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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

  • Another Earth (2011) -vs- Sliding Doors (1998)

    July 23, 2011 1

    You’re not actually reading this. In fact, you’re living in an alternate world, where all your dreams have come true; you’re together with the love of your life; and you’re incurably rich. No, wait… nirvana is not all it’s cracked up to be. Get back here and finish this Smackdown. We have a winner to determine.

    Alternate worlds and parallel lives are the themes here, with moody, sci-fi indie Another Earth is pitted against the 1998 “what if” romantic dramedy, Sliding Doors. Both concern heroines who have the chance to experience a better life. In the case of our just-released challenger, troubled protagonist Rhoda (Brit Marling, who also co-produced and co-wrote the film with writer-director Mike Cahill) gets a one-in-a-million shot at visiting a newly discovered planet. This world looks very Earth-like and seems to be inhabited by people who are… well, doubles of ourselves. As for Sliding Doors, our girl Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow, in an early starring role) is a bright young professional freshly fired from her job. As if that weren’t painful enough, she’s got a shiftless, philandering boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch) to come home to. If anyone’s in need of a different life on a more accommodating plane of existence, it’s she.

    Two Helens, two Rhodas, two Earths, two fates. This is almost turning into a tag-team match. But at the end of the day, it can only be one on one. Alternates, go to your corners; the Smackdown begins! […]

  • Santa’s 2007 Movie Smackdown!

    November 10, 2007 0
  • Walton Goggins Talks Smack

    July 30, 2011 1
  • In Time (2011) -vs- Logan’s Run (1976)

    October 27, 2011 7
  • Larry Crowne (2011) -vs- The Company Men (2010)

    July 2, 2011 4