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Recent Posts
- 42 (2013) vs. Remember the Titans (2000)
- Admission (2013) vs. About a Boy (2002)
- Oz the Great and Powerful (2012) vs. The NeverEnding Story (1984)
- Dark Skies (2013) vs. Dark Skies (1996)
- Oscar Wrap-Up 2013
- A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) vs. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
- Oscar Smack-a-thon!
- The Tiersky Top Ten, 2012
- Smackdown Smacks Down the 2013 Oscar Nominees
- Broken City (2013) vs. City Hall (1996)
- Men of Steel (Smackdown’s Superman Smashup)
- Les Miserables (2012) vs. The Fugitive (1993)
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Category Archives: Family
Wreck-it Ralph (2012) vs. Toy Story (1995)
When we Baby Boomers were kids, our toys had lives of their own to us. Now that our children are young, it’s their video game characters that seem real to them. So, having once cherished my Davy Crockett coonskin cap and toy rifle, it was easy for me to see poetry in Toy Story’s Woody, a child’s inanimate cowboy doll by day, and a fretting, insecure, full-blooded character, when no one was looking at night.
My 10-year-old son Jack never had a doll like Woody to play with, but he did grow up with video games and movie characters, including Mario and Luigi. So naturally, Disney, which teamed with Pixar to bring us Toy Story, has jumped into the breach with a similarly themed movie for the Millennials. The new film, Wreck-It Ralph is also about the secret lives of children’s play-things once humans are out of the way. And the same John Lasseter who skyrocketed to prominence as Toy Story’s writer-director is overseeing Ralph as executive producer. Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Family
Tagged 3D animation, Adam Carolla, animation, arcade, Buzz Lightyear, Disney, Don Rickles, Ed O'Neill, enemy, hero, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch Sarah Silverman, John C. Reilly, John Lasseter, John Ratzenberger, Mindy Kaling, Tim Allen, Tom Hanks, toys, video game, Woody
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The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) -vs- Foster (2011)
When I first saw the trailer for The Odd Life of Timothy Green, it seemed so quirky and original that I was surprised to learn it had a perfect Smackdown opponent waiting in semi-obscurity to face off against it. Foster, released in 2011 but only seen by a handful of people — most of them probably in London art houses — is so similar to Timothy Green in concept that I began to question the latter’s provenance. (As it turns out, Timothy is not a recast Yank version of Foster but an original script by director Peter Hedges, from a story by Ahmet Zappa, one of Frank’s kids.) Both films are gentle fairy tales that examine family relationships. Both involve children, who magically appear when they are most needed and manage to teach their troubled adoptive parents a thing or two about love and parenting. Both fathers are in jeopardy of losing their jobs, which the magical children in their lives are also able to help them address. And both are full of hokey life lessons, yet surprisingly are able to touch audiences in a genuinely heartfelt way. Continue reading
Posted in Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Smackdown News
Tagged Ahmet Zappa, CJ Adams, Common, Dianne Wiest, Hayley Mills, Ioan Gruffudd, Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, Maurice Cole, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Toni Collette
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Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) -vs- Ice Age (2002)
In 2002, in the wake of Shrek and Monsters, Inc, 20th Century Fox launched what was soon to become one of its most successful children’s franchises, Ice Age. With few expectations and little fanfare, it became a surprise worldwide, animated hit, rivaling both those other films, if not in total box office, then certainly in audience loyalty. Its two subsequent sequels, Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) proved that unquestionably.
This week, Fox launches Installment 4, Ice Age: Continental Drift, and what was once a total surprise is now laden with great expectations. Unlike the original straight-ahead journey of our unlikely, but charming heroes, Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo) and Diego (Denis Leary), along with the indomitable prehistoric squirrel, Scrat, and his acorn, audiences are hoping and expecting this new outing to be nothing less than extraordinary. Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Family, SummerSmack
Tagged Aziz Ansari, Denis Leary, Goran Visnjic, ice, Jack Black, Jane Krakowski, Jennifer Lopez, John Leguizamo, Joy Behar, Nicki Minaj, Patrick Stewart, Peter Dinklage, prehistoric, Queen Latifah, Ray Romano, sabertooth tiger, Scat, sequel, squirrel, Wanda Sykes
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Brave (2012) -vs- Mulan (1998)
Once upon a time, animated princess movies were populated by passive heroines waiting to be rescued by noble but bland princes. Disney has made strides toward addressing this anachronism, giving us, among other notable efforts, Mulan (1998), which features a different kind of female lead, one whose strength, cleverness and courage — not her looks or brawny boyfriend — save the day. Of course, the company has long relied on female protagonists of every stripe, dating back to its first animated feature, Snow White, and running the gamut through Bambi, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and on and on. Rival studio Pixar, on the other hand, has never featured a girl or woman in a lead role — until now. Continue reading
Posted in Action, Adventure, Animated, Family, SummerSmack
Tagged Archery, Billy Connolly, Bravery, China, Curse, Dragon, Eddie Murphy, Emma Thompson, George Takei, Harvey Fierstein, Kelly Macdonald, Kevin McKidd, Luck, Matchmaker, Ming-Na, princess, Scotland, Training
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The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) -vs- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Who needs humans for a Smackdown? In this bout, our contenders will be lumps of plasticine. England’s Aardman Animation has been entertaining audiences for years with its claymation shorts and feature films showcasing the studio’s fresh, imaginative brand of stop-motion animated comedy. Its most recent offering Pirates! Band of Misfits is a typically off-kilter, spoofish take on pirate movies, featuring an underachieving crew of buccaneers caught up in adventures at sea and onshore. Continue reading
Breaking Bad (AMC) -vs- Weeds (Showtime)
When tragedy strikes, what’s a mild-mannered suburban parent to do to support the family but dive headfirst into the illegal drug business? That’s the question posed by two controversial and critically lauded TV series, Showtime’s long-running, half-serious comedy Weeds, and AMC’s hour-long, half-funny drama Breaking Bad, whose legion of fans currently awaits its fifth and presumably final season. Continue reading
Posted in Crime, Drama, Family, Suspense, Television, Thriller, TV Smack
Tagged Aaron Paul, AMC, Bryan Cranston, dark comedy, drug business, Emmy-winning, Giancarlo Esposito, Mary-Louise Parker, Showtime, suburbs
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The Walking Dead (AMC) -vs- Falling Skies (TNT)
There’s just something about ragtag teams of extended families trying to get by after an apocalypse. It feels like a particularly American fantasy — that when the chips are down, we’ll all put aside our petty differences, realize what’s truly important and come together to kick some ass, whether it be Nazi or Commie or even alien or zombie. The point is that our melting pot really doesn’t get cooking until the heat is applied and the burner’s on high.
These two series are flagship action pieces for their respective networks — The Walking Dead came first on AMC, followed within a year by Falling Skies on TNT. The former has its second season finale this Sunday and the latter comes back this summer for its sophomore year. Both are in their prime when it comes to the life of any TV series — enough of a run to fix some early mistakes but not so much as to render the week-to-week predictable. Continue reading
Posted in Action, Alien/UFO, Apocalypse, Disaster, Drama, Family, Horror, Sci-Fi, Television, Thriller, TV Smack
Tagged aliens, AMC, apocalypse, extraterrestrial, Falling Skies, fantasy, poll, sci-fi, survivors, SyFy, TNT, TV, Walking Dead, wasteland, zombies
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Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (2012) -vs- Horton Hears a Who! (2008)
My generation has been whining for years about our childhoods being collectively over, in light of the end of the Harry Potter series, the death of the creators of The Berenstain Bears, and countless other life-passages coming to a close. It’s good to know, with the theatrical release this weekend of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, that something important from our childhoods—and previous generations of childhoods—has survived and is still going strong. Though the good doctor himself, Theodor Geisel, has passed on, his legacy is still alive, well, and ready to be tested in Smackville.
If you want to get technical here, The Lorax should be the reigning champion, because his original movie debuted in 1972. However, he then went into a long hibernation, vacating his title. Now, the one who speaks for the trees has made a comeback, but times have changed. In the realm of computer-generated Seuss, the reigning king is Horton Hears A Who. Horton meant what he said and said what he meant, so when he says he’s coming for the guardian of the forest, The Once-ler chopping down trees for thneeds should be the last of The Lorax’s worries. Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Family
Tagged Amy Poehler, Betty White, children, Danny DeVito, Dr. Seuss, Ed Helms, family, Isla Fisher, Jaime Pressly, Jim Carrey, Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, Taylor Swift, Will Arnett, Zac Efron
2 Comments
The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) -vs- The Borrowers (1997)
The Smackdown Prior to Harry Potter, Mary Norton’s cherished, 1952 novel The Borrowers was a prime example of a children’s book that had as much to say between the lines as in them. For those new to that original work … Continue reading
Posted in Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Tagged anime, based on novel, Borrowers, children's story, Disney, Japanese, John Goodman, little people, Mary Norton
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Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) -vs- Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)
You have to hand it to French science fiction writer Jules Verne. More than a century after his death, he not only continues to be a best-selling author, his books still provide ripe material for movie adaptations. 2008′s Journey to the Center of the Earth was a more or less straightforward adaptation of Verne’s adventure story aimed at kids, and while its similarly targeted sequel, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, drifts a little from its origins, much of Verne’s content is used in the movie. Essentially, both are old-fashioned, earnest, quest movies spiced up a bit with contemporary references for the target audience, with 3D added to give the kids some funky eye candy. Continue reading
Posted in Action, Adventure, Family, Sci-Fi
Tagged 3D, based on novel, Brendan Fraser, cave, center, Duane Johnson, island, Jules Verne, Kristin Davis, lost world, Michael Caine, scientist, sea, sequel, series, Seth Meyers, Vanessa Hudgens, volcano, waterfall
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