Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Saving Private Ryan (1998) -vs- The Thin Red Line (1998)

The Smackdown. War is hell. And until Steven Spielberg got involved, we'd never really experienced war through the eyes of a soldier. We'd come close, with filmmakers as diverse as Coppola and Oliver Stone all giving us their interpretations, but it always seemed to be at a safe distance.  The viewer was taken on a journey, but not our own journey. Unlike Ron Kovic or Ben Willard, who undertake a journey for us, Spielberg attempted to give us our own experience in war without having to leave the cinema. "Saving Private Ryan," which graphically shows us the D-Day landings of a group of US forces in 1944, opens with an assault on the senses unlike any we'd ever seen. It thrust us into the heat of battle, the confusion and carnage of an assault that beggars description. It wanted us to know exactly what war is really like. 

At the same time, at a different film studio, a reclusive film director had also embarked upon a journey to show us the inhumanity and insanity of war. Terrence Malick, who had disappeared from the Hollywood radar for the better part of two decades in a self-imposed exile, had returned with a lengthy, languid exploration of the mental anguish of fighting the war in the Pacific, the other major theater of World War II. Gathering some of the cream of Hollywood talent and star wattage, Malick constructed a story of broken hearts, hope and devastation, the jungles of the Pacific cast as a beautiful backdrop to some of mankind's darkest moments. With "The Thin Red Line," Sean Penn and James Caviezel lead a massively talented cast into battle, told in a style that is so completely different to Spielberg's more grimy effort, so ensuring that we experience both styles of film-making to endure the horrors of war. 

Two mighty juggernauts of cinema, lined up head to head. Both set during WWII, both featuring a large cast of known names, all vying for screen-time, all with a story to tell. This Smackdown will be a brutal, casualty ridden affair that will leave only the bravest, the strongest standing. Soldiers, open fire!!!

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) -vs- Crimson Tide (1995)

The Smackdown.  People trapped inside the cold steel of big machines. Check. Ticking clocks relentlessly counting down to disaster. Check. Battles of will between A-list actors. Check again. Director Tony Scott must have known he had a good thing in 1995's "Crimson Tide" and was looking to repeat it with this year's re-make of the classic "The Taking of Pelham 123."  As far as action directors go, Scott (brother of Ridley) is in the very elite. He makes movies that are almost always worth the price of a ticket at the cineplex. The best are tense, scary, hard-edged ones where his screenwriters give him high stakes and the dialogue to support them (often for Denzel Washington) and then he paces the hell out of the film itself. We have a real fight on our hands with some Scott-on-Scott violence.

The Challenger. The 2009 "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" takes its inspiration from the 1974 film "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" which took its inspiration from the same novel written by John Godey. In the hands of current screenwriter Brian Helgeland, the central idea -- bad guys board a New York subway and take the passengers hostage while demanding a huge ransom -- remains the same. He's given us a few new twists, like the lead hijacker, Ryder (John Travolta) is now an ex-con and the negotiator, Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) is now a transit executive. Then director Scott bends and twists it through pacing, tone and special effects. In this film, Travolta drives the action but it's Washington who gets put on the spot in one particularly tough moment when, without benefit of waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation techniques, the hijacker gets the negotiator to confess to a crime of his own. It's one of those "what would you do" moments and particularly effective as played by Washington.

Contact (1997) -vs- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

 

The Smackdown. If you're old enough to remember the marketing campaign for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," then you'll remember the goosebumps you got when you heard the phrase, We are not alone.  What was great about that simple sentence was that it promised a movie about aliens that was about wonder and mystery and wasn't about the same old Hollywood treatment of life in the universe, namely that if it bothered to interact with humans it was for a nefarious reason, everything from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to "War of the Worlds" to the later "Independence Day."   Twenty years after "Close Encounters" came another film that promised to make first contact a matter of humanity's growth out of the cradle and not some intergalactic cage match. Both "Close Encounters" and "Contact" were aliens for smart people brought to you first by the immense talent of Steven Spielberg and later by the immense intellect of Carl Sagan.  In my Hollywood career, I've had the good fortune to discuss UFOs and extraterrestrial life with both of these men and found them to have some very different visions of the subject.  They each have used film to express their views about life as it might exist "out there."  The question is, which version comes closest to what might be the truth about first contact, and which one is the better film?

The Challenger. "Contact" (the movie) directed by Robert Zemeckis is a faithful film adaption of Contact (the novel) written by Carl Sagan.  In both tellings, radio astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster in the film) hits the cosmic jackpot when the giant radio telescopes that are part of S.E.T.I. (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) actually turn up a non-random signal from across the universe.  Someone is talking to us or, more accurately, talking back.  You see, they've picked up the very first television transmission the Earth ever leaked outward, amped it up and sent it back to us.  It's an excellent surprise and -- without spoiling it -- let's just say that the first TV signal that went out from Earth is, well, unexpected.  After that, the story kicks into where no film has really gone before.  There's another signal buried in that TV re-transmission that is, basically, the blueprints for building a gigantic spacecraft... for one person!  Well, if there was ever a situation designed to stretch our humanity to the breaking point, it would be trying to determine who's going to be that lucky (or, in failure, unlucky) person.  Where will they go?  Will they ever return?  Will they die?  Is it some kind of trick?

Moon (2009) -vs- Solaris (2002)

THE SMACKDOWN.  Spending a weekend in, say, Fresno can challenge your sanity so just imagine what spending three years, alone, on the Dark Side of the Moon could do to scramble your sense of reality. "Moon" is the latest little film that could -- made for $5-million -- about a very big idea. It comes to us direct from commercial director Duncan Jones who, helpfully I'm sure, is David Bowie's son. Dad's "Space Oddity" came out in 1969, the year that Neil Armstrong did the original moonwalk, and the year after "2001: A Space Odyssey" was released and blew the minds of a generation of stoned college students.  Besides being compared to the granddaddy of science-fiction, Jones's sci-fi thriller also references such films as "Silent Running," "Alien," "Outland," and even, in one key element, "Blade Runner." We've thrown our share of space films into the Smackdown ring against Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece," but it seems a fresher and more appropriate opponent for "Moon" is Steve Soderbergh's re-make of "Solaris." Both "Moon" and "Solaris" serve up disorienting helpings of the isolation of space, the sense that things are not what they seem, romance bent by quantum physics and leading men who think that, just maybe, they are losing their minds.

THE CHALLENGER. Although there are a few other characters, "Moon" is pretty much a one-man show starring Sam Rockwell who plays an astronaut finishing a three year contract to mine Helium-3 on the moon to ship to an Earth that's using it to achieve glorious clean energy independence. There is also a robot named Gerty to keep him company, one with the same flat energy of HAL from "2001," voiced this time by Kevin Spacey. The problem is that Rockwell's Sam Bell is nearing the end of a three-year shift and he's pretty much falling apart, physically and mentally. The facility is new enough, complete with videos, ping-pong (against yourself) and other diversions, but the antennae to communicate to back home is broken and all he can do is send "message units" and dream of having a real back-and-forth conversation some day soon. Then he discovers that he's not the only thing that's a little off and the story kicks into another gear that is unexpected, odd and uniquely human.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) -vs- The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

  Keeping the Trains Running (Out of Time)  

The Smackdown.  Thirty-five years ago Joseph Sargent's successful blend of suspense, drama and thrills (and even some comedy) set the bar high for action directors to follow, a precursor of films like Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" or Jan de Bont's "Speed."  Inspiration is one thing, though, and a re-make is another challenge altogether. This time out it's director Tony Scott who tackles the film adaptation of the novel by John Godey.  And Godey's premise is a goody -- four gunmen hijack a New York City subway train and demand a huge ransom be paid within the hour.  The money must not be late in arriving because for every minute thereafter, one of the hostages will be shot.  No exceptions.  What ensues is a deadly cat and mouse game of verbal sparring between the leader of the highly armored gang and the unlucky transit official who must do everything possible to delay the inevitable. It's said that Benito Mussolini kept the trains running on time.  Does Tony Scott do the same for the New York Transit Authority?  Or is the original the better ride?  It's time to get out the subway tokens -- all aboard!

The Challenger. As Chester A. Riley might say, "What a Travoltin' development this is!"  Blessed with mega-star power, Tony Scott's version features John Travolta as Ryder, an ex-commodities trader turned ex-con who masterminds a plot to steal even more money than that Bernie guy made-off with.  Talk about a low life.  On the other side of the tracks, the good side, is Denzel Washington, a Walter Mitty sort of fella who is a disgraced MTA official recently demoted to the position of a train dispatcher in the NASA-like central control room for the Big Apple's subway system.  Just his luck that he's the guy who fields Ryder's call for the ransom money.  The razor-sharp dialogue from screenwriter Brian Helgeland allow these two heavyweight actors to engage in a wickedly escalating two-person verbal dance as the clock enevitably ticks down.  Travolta's language is more foul than the waters of Lake Titicaca, but it is believable, edgy, realistic, and quirky -- his randy remarks about taking a Lithuanian ass model to Iceland is classic.