Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Recount (2008) -vs- The Late Shift (1995)

Winners and Losers

The Smackdown. 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. The question is: if you're just watching these films as films and not metaphors or cautionary tales, which one's the best investment of a couple of hours?

The Challenger. The PR buzz for "Recount" is only just now building on the sides of buses, premiere parties, ET mentions and in interstitial spots on HBO itself. "Recount" came into my life last month, as a TV academy member, in the form of a "For Your Consideration" DVD. I've already written about this millenial political period on the "Instant History" site and remember, vividly, how transfixed we all were for that month of misery in 2000. Now, of course, we have the Clinton/Obama tie to bring us together on cable news channels and we may start to forget how many twists and turns there were in the Florida recount. HBO turned director Jay Roach ("Meet the Parents") loose on the project after Sidney Pollack turned them down, and Roach has done a fine job here making us re-live the headlines. I remember most vividly that the entire campaign was a debate about what to do with a budget surplus that disappeared after 9/11 never to be seen again and that both Gore and Bush were universally loathed by the electorate, accounting for their dead heat as much as the blue state-red state divide.

 

The Defending Champion. Back in the day, Johnny Carson ruled late night until he decided to quit in 1992, and then all hell broke loose as NBC managed to publicly court and humiliate the two princes who would be king: David Letterman and Jay Leno. The smoke eventually cleared in Leno's favor but the story behind the story became a book by Bill Carter that skewered all the characters involved for being true-to-life Hollywood sharks. As directed by Betty Thomas ("The Brady Bunch Movie"), this film stirred up all kinds of "inside baseball" controversy for HBO -- from its portrayals of Leno (Daniel Roebuck) and Letterman (John Michael Higgins) themselves to Leno's insane manager Helen Kushnick (Kathy Bates) and Letterman's insane agent (Michael Ovitz). This movie amused me a lot because I actually knew some of the players -- I'd been at Ovitz's agency CAA for a few years earlier in my career, I did a TV series with NBC's Warren Littlefield (Bob Balaban), and my son, Jonathan, had actually been a child actor portraying young Jay Leno on the Tonight Show for eight or nine appearances.

The Scorecard. Political junkies will love "Recount" in the same way that TV junkies loved "The Late Shift." They are insider pieces with real people being portrayed by some familiar actors. Tom Wilkinson, for example, does a killer James Baker and Laura Dern turns in a loopy Katerine Harris in "Recount."  Bob Balaban's in both films, but he was best in "The Late Shift."

The thing is, we already know how both films turn out. We know that Bush wins in the Supreme Court and goes on to invade Iraq while Gore grows a beard and re-discovers global warming. We also know that Leno gets the NBC gig while Letterman goes to CBS but gets the last laugh because he gets to watch from the sidelines as NBC does it again and publicly elbows Leno out for Conan O'Brien. In any case, though, since we know the endings, our enjoyment has to be all about the ride.

The ride feels less bumpy in "Recount" because the material is more important and is not 100% dependent on that HBO ironic tone in order to succeed. Sometimes it can just settle for telling its story. But the subject matter in "The Late Shift" seems smaller and therefore less compelling. This means it better be funny. It is, but only in fits and starts.

Funny, of course, is in the Eye of the Beholder and if you think you'd like to see Roeback in a latext chin playing Leno or Higgins with a gap-toothed denture playing Letterman, then you're in for a treat. If not, you will spend the film eyeing them the same way you look at formerly hot women with too much plastic surgery. They look mostly right, but something is at least a frame off. To the best of my knowledge, none of the actors in "Recount" are prosthetically enhanced.

"The Late Shift" actually has a few scenes with Dave and Jay together which should have been great, but fall flat. "Recount," on the other hand, has Denis Leary and I'm one of those viewers who can't get enough of this guy's peformances. He and Kevin Spacey share a lot of scenes together, but this is not Spacey's strongest performance. It feels like he method-actored his way into a study of the real guy he's portraying who must be very low-energy but the performance is a mistake.

Another oddball comparison here is that most viewers will watch these films thinking that the wrong guy won. By now, Gore's star has long-eclipsed Bush's with all but the most partisan crowds. At the same time, Johnny Carson always said he'd have picked Letterman if given the chance and it was Letterman's boyhood dream to host "The Tonight Show."

Imagine an America where President Gore fought global warming instead of Iraqi insurgents and "The Tonight Show with David Letterman" ruled the late shift. Dream on...

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) -vs- Mission: Impossible III (2006)

CLASSIC SMACK:  from August 2007...
Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret?

The Smackdown. A good secret agent can give lift to a film franchise and turn it into a multi-billion dollar industry. We have two inside-the-CIA runs going with "Bourne" and "Mission: Impossible," and both have gone into a third installment in the last year. The latest, "The Bourne Ultimatum," gives us the ending of the Bourne Identity Trilogy and stars Matt Damon in the title role as Jason Bourne. Last year, it was "Mission: Impossible III" or "M:i:III" with Tom Cruise playing the lead character Ethan Hunt. Both take audiences on whirlwind tours of world hotspots where awesome stunts never let you go and intrigue, such as it exists, does so only to serve the action. This all works so long as you care about the person involved in the action. Our question: in the battle to own the CIA franchise who do you trust, Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt? Which actor is more successful in bringing reality to their character? And which franchise should be coming back for more in the future?

 

The Challenger. This week I saw the Directors Guild screening of "The Bourne Ultimatum" at LA's Pacific Design Center, followed by an hour of Q-and-A with director Paul Greengrass. He talked at length about the challenges of "franchise" films (he also directed "The Bourne Supremacy") and how each one has to deliver more sizzle than the last one. His challenge with "The Bourne Ultimatum," as he analyzed it, is that the films merge an indie sensibility and global flavor with Hollywood sheen. Bourne films are supposed to look and feel real, or at least more real than the always re-inventing itself James Bond franchise. You don't see much CGI in this film, it's real stunts, shot as powerfully as any I've seen. In fact, there's a fight in this film that probably takes two minutes of screen time that is the single best fight I have ever seen and, according to Greengrass, they spent five entire days shooting it. It shows. So, too, does the director's concept that this will not be a movie that stops for character scenes in between action scenes. Every scene (almost) is framed in action. It's exhausting and exhilirating to watch. But there are also times (especially after the film is over and you're walking to your car) where you start to question the logic behind the story -- something you had no time to consider in the slam-bang action you've been watching. One thing the film sets out to do, and accomplishes, is telling the viewers who Jason Bourne really is, and how he got to be who he is.

The Defending Champion. Like the challenger in our Smackdown, "M:i:III" largely exists as a vehicle to string along an audience that has already shelled out many millions of dollars for the first two installments. Even though it may not have been apparent to all viewers, this third film is actually the best of the bunch. The first one was so amazingly opaque about who's doing what and why that I'm convinced it only succeeded because of the ultra-recognizable theme song and the fact that Tom Cruise in a movie promised the audience that money had been spent to make a grand piece of entertainment. Even though it is unevenly handled, "M:i:III" attempts to give the Hunt character some new dimension, showing us who he is when he's off duty, namely a guy who is conning his sweet girlfriend nurse Julia by telling her he's a traffic control engineer. This film puts not only Ethan's friends in jeopardy, but also his woman, something that is hardly heroic, but in the fast-pace of the film almost possible to ignore because it gives him a rock-solid reason to endure any pain and keep on fighting. Hunt, however, never quite knows what he's fighting for -- it's something called the "Rabbit's Foot" and everyone knows it's important -- but it's never really spelled out. Still, director J.J. Abrams puts the pedal to the metal here, spins out non-stop action with lots of special effects, and everything is done to a degree of technical perfection that leaves no complaints.

The Scorecard. Matt Damon has made his portrayal of Jason Bourne his signature role in his career so far. Tom Cruise has done the opposite. He was probably more accepted as Ethan Hunt in the first film but as his real-life persona has zigged and zagged his reality in the films wanes further with each new chapter.

Not that either film is very real at all, but there's no doubt that the gritty, hard-charging "Bourne" films feel more real than the latex-mask gimmick approach of "Mission: Impossible." Feeling real, however, is important to the experience and when you actually compare what you're getting here in a head-to-head fight, Bourne beats Hunt.

The two trilogies we have in the ring together have given themselves much different marching orders. The "Mission: Impossible" films are about giving Ethan Hunt a James Bondian-villain and problem to overcome, and to let him be seen as a super-agent and the only good guy standing between us and world destruction. Like Bond. Bourne, on the other hand, is a guy who's been messed with who's taking it personally. He's not on any mission at all for the Agency, except to kick the asses of the people who've done this to him. The three Bourne movies are all telling the same story with many of the same characters. Hunt, on the other hand, is a brand-new set-up each time.

Moola (2008) -vs- The Amateurs (2007)

Big Dreamers in Small Towns

The Smackdown. Not every film gets exhibited in a movie theater.  And not every film that misses out on that opportunity is bad.  Sometimes they can be good, or funny, or just plain awesome, and still not get into theaters because the economic model for film marketing seems to be risk aversion.  Period.  This means that, sometimes, a DVD of a film you've never heard of but see on a store shelf, whether it be Wal-Mart or Blockbuster, can be a diversion for the night.  It might not suck at all and, because you haven't seen a dozen trailers and been attacked by viral marketing, you might even find it unexpected and surprising.  Enter "Moola" and "The Amateurs" -- two films worth renting you probably haven't heard of -- both about a group of loveable losers who get caught up in unorthodox schemes to make it big and populated by actors you probably actually know.

The Challenger. Yep, that's the creepy "Other" Ethan above on the pink bike in Don Most's "Moola" where actor William Mapother plays Steve, a guy who's about to see a string of hard luck turned around.  He and his loser business partner Harry (Daniel Baldwin) are about to lose their chemical light sticks business to bankruptcy, their marriages are headed south, and then it happens.  "It" is a call from a farmer explaining that he wants to order more Omniglow light sticks because it turns out to be of real practical value in getting cows to get down with bulls.  At least that's what I think the deal is, but it really doesn't matter because the movie is not about bovine sex as much as it is about the deal that must be structured to procure this magic wand.  Before it's over, people have acted like they've got money they don't have, greedy people have cheated and lied, and the whole bit has gotten seriously out of hand.  Disclaimer: I actually cast the director, Don ("Donny") Most, as Timothy Leary on my "Dark Skies" series and as a past-life hypnotist on "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" but no money has changed hands here and I think we can treat the review as an "arm's length transaction."

The Defending Champion. I've lived through some tough economic times in my entertainment career but I've never thought to myself, "Gee, maybe if I made some hard core adult film, it would make money and turn my life around."  That's exactly what Jeff Bridges' character Andy Sargentee thinks, though, in writer-director Michael Traeger's "The Amateurs."  Andy goes out to recruit his low-brow friends around town to the cause and he turns up some pretty high profile actors in the roles: from Ted Danson and Joe Pantoliano to William Fichtner and Patrick Fugit and even Lauren Graham, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Glenne Headley.  Seriously, this is one hell of a cast for a film that was made in 2005 and still hadn't seen the light of day until recently.  As for tone, you'd have to say that they were going for a very naughty Capra-esque feel and they come pretty damn close most of the time.   

The Scorecard. The star power meter probably pegs closer to "The Amateurs" because of its bigger names, led by a bona-fide feature player like Bridges.  "Moola," though, catches fire whenever Daniel Baldwin is on the screen which is a revelation about his talent but, aside from the relative cult status of William Mapother and Curtis Armstrong, he's the biggest name, too.  Not that this isn't a winning ensemble, it is.  "The Amateurs" has an across-the-board strong cast, too, and also lets William Fichtner inhabit one of the most intriguing characters this great actor has been able to jump into in his career.  Advantage: Close, but "The Amateurs."

Where "Moola" comes storming back, though, is in the sheer craziness of its underlying idea about, basically, cows hooking up, and what big money it could be.  It's so specific that it feels real (and it is, actually, inspired by true events).  In contrast, "The Amateurs" feels like a comedic set-up, a chance to say provocative sexual things (i.e. needing "a half-dozen guys unloading on a gal until she looks like a melted candle") and get more than a few cheap laughs.  "Moola" doesn't have relentless comic force but when it gets a laugh, it's earned it.  The same applies to the characters.  By the time "Moola" wraps it up, we care about these people and when they dance together in celebration, it's just freaking charming.  Part of that is a function of the film taking extra time to set the characters up and get a feel for them so that we are in the same car on their roller-coaster ride. Advantage:  "Moola."

"Moola" also seems to have a real theme which is something to do with our perception of ourselves, self worth, etc.  "The Amateurs" wants us to buy into that, too, but it wants to be about regular guys making a porno even more.

Finally, in the everything is connected world, Don Most who directed "Moola" also played Ralph on "Happy Days" which starred Ron Howard who played Opie on the "Mayberry RFD" series from which "The Amateurs" steals all of its names.  Six Degrees of Richie C., anyone?

Smart People (2008) -vs- Wonder Boys (2000)

The Awful Plight of Pittsburg College Professors

The Smackdown. Why is it that actors who have made a decent living as leading men want to take roles where they look like crap, struggle with books in serious need of editing and, worse, have to live in Pittsburg? I mean no offense to the place, mind you, although they did support Clinton in that recent political Smackdown, but I digress... the point is that the movies that Dennis Quaid and Michael Douglas chose for their post-hunk lives want us to believe that they're really smart guys who, basically, can't quite seem to dress themselves after their wives have gone. My wife is still sticking with me so far but I think maybe, after seeing these movies, she's just worried that if she leaves I'll trash her reputation with my fashion choices.

The Challenger. "Smart People" gives us Dennis Quaid as a really grumpy professor who, after the death of his wife (yes, that again) is trying not-so-successfully to hold his family together. He plays Lawrence Wetherhold who specializes in Victorian literature and being a pretentious, arrogant and pompous pain-in-the-ass -- and he's very good at that, I should say. Fortunately, Quaid is surrounded by a great ensemble of actors that includes Thomas Haden Church, Sarah Jessica Parker and Ellen Page. All of them play seriously messed up people, too, but only Church pulls it off spectacularly. His stoner "adopted" brother is so damn funny without trying -- it's his best role since "Sideways."  The plot, such as it is, moves erratically along a path that is not very surprising -- Quaid's Wetherhold will try to get over his lost wife, his kids will be damaged and say mean things to him and each other, the loser brother will prove invaluable, and the girl who can't possibly replace the wife, naturally, will.

The Defending Champion. You have to hand it to Michael Douglas for having the guts to play Grady Trip in "Wonder Boys." After a series of movies where he was actually reported to have a 28-inch waist, Douglas shows off his shabby side here and actually is seen more than once in a fuzzy pink woman's bathrobe. Now that's acting! This film was based on a book by Michael Chabon (great) and was adapted by Steve Kloves and directed by Curtis Hanson coming off "L.A. Confidential." It's a shambling affair that moves in surprising ways, never quite letting you know what's going to happen next. Another great set of actors pass through this film: notably, Robert Downey Jr., Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand and, even, Mrs. Tom Cruise. The plot involves a long-overdue novel, the accidental murder of a dog, a gay book agent who preys on transexuals or college boys with equal abandon, and all the insecurities of writing and trying to live up to people's expectations.

The Scorecard. The first five minutes of "Smart People" rank as among the worst first five minutes of any movie I've seen in years. Every character seems lame and hateful. It was so bad that my wife bolted from the theater and sat this one out and snuck into "Baby Mama" across the cineplex. Dennis Quaid's character is such an a-hole in so many ways that my wife's despair was completely reasonable. If I didn't have this Smackdown in the back of my mind, I'd probably have joined her. The film, although predictable, does rally as it continues and even though it doesn't surprise, on more than a few levels it still manages to satisfy, sorta.

Both "Wonder Boys" and "Smart People" have marijuana scenes in them and the way they are handled tells you a lot about the tone of the two films. In "Smart People," Church's character gets his 17-year-old niece played by Page stoned. Nothing much comes of it, except that it is shorthand for his "let it roll" persona and allows her "Young Republican" to relax a little. We've seen it before in dozens of films. In "Wonder Boys," however, Michael Douglas's Grady Trip actually has a marijuana problem. He's getting high all the time, using it to hide from truths that need to be faced, and it's interfering with his life. It means something beside a quick smile.

Another thing that both films have in common are performances by the supporting actors that steal the oxygen from the scenes they're in. Church's stoner and Downy's gay lech both compel your attention every time they are on screen.

Yes, both films are strongly acted to be sure. Still, praising a film because it has good actors is a little like praising a film because it has good cinematography. It's important and powerful if the film justifies it, but good emoting and pretty pictures have to happen in the service of a greater cause to really mean something.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) -vs- My Left Foot (1990)

Review by Bryce Zabel 

The Smackdown. If you're looking for a film that will make you feel a little better about your own life, try either of these. They'll also make you feel better about the "human spirit" and other noble thoughts but, basically, you will realize that all the crap you complain about every day really is just crap and that you should take a chill pill and try to realize how good things really are. Both "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and "My Left Foot" which preceded it by almost two decades feature lead characters who are suffering through horrific physical challenges which make it nearly impossible for them to communicate but, because they are just as alive inside their brains as any of us and maybe more so, they rise above their fear, pain and sadness to communicate anyway. In the end, in both films, it turns out to be less about what they say than the fact that they said anything at all that is so inspirational.

The Challenger. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is a French film ("Le Scaphandre et le Papillon") about Jean-Dominique Bauby who, in 1995, when he was 43 and the editor of the French Elle, suffered a stroke. It left him unable to speak, barely able to move, and the victim of a rare condition which is known as "Locked-In Syndrome." The thing is, it didn't affect his mind at all, he remained as alert as he'd ever been. At the risk of being a smart-ass about such a depressing and awful situation, this film could have been called "My Left Eye" because that's the only part of Bauby's body that he could control. He used his left eyelid and communicated by blinking. He even wrote a memoir by working with an assistant using a special alphabet which put the letters in the order of their frequency. You might well ask how it's possible to make a film about this but screenwriter Ronald Harwood and director Julian Schnabel have managed to do a thrilling job of it, mostly by playing on our natural empathy, and contrasting the life and times Bauby lived before the event with the interior monologue of his illness.

The Defending Champion. As I recall it now, it wasn't easy to watch "My Left Foot" which is the story of Irishman Christy Brown -- the 9th of 22 children -- who was born with cerebral palsy, and spent his life trapped in a body that was twisted and paralyzed. At best, Brown could speak in gutteral words that only his mother could translate, but he had a left foot that worked. He used that foot to express his thoughts as a writer and his art as a painter.  There is absolutely nothing sentimental about this telling. Two actors play Brown: Hugh O'Conor handles it through his youth and Daniel Day-Lewis brought his adulthood to life. Growing up in Dublin was no picnic. His family had no money and life was hard and working class but Christy Brown probably learned his resiliance there. He simply wasn't treated special because no one could afford to do that. This is no Helen Keller story, though, as Brown was a hard-drinking, bawdy Irishman through-and-through. He just happened to be stuck inside a body that was in full-revolt.

The Scorecard. Both Christy Brown's "My Left Foot" and Jean-Dominique Bauby's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" started as books and made the transition to screen. I haven't read them and I can't judge who the better writer was, and certainly can't comment on how they made the leap to film.

Although both films find a place in their film-present to launch flashbacks, as directed by Jim Sheridan and written by Sheridan and Shane Connaughton, "My Left Foot" is much more autobiographical. It's about Christy Brown growing up into the man he became and dealing with his adversity. "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is much more experiential, thrusting the audience into a sense of Bauby's dread and anguish, almost as if we have suffered the stroke. There is a scene, early on, where Bauby's right eye has to be sewed shut in order to save it and he is powerless to express his fear and rage. I doubt even "Saw" has a more authentic moment of torture and disfigurement. It felt like my eye had the the needle dragging the thread through it.

There is a lyrical quality to "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and a gritty quality to "My Left Foot." The former could happen to any of us at any time as it did Bauby. The latter happened to someone else, and we feel awful, but we realize that because we were not born with cerebral palsy that, at least, this is one affliction that we have evaded.

As far as performances go, however, you can't touch Daniel Day-Lewis. "My Left Foot" is probably the film that put him on the map, at least the one that was seen and talked about, mostly because of his absolute descent into the physical jail that Brown lived in.  Mathieu Amalric plays Bauby wonderfully, but the performance that seems to count in his predicament belongs to the cinematographer Janusz Kaminski who takes us inside his head into his still body and sole blinking eye.

Atonement (2007) -vs- The Kite Runner (2007)

Review by Bryce Zabel 

The Smackdown. We can probably all agree that children should be protected from seeing and hearing and thinking about sexual contacts in the world around them and yet, sometimes they aren't, sometimes they get a dose of reality before they're ready to handle it. In both "Atonement" and "The Kite Runner," young kids end up seeing sexual encounters -- in one case consenting and in the other definitely not -- and they make choices they end up regretting for the rest of their lives. They end up dragging other innocents into their confusion and creating even more victims. Each of these two films lives in a couple of different time periods, too, making just keeping track of some things a challenge. They both explore tough and demanding material where the rooting values and the unfolding of the aftermath is tricky stuff. You want them to succeed but it's a high-wire act. Let's see how these two highly regarded films -- both adapted from respected novels -- stack up against each other.

The Challenger. The first of the two films embedded inside "Atonement" deals with idyllic lives being lived in an English country house between the World War I and World War II. There's a full helping of "Upstairs, Downstairs" served up here because our two leads -- Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) -- are on the two sides of the divide. She's the headstrong older daughter in a wealthy family and he's the housekeeper's son. But love and sex don't always care about those distinctions and Cecilia and Robbie are destined to end up in each other's arms. This would be reasonably okay except that Cecilia's younger sister, Briony (Saoirse Ronan), is 13 and even more confused sexually than they are, and she reads a letter and then sees some things that causes her to strike out at the very man she, herself, has an infatuation with. After that happens, suddenly it's five years later, Britain is at war with Germany, Robbie has returned to the scene, and we see the evacuation of Dunkirk in a way it's never been seen in film before. And then, come to think of it, there's even a third time period in this film, but that's all I'm prepared to say about it.

The Defending Champion. The truth is that you could actually call "The Kite Runner" by the title of the other film in this Smackdown, "Atonement," and get away with it. This film concerns life in Afghanistan before and after the rise of the Taliban, moves to the United States and back again. It's all seen through the eyes of another child of privilege, in this case a 12-year-old boy named Amir (back in 1978) who turns out to be a writer in San Francisco (in 2001). The thing is Amir also was involved in an upstairs-downstairs situation with Hassan, the son of the family servant. I've seen what happens between them laid out so explicitly in film reviews that I'm glad I saw this without reading them and I'm not going to repeat the insult. Suffice it to say that something happens to Hassan and Amir is a witness and how he deals with it changes the relationship not only in Afghanistan but follows the adult Amir to America and then back to his homeland.

The Scorecard. Both films ask you to pay attention. In that regard, "The Kite Runner" seems to ask a little more and deliver a little less. On the other hand, it takes most of its audience (in the United States anyway) on a ride that they've never been on before while the journey of "Atonement" feels more familiar, like a very, very expensive "Masterpiece Theater."

Director Marc Forster and screenwriter David Benioff have had to take a lot out of Khaled Hosseini's novel of "The Kite Runner," but they seem to have stayed reasonably true to it. As for "Atonement," director Joe Wright, working from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, seem to have made Ian McEwan's novel breathe more deeply by their intervention.

There are some spectacular performances in both. "Atonement" has Keira Knightly and James McAvoy making us believe they are not only of the period but are completely believable creating the doomed lovers. For an added bonus, Vanessa Redgrave is on screen for only a few moments, but she ties the entire film together in a surprisingly powerful piece of acting. In "The Kite Runner," the son of the servant is played  by Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada in one of those rare pieces of acting that is so wonderful because you know he never set foot in a Hollywood acting class and wouldn't know a method actor from a Mullah. But the peformance that worked for me beyond all others in this film comes from Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi playing the militant man-about-town Baba who is brought down to a sad reality in his later years in the United States. However, both young and old Amir in this film barely get by.

There's another point of comparison that bears mentioning -- the use of CGI. In "Atonement," it's used to give us the single longest shot in film history (I'm guessing) through the beach at Dunkirk and it happens in a way that feels organic and real. The CGI in "The Kite Runner" gives us kites doing impossible things in the sky, kite POV, and a sense that we have been taken out of the film story entirely. Point, "Atonement."

Charlie Wilson's War (2007) -vs- Primary Colors (1998)

Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog
Review by Bryce Zabel 

The Smackdown. Here are two films from director Mike Nichols which, even looking in the rear-view mirror of history, have a lot to say about the human cost of invasion in Afghanistan and a national election involving the Clintons. Both the soon-to-be released "Charlie Wilson's War" and last decade's "Primary Colors" are adapted from best-selling non-fiction books where a Major Film Star gets to affect a southern accent as a larger-than-life politician with a weakness for women. In that Smackdown, we've got Tom Hanks and John Travolta. There are other parallel roles to contrast: Julia Roberts versus Emma Thompson and those guys with three names,  Phillip Seymour Hoffman versus Billy Bob Thornton. So let the games begin:

The Challenger. "Charlie Wilson's War" is based on the late George Crile's book about how, in the late 80s, a hard-drinking, coke-snorting, skirt-chasing congressman almost single-handedly got a covert war financed so the Afghan Mujahideen could shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships in Afghanistan. If that sounds like an unlikely premise for a hot film, I have two words for you. Aaron Sorkin. It's his dialogue, that whip-smart, hyper-real patter of the cynical idealist that he perfected on TV's "The West Wing" that lifts the story, particularly when Hanks' Charlie Wilson and Philip Seymour Hoffman's CIA op Gust Avrakotos get together. Director Nichols has learned a thing or two over the years, too, staging one of the funniest scenes between the two that is timed just perfectly. In any case, Charlie and Gust conspire with Julia Roberts' Joanne Herring, a wealthy Texas socialite, to buy Soviet weapons from Israel, sell them to Pakistan and get them into Afghanistan. Eventually, the Soviets turn tail and run in defeat, and the guys we armed turn into the Taliban, welcome the al-Qaeda gang, and plot 9/11, but that's another movie. This movie is about saying that nothing would ever get done if people played by the rules and that a good guy sometimes has to act like a bad guy to make a difference.

The Champion. The film comes with its own strong 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). Travolta's impression of our former president is a little too slow and scratchy and never quite nails down this character as someone who could win the presidency despite some huge errors in personal judgment. There's a great moment when Susan Stanton up and slaps the hell out of her husband's face after his latest infidelity: it's surprising and it's what you would hope Hill actually did to Bill at some point. However, this is a film that doesn't actually pick sides: Clinton haters will see it as proof that Bill was barely a moral level above pond scum, and Clinton lovers will see it as proof of his humanity, however flawed and imperfect.

The Scorecard. I actually saw this film at the Directors Guild theater where Mike Nichols was the guest (interviewed by Alexander Payne) and answered questions for almost an hour. Nichols talked about both films but didn't seem to see how much character and tone they shared. Nichols sang the praises of both his earlier writer and partner, Elaine May, and his latest, Aaron Sorkin. As he told it, Sorkin was working on his TV series "Studio 60" and launching his play "The Farnsworth Invention" when he was doing "Charlie Wilson's War." A little of that Attention Deficit Disorder seems to have sunk into not only the dialogue but also Nichols' final pacing of his film. "Primary Colors," by way of comparison, was almost two-and a half hours.

Nichols began by saying that "All films are political" and one audience member challenged him in the last question of the night about how the film was a "love letter to Bush," an opinion that neither the director nor me seemed to share (and that I know for a fact Sorkin clearly doesn't). But it did point out that "Charlie Wilson's War" is by far more murky in terms of getting an easy handle on its politics. "Primary Colors" is all personal and, if anything, seems only to be saying that running for office is a game that sometimes is fun, sometimes dangerous and always played for keeps. This latest film, though, has Democrats wanting to kill Russians in Afghanistan and lionizes Hanks' Wilson even though what he did is bend and twist the government rules to get his way and, for my money, not all that differently from Oliver North. The moral of "Charlie Wilson's War" seems to be that conning lawmakers to turn a $5-million covert ops budget into a $1-billion one is fine because their heart was in the right place and our only mistake was not building schools for the Afghans after the Soviets were defeated. It was an odd moment: 95% of the DGA audience, the director, the screenwriter and probably everybody else in Hollywood is opposed to the use of force by the U.S. and our interference in foreign conflict most of the time, but in this film, it's the rooting value.

In terms of performances, though, Tom Hanks makes a more convincing Charlie Wilson than John Travolta does a Bill Clinton. Of course, part of this is we know who Clinton is, and we have no clue about Wilson, but it's also that Travolta is operating in a place of less comfort than Hanks. The point here goes to "Charlie Wilson's War." Both films have their sparkplugs: Hoffman in "Charlie" and Thornton in "Colors" but Hoffman's is the more important role and he just takes the movie and the decision here, too. Emma Thompson in "Colors," however, is far more interesting than Julia Roberts in "Charlie."

In the writing honors, Sorkin gets the edge over May, but only on points. Both of these people know what they're doing so well, and it shows. You can debate the politics, but not the quality of the words.

I Am Legend (2007) -vs- The Omega Man (1971) -vs- The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Empty Cities; Empty Souls
Review by Bryce Zabel 

The Smackdown. Richard Matheson's original 1954 novel, I Am Legend, put ideas into the 50s zeitgeist that have stayed with us, spawned spin-offs, rip-offs and re-makes. Now, after years of starting and stopping, there is finally a film that uses the original, powerful title that the writer himself felt was appropriate for his work. That film is "I Am Legend." It follows a lineage of trying to adapt the brilliant original to film with spotty success (at least, critically); from the 60s version made in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis; to the 70s version where Charleton Heston brought his post-"Planet of the Apes" sci-fi cred to the endeavor; to this post-millennial version which wants to do what all the others set out to do but fell short of, but with today's fears, not yesterday's. These are three films that say as much about who we were at the time of their production as they do about the actual films themselves. "I Am Legend" hits the theaters on December 14, "The Omega Man" was just re-released on Blu Ray and HDVD, and "The Last Man on Earth" has multiple versions out there. Let's say this being the holiday season and all, you've only got the stomach for one good, end of the world, post-apocalyptic journey. Which one?

The Challenger. You've heard that this was a troubled production. To show how long that's been going on, consider this. The lead in this movie was supposed to have been played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ridley Scott was set to direct. When you see how relatable and human Will Smith can be, and what a fine actor he's become with every new movie, you will be so damned happy that they waited to get this right, you will probably want to do something to proclaim this that you'll probably be driven to do something nuts like write a review. I went to see this film with my 15-year-old Jared at a WGA screening put on by Warner Brothers at TV Academy Theater (the same place where, as chairman a few years ago, I got to announce the Emmy nominations at 5:20am). The trailers and the hype had worked their magic. We were stoked to be seeing this at all, but two weeks before it's out officially, and in a phenomenal theater, we really couldn't wait.

The story is that Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last survivor of a pandemic caused by a "cure" for cancer that turned out to be a mutating son-of-a-bitch of a virus that jumped tracks somewhere and became a human rage virus. Sort of like "28 Days Later" and that's all the spoiling we'll do here. The future time frame of this latest apocalypse is 2012, although the virus raged across the planet in 2009.

"When you stop caring about cleanliness, man, I mean to tell you, that's really the end of the world."

The 70s Champion. I saw "The Omega Man" for probably $1.50 or $2.00 at the Town Theater in Hillsboro, Oregon when I was a kid. It worked for me. Watching Charleton Heston tool around an empty Los Angeles in that hot car of his, taking whatever he wanted from whatever store he was in, watching movies for free as many times as he wanted, that was a lifestyle that really seemed special. Of course there were those oddball zombie/mutant dudes lead by an albino Anthony Zerbe, and that was a pesky detail, for sure.

Boris Sagal directed this version from a script by John William Corrington and Joyce H. Corrington based on the Matheson novel. In this telling, the future apocalypse is 1977, two years since a biological war between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union pretty much wiped out humanity. Like Will Smith's Dr. Robert Neville, Charleton Heston's characer was a military scientist when the plague hit. He's injected himself with an experimental vaccine, and it must have worked, because the LA of this timeline is one where, shall we say, freeway traffic congestion has been addressed and is no longer an issue.

"When I said 'leave me alone, God,' I was just talking about, at that time. Because, right now, I could use a little company."

The 60s Champion. As long as we're using the box office barometer of my childhood as an indicator, let's just say that if I could remember seeing "The Last Man on Earth" as a kid, it would have cost me $.25 at the Hill Theater in Hillsboro. These days there are multiple editions of this available on DVD, mostly because it's fallen out of copyright and into public domain. It's most true to the novel's use of vampires over zombies over raging pandemic victims, but that also makes it less believable. Oh, and they shot it in Italy, which gives it a whole other vibe.

Directed by Sidney Salkow, "The Last Man on Earth" actually has Matheson a screenwriter who, apparently, was so turned off by what the writers who came after him did to the material, that he took his credit by the name of Logan Swanson. This film's future apocalypse is set in 1968, where every day Dr. Robert Morgan (horror veteran Vincent Price) grabs his weapons and goes vampire hunting. These are real vampires, the kind who can't stand sunlight, recoil from mirrors and can't stand garlic. This Dr. Morgan is immune to the disease that caused this (it wasn't biting) because, he surmises, he was bit by a bat at a young age. The last image here is memorable because he gets chased into a church and murdered on the altar, like "Cool Hand Luke" and Jesus.

The Scorecard. Each film worked for its time. "The Last Man on Earth" was pretty much meant to be a B film, afternoon matinee, grab a bag of popcorn kind of movie. Nobody expected  huge production values, and because we hadn't seen "28 Days Later" and the like, we didn't care. It seemed to dial into the spiraling fears we all felt in a world that could be nuclear incinerated any night while we lay sleeping. "The Omega Man," on the other hand, had different expectations on its way to the screen and so its failings are a little harder to forgive. We liked it, but it hasn't aged so well. Purists, on the other hand, may want to argue that the current "I Am Legend" has lost its way, stripping away vampires, etc. Thinking about Spoiler Alerts, let me phrase this carefully. "I Am Legend" starts with one of the best openings I've ever seen in a film, let alone a sci-film. It takes you on a journey that is both a thrill ride and a thought puzzle. It ends and you're sorry it's over.

2007 Santa Smackdown: And the Winner Is...

From the Editor |  Bryce Zabel 

The results are in from our 2007 Christmas season Santa Smackdown where each of ten critics put forward their favorite Christmas film, and we let our readers vote. As you can see from the final numbers, there's a new champion in town, but the old champ still packs a lot of punch. 

"A Christmas Story" (favorited by Smackdown critic Scott Baradell) came in first with 28% of the total votes in this crowded field. In second place, "It's A Wonderful Life" (favorited by Smackdown critic Jonathan Zabel) was competitive, but ousted. Anyway, here was Scott's winning review:

When I think of classic lines from Christmas movies, "Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings" isn't the first one that comes to mind. And neither is "God bless us, every one."  No, for me, the most memorable line ever in a holiday movie is "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" from 1983's "A Christmas Story" -- novelist and screenwriter Jean Shepherd's giddily cynical look at growing up in small-town Indiana in the 1940s.

The story line may not, at first blush, strike you as proper Christmas movie fodder. It's all about a kid named Ralphie who passionately wants to own... tin drum-roll, please... a Daisy Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action BB gun. Oddly, everybody he talks to seems incapable of discussing this potential possession without using those words, "shoot your eye out." The world this film lives in no longer exists and that's part of the reason it's so much fun to visit for a couple of hours.

This is truly the Little Engine That Could of holiday flicks. A low-budget box-office flop featuring minor stars Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin, and directed by Bob Clark of "Porky's" infamy, "A Christmas Story" began to pick up steam with audiences when Ted Turner's WTBS began broadcasting it in the late '80s. By the mid-'90s, Turner was airing 24-hour marathons of the film on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The reason for the success?  The movie has an ear for how kids talk, and a heart for how they feel. It manages to be nostalgic without being sentimental. And that's no mean trick.

This, BTW, mirrors a recent Time article by James Poniewozik, "Generation X-mas: How an Upstart Film Became a Holiday Icon for the Post-boomer Set."

This is one of those little pop-cultural shifts--football overtakes baseball, salsa defeats ketchup--that signal bigger changes: here, in the relationship between the community and the individual. In a traditional Christmas story, the larger holiday is a social good. It uplifts the suicidal, raises every voice in Whoville, renders peace between Macy and Gimbel. Those who reject it--Scrooge, the Grinch--must be forced into its tinseled embrace. Community is all, as in Wonderful Life's blend of World War II patriotism and New Deal populism: your money's in the Kennedy house and Mrs. Macklin's house and a hundred others!

A Christmas Story--and the snarky holiday comedies that have followed it--inverts this moral. Here, the Christmas celebrated by the greater society is crass, stressful and risible. The movie opens with a crowd of kids staring slack-jawed at the pagan temple of a store-window display. (No, George--that's where my money is!) In the end, the characters discover an authentic holiday outside the usual traditions--as when Ralphie and family, their turkey devoured by the neighbor's dogs, discover "Chinese turkey" (Peking duck) at a chop-suey restaurant. It's the individual Christmas that matters. Bedford Falls can take a hike.

So, for what it's worth, the 89 readers who took part in the Santa Smackdown are in step with with this new trend. They like Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) as their new Christmas champ.

That's right. 89 readers voted. This poll was up for a month, on several blogs, probably had between 10 and 20-thousand sets of eyeballs on it and 89 people voted. If everybody had voted, it wouldn't have been scientific. If 89 vote, it's ridiculous. We hereby declare (for now) the end of polls on this website. If we need results anymore, we'll just make them up. That will be much simpler and just as accurate.

If you want to read our ten reviews from our Smack Refs, just click here.

Hairspray (2007) -vs- Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Thirty Years of Dancing Travolta!

The Smackdown. It was three decades ago that a charismatic sitcom star named John Travolta crossed over into feature film fame with the cultural sensation Saturday Night Fever. In the years since, Travolta has seen his career wax and wane and regularly made choices that placed him on the dance floor post "Fever," notably playing Danny Zuko in Grease and Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. This year he returned as Edna in Hairspray.

This time out we serve up a different approach to a Smackdown: two critics, each on different sides, present the evidence and make their pitch -- but you decide the winner by voting in our poll at the end. What do you think? Which is Travolta's best film where the music and the dancing are what it's all about -- the time he put on his disco shoes for Saturday Night Fever or the time he put on the fat suit for Hairspray?

"I still got it, baby!"

Mark Sanchez for "The Challenger."  It's Edna all the way. Travolta made headlines for Hairspray by appearing in a secondary role as a woman in a fat suit. As Edna Turnblad he kept the buzz alive by performing the role so well. Travolta never descended into caricature or slapstick but showed remarkable sensitivity as a self-doubting hausfrau. She may have been self-exiled in her Baltimore apartment, but Edna noticeably blooms the more she gets out. Edna / Travolta provides one of Hairspray's many highlights in a dance number with Christopher Walken that is extremely well-staged and graceful. I'm not the only person in the audience who gasped at how effectively they managed "You're Timeless to Me." Hairspray didn't change my life but it mattered a lot more because John Travolta  breathed life into Edna Turnblad.

"Feast your eyes, Lady-in-Red. I'll never be fat, old or a woman. Tough luck for you. Let's dance."

Bryce Zabel for "The Champion." According to Roger Ebert (who should know), "Saturday Night Fever" was his original partner Gene Siskel's favorite movie and Siskel watched it at least seventeen times. I've seen it, like, maybe five times but if you dropped by the house with the DVD and wanted to screen it again, I wouldn't complain.

Let's start with the character of Tony Manero. According to the DVD extras, Travolta fought to keep Tony edgy and he won. Tony can be a real dick to the girls who adore him but, at the same time, he's got a huge heart and tons of style. He is so cut and charismatic in this film it's insane. Yet, he's got a world of sadness beneath him because he senses that his days on the dance floor won't be enough to get him out of Brooklyn or even to get him into a good life that a real adult can live in. What's also progressive about this film is how it seems not interested at all in explaining Tony. It only wants to push ahead in its story and let Tony be Tony.

The story is mature, nuanced, powerful, joyous and sad. I remember getting dressed up to go out to discos and feeling like an inadequate fool and yet knowing that I had to go and compete. And I was just a nerd in Eugene, Oregon. He was a god of the 2001 Odyssey -- imagine the pressure he felt!

This film is a musical except the characters never break into song. The soundtrack -- dominated by the Bee Gees -- was, in my few, the first flawless and pungent synthesis between film and song. The dancing is incredible. Travolta worked for nearly eight months in preparation for this role and it shows.

The Scorecard. Normally, this is where our critic ticks off the pluses and minuses of the film they're reviewing. In this one-off, however, it's where our two critics each stand up for their pick and make the argument personally.

Mark Sanchez: Edna Turnblad scores heavy points on-and-off the dance floor for John Travolta in Hairspray. Unlike Saturday Night Fever Travolta doesn't play a young Italian guy from New Jersey which in 1977 was no great reach for him. Bryce, this takes nothing away from the film: It struck a chord and had a dynamite soundtrack featuring recognized hits from the disco era. Even so, acting credibly and dancing well as a middle-age woman in a fat suit probably demanded more from Travolta as a performer. He can no longer squeeze into that white disco suit..but as Edna Turnblad demonstrates on the dance floor Travolta still has the moves. As a film Hairspray is a compelling hybrid: It takes the "Here comes the 1960s" storyline from the original movie, but owes more to the Broadway musical. The newest Hairspray features several specially-written songs. It also deals  --  breezily, for sure  --  with serious issues of racial intolerance and coming of age that still have meaning today. I guess  --  for me  --  some themes resonate more deeply. And here you have Edna / Travolta singing and dancing in the middle of it. Bryce, you'll see that for yourself as Hairspray is now available on DVD.

Bryce Zabel: Honest, Mark, Hairspray's a fine film and it's a pretty harmless diversion for an evening. But it's no singular achievement like Saturday Night Fever. That film single-handedly kick-started disco into a white hot phenom even as it was starting to wane in 1978. I guess I could concede that both films capture that excitement that goes with wanting to take whatever skills or magic you have and take them as far as they'll go. But SNF added to that by showing that even that isn't enough. At the end of the dance, at the end of the audience cheers and adulation, you still have to go home with yourself. Every time I see this film, it moves me. Even more in SNF's favor, I think, is that the music is chock-full of songs that define a time perfectly. There really aren't any songs (I don't think) in Hairspray that exist as mega-hits outside of the film. SNF was a marriage of a huge film and a huge soundtrack. There was a time in my life (yes, I'll admit it) when I listen to that album every single day. But, no, I never did own a white suit...

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you only want to judge this on the dancing, though. There's no question that Travolta still has the dance chops in Hairspray (as do others in the film), but his work in Saturday Night Fever is passionate and powerful. The solo number he does at the 2001 Odyssey is probably the best dance sequence in film ever.

The Decision. Okay, then, you've heard our passion. Now it's your turn to weigh in. Please vote your choice in our MOVIE SMACKDOWN! Vizu poll and let us know how you feel. We'll give it a few weeks, then post back with what the people's verdict is, and we'll ask all our Smackdown! critics to give us their opinions.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

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

All By Myself
Review by Bryce Zabel 

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" recently, knowing that it was a true story, and more than ready to go back to this wild place that has touched us.

"When Thoreau did this, he didn't have to overcome cravings for a Big Whopper. One bite, that's all I ask."

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.

American Gangster (2007) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Family Values
Review by Bryce Zabel 

The Smackdown. It can't be easy being a young criminal crime boss and drug lord, coming from a struggling underclass, living in the shadow of an even more powerful criminal. Both Frank Lucas and Michael Corleone step out on their own in "American Gangster" and "The Godfather, Part II" and become, in many ways, even more frightening than that which spawned them. Both killers also love their families (or say they do). This crime story Smackdown not only pits the great actors of their respective generations (Al Pacino & Robert DeNiro, Denzel Washington & Russell Crowe) against each other but two of the most accomplished directors: first Francis Ford Coppola, and now, Ridley Scott.

"Frank, I'm only sayin' the Italians pay on time. Just don't make me nostalgic for them, okay?'"

The Challenger. "American Gangster" is based on the true story of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas who cornered the heroin market in his part of NYC about thirty years ago. In the script by Steve Zaillian directed by Ridley Scott, we see how Lucas made a staggering amount of money by being what he thought of as a  better businessman -- his H was twice as pure and twice as cheap as the competition on the streets, and he even branded it as "Blue Magic." Lucas, played to perfection by Denzel Washington, has that explosive coolness he manifested in "Training Day" and packaged into a film that feels, at times, epic by showing his roots as a driver, bodyguard and "collector" for another Harlem bad-ass (with class!) named Bumpy. Lucas, shall we say, has a couple of different sides to his personality: in the opening scene he sets a man on fire and empties a gun into him, but later he buys a mansion and moves his dirt poor family in with him. "Gangster" has a duality to its structure, too, in that almost equal screen time is given to the character of Richie Roberts, the squeaky-clean detective who eventually took Lucas down and two-thirds of the corrupt New York drug cops with him. Played by Russell Crowe, Roberts is our counter-point in more ways than good-vs-evil: his own family is falling apart, even as Lucas's is spending quality time together.