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Stephen Colbert Photobombs Jon Stewart at the Emmys

September 25, 2012 Movie Smackdown 1

“Why,” Stephen Colbert must be thinking, “am I always in Jon Stewart’s shadow?

“Anyone can see that my hair is as better than Stewart’s grandfatherly silver mane. (And it’s WAY better than Bryce Zabel’s, the Movie Smackdown guy who seems to be sprucing up his ‘do with a lovely red tiara in this picture.) ”

Colbert has a long way to go before he catches up with his stable mate’s record-setting ten consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Variety Series, but in terms of subversive attitude, he’s lurking right there over Stewart’s shoulder. Photo by Lauren Zabel. (Cont.) […]

Oscars 2012: The Final Word

February 27, 2012 Arthur Tiersky 5

What can one say about such a non-event as the 2012 Oscars? Perhaps not quite that it was “The Most Boring Oscars Ever!!!!,” as Nikki Finke is apparently obligated to say about every Oscarcast. But […]

Oscar Week at the Smack

February 20, 2012 Movie Smackdown 1

Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have their way of picking movie winners; we have ours. We’re not gonna say Movie Smackdown’s way is necessarily better than its Oscar competition, although […]

Albert Nobbs: A Cross-Dressing Downton Abbey

February 14, 2012 Bryce Zabel 6

The film Albert Nobbs — a cross-dressing version of Downton Abbey — features Glenn Close dressed as a man the entire movie. She plays the title character, a 19th-century Dublin woman who passes as a man so she can work as a waiter. I’ll bet confused waiters all over the world are racing off to check the movie listings even as we speak.

The look is so bizarre that my daughter who attended the screening with me expressed her fear after the film that she’s going to have nightmares about the character. But the voting members of the film Academy gave Close an Oscar nomination. . […]

The Way We See it: Joe Rassulo on the Oscars

February 8, 2012 Joe Rassulo 8

The Artist is this year’s most talked about and most overrated film. Yes, it’s charming and filled with lovely, touching performances and indelible moments of black and white reveries of movies and times past. It is a wonderful homage to an era long gone. Its obvious relevance to today is its theme of technology leaving many obsolete in its wake. There’s a familiar resonance to the despair many feel in today’s technological storm, which has left so many jobless and even homeless. But the film touches on that theme in a broad, superficial way. “Modern Times” it is not. It’s a singular, gimmicky, almost-silent film that works on every level except one of true substance. And, I believe, a best picture of the year should do more than charm. […]

The Oscar as the Ultimate Smackdown

January 30, 2012 Bryce Zabel 2

Despite the major studios’ insistence on making primarily mega-budget, tent-pole, comic-book, sequel-remake, monster-alien-scifi films as their bread-and-butter, challenging and compelling original films do get made every year through alternative means. And, despite the harping and complaining we all do, there always seems to be a great crop that bridge the divide and are worth saluting. Those are the kinds of films that the Academy Awards gravitate to as their nominees. […]

What We Thought of The Golden Globes…

January 16, 2012 Movie Smackdown 0

If Hollywood were some dysfunctional family unit, then Ricky Gervais is the crazy drunk uncle who comes to your house and tells inappropriate jokes that horrify and crack everybody up in equal measure. You don’t know whether to throw him out or tolerate him, until he crosses the line and says something about grandma’s nasty bathroom habits, and when he gets called on it, he’s had too much to drink already, and he storms off to the nearest hotel to sleep it off. Then, the next year, you all assume he should never be re-invited, but the memories have dimmed of the off-color jokes and all you remember is how much fun you had. […]

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