Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Transformers (2007) -vs- Independence Day (1996)

From the Editor:  In breathless anticipation of the release of the re-make of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," we offer this Classic Smack to get you in the mood for aliens that have just plainly had enough of us puny humans.  Plus, at the end, you can vote in our two polls aiming to pick the BEST ALIEN INVASION films from the First Wave of the 1950s and the Modern Wave from 1970 to the present. Here's Beau DeMayo's 2007 SmackOff between a couple of very bad-ass invaders to get us started...  Thanks, Bryce...

Aliens in Really Bad Moods

The Smackdown.  Whenever aliens invade our planet, the vaunted resources of humanity's technological aggression pale in comparison to their greatest "weapon":  luck. Sure, the heroes of those films will preach about courage, history, and the innate goodness of humanity... but in the end, humans are just really lucky when it comes to aliens. The invaded humans of Michael Bay's "Transformers" are not only lucky but, like Oprah audiences, score nifty GMC cars in the process. Sad for Will Smith, the humans in "Independence Day" (or "ID4") just got a whole lot of combustible monuments, shot-down jets, and a drunk redneck tail-spinning in F/A-18 Hornet. But when it comes to balls-to-the-wall alien invasions, which movie's humans do a better job of not relying just on luck and special FX to make a good film?

The Challenger.  More than meets the eye...in a Michael Bay film?  "Transformers" was pitched to Michael Bay as a film about a boy getting his first car. Really, it's about a boy caught between two groups of alien robots whose intergalactic war has crashed landed on Earth. Fearful of the evil Megatron and his Decepticons, the monologue-fueled Optimus Prime and his Autobots enlist Shia LaBeouf's aid in finding the Allspark, a techno-mystical cube with the power to animate any mechanical form while also possessing the plot-convenient ability to destroy the very creatures it creates should screenwriters Robert Oci and Alex Kurtzman write themselves into a climax corner. By the end of the movie, I think I got that Megatron wanted this cube so that he could create a new mechanical army to take over Earth... but that was after two brain-busting hours of claustrophobic action, syrupy slow-mo shots, self-aware jokes, and bombastic explosions. On that subject...

Rescue Dawn (2007) -vs- Papillon (1973)

Show Me the Way to Go Home

The Smackdown. If you like seeing grown men reduced to eating insects, boy, do we have a deal for you. Here we put two teams of prisoners -- each made up of two men whose friendship with each other is as close as marriage -- in an environment even harsher than what Paris Hilton suffered through during her time in the slammer out here in LA. One man on each team has an unquenchable thirst for freedom and leads an escape against all the odds. Back in 1973, that was Steve McQueen in the freedom-lover role in "Papillon" and in 2007 it was Christian Bale in "Rescue Dawn." Their mates are Dustin Hoffman and Steve Zahn, respectively. Both films are portrayed as true stories, clearly embellished in the case of "Papillon" and a bit less so in "Rescue Dawn." The bitter imprisonment they each dramatize is so awful that dying while trying to get away is considered preferable to living with the way things are. Both films, by the way, really do trigger the question you may have in your own mind: would you also take this risk and lead the escape, or would you be the partner who is more afraid and has to be dragged along?

The Challenger. "Rescue Dawn" is the story of Navy airman Dieter Dengler (Christian "Batman" Bale) who in 1965, during the early part of the Vietnam war, had the misfortune to be shot down over Laos on his very first mission. A German immigrant who survived Allied bombing during World War II, Dengler now ends up surviving torture, starvation, solitary confinement, you name it, only to hatch a daring breakout plan which he has to sell to his fellow prisoners, Duane (Steve Zahn) and Gene from Eugene (Jeremy Davies). The film is directed by the crazy and eccentric Warner Herzog, known for giving us some crazy, eccentric heroes (Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo) in the past and Bale's Dengler is no exception. In fact, it's the way he endures the privation that's crushed the spirits of his cellmates that makes him seem so unusual because, if you think about it, being an optimist in Hell may make you crazy. In this film, freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose because the guards at the camp are considering executing everybody so they can get home. This makes everybody in this awful place a prisoner. Don't think this film has a political agenda, though, because its narrow focus stays firmly on the incredible obstacles of just staying alive.

Superbad (2007) -vs- American Pie (1999)

Boys Just Wanna Have Fun, Too

The Smackdown. Over the recent Thanksgiving holiday, I had a chance to screen the "Superbad" Blu-ray for some friends and remember just what a raunchy, funny and emotionally accurate film it is.  I was reminded that you're never too old to relive the total humiliation of your teenage years, nor to remember (if you're a guy) just how much you wanted to get in the Club and to realize it might just be out of reach. Both "Superbad" and "American Pie" give us groups of horny high school guys who would really like to have shed their virginity so they can truly relax and enjoy graduation, knowing that they will not have to spend the rest of their lives lying about what they did and did not do by the end of that fateful senior year. They know, apparently, that a diploma for merely passing classes is so not what it's about. Both of these films -- released eight years apart -- hit the gold with audiences of all ages and theaters during both releases were filled with actual screams of laughter. This ain't gonna be easy...

The Challenger. When our family returned from a 2007 vacation, it seemed that everyone we knew had seen "Superbad" except us. This really bothered my teenager, Jared, so we went as soon as we got back, jet-lagged or not. As it turns out, this film is so entertaining and outrageous that the last thing you will ever do while watching it is go to sleep. The film starts with dick-jokes and similar raunch and never stops but, the thing is, the dialogue all feels very fluid and confident, even if underneath it all, it's also just a little sad. The point is, most reviews will now tell you, it's really not about the sex-jokes, it's about the friendship between Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera). Well, yeah, and the sex-jokes. A third-wheel friend, Fogell, played by new kid Christopher Mintz-Plasse pretty much steals the show and the moniker "McLovin" has probably forever entered the nation's vocabulary.

The Godfather (1972) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Vote Now: An Offer You Can't Refuse...

The Smackdown.  By now it's all become a part of our collective cultural memory -- the horse's head showing up in the bed, making an "offer he can't refuse" and that haunting score by Nino Rota.  Imagine being in the theaters though, almost four decades ago when the original "The Godfather" was in release back in 1972. For years new viewers of the Godfather Trilogy were exposed to either increasingly degraded theatrical prints or VHS or DVD copies that were, in many cases, even worse.  For the past two years, though, Francis Ford Coppola and a small army of digital restoration experts have been at work reclaiming the golden glory for high-definition Blu-ray, standard DVD and even a few more theatrical prints out in some major cities.  It's not the purpose of this Smackdown to lay out that process but if you want to know more about "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration," there have been some excellent articles including The New York Times and Slate Magazine.

What is most astonishing about "The Godfather" which won the 1972 Oscar for "Best Picture" is that two years later "The Godfather, Part II" also won the Oscar for "Best Picture."  This pretty much qualifies the second film as the unquestioned best sequel of all-time (although there are supporters now for "The Dark Knight").  And, of course, it triggers a Smackdown to find out which of these two extraordinary films is the best.  We'll give the competition our usual treatment with an added bonus.  Five of our critics weigh in at the end with their individual essays.  Joe Rassulo, Scott Baradell, Sherry Coben, Mark Sanchez and Jay Amicarella all come at the material with damned unique POVs, and it's a fun read.  Finally, at the end of this review, you can put in your own two cents by voting in our Smack-Poll.

The Defending Champion.  If you think about it now, the "Godfather" films are the modern world's version of those Shakespeare plays about kings and princes.  This is the film where Vito Corleone, the aging Don of a powerful Mafia family hands off the power, reluctantly, to his youngest son Michael, delivering one of the saddest lines in cinema, "Michael, I never wanted this for you."  Al Pacino's Michael Corleone is one of the greatest acting performances on screen ever and his transformation from shy son to ruthless criminal makes you forgive any of the actor's excesses over the years.  The film opens on a wedding where Michael has returned from World War II just in time to see his sister Connie get married. All of the men in Michael's family are involved with the Mafia and it's assumed that the older brothers will handle the criminal duties while Michael lives a legit and decent life. It's truly the story of the family but the engine that drives the action is about a drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo who wants Don Corleone (Marlon Brandon) to go into the drug trade with him.  Corleone refuses, gets shot by hit men, barely survives.  This opens the door for his son to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo that changes him and his family forever.  It's the story of the old ways surrendering, violently, to the new ways.  You probably know all this.  Beautifully photographed, scored, directed, written.  Most people have it on their Top Ten lists and more than a few place it as #1.