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola), is that two years later The Godfather, Part II topped it with another slew of Academy Awards, including best picture. Coppola, who won that year for director and earned another statue with Puzo for adaptation, delved even deeper into the family story, setting up a multi-generational saga as deep and satisfying as anything in modern literature.

    All of this pretty much qualifies the second film as the unquestioned best sequel of all time. And, of course, it triggers a Smackdown to find out which of these two extraordinary films is the best. […]

  • Spider-Man 3 (2007) -vs- Superman III (1983)

    May 25, 2007 5
  • Evan Almighty (2007) -vs- Bruce Almighty (2003)

    July 2, 2007 11
  • 2008 Emmys Demand a “Recount”

    September 22, 2008 0
  • Angora & Aliens: Remembering Ed Wood, Junior

    October 10, 2007 0