Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Away We Go (2009) -vs- Juno (2007)

THE SMACKDOWN. Did you ever have to make up your mind? Both "Away We Go" and "Juno" are about those decisions that come from life that can't be fudged, postponed or ignored. Even though both films involve pregnant leads who aren't married to the fathers of their unborn, there's more here than childbirth.  Each film lets us see a big life question presented in a way that shows there isn't always a "right" answer. Sometimes life forces us to choose. To pick up on one and leave the other behind. Well, we have to choose now, too. Should we go with the the couple of thirtysomethings who have to decide where to make their stand with a new baby; or the teenage girl who has a "go-no go" decision to make about a baby of her own and the boyfriend who's in way over his head?

THE CHALLENGER. "Away We Go" comes from the same director who gave us "American Beauty," Sam Mendes. The common thread in his work between these two films is the sharply drawn characters he finds living in an America he doesn't seem to like all that much. Written by the married couple of Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, it tells the story of Burt and Verona -- who aren't married and are muddling through their lives knowing the clock is ticking, not biologically, but socially. Depending on who you talk to they're either nice or narcissistic, but either way they feel like their peers are getting along better than they are, they know something's wrong and they still haven't quite grasped what to do about it. When Burt's parents (Verona's are deceased) announce that they are moving to Belgium and, thus, won't be around to see their grandchild born, the young couple decides to hit the road, looking for a place that will have the right vibe to start their family (and, hopefully, their new & improved lives). Then it's planes, trains and automobiles as the story bounces from Arizona to Wisconsin to Florida and finally lands in what, for them, is supposed to be the land of Hope. Along the journey, they run into a lot of parenting advice and all kinds of disappointing people.

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

The Smackdown. Can you believe that it's been ten years since the release of "American Pie"? July 9 marks a full decade since Eugene Levy caught his son Jim doing, well, unspeakable things to innocent baked fruit. I remember thinking that it was a great comedy if only I could keep my teenage boys from ever seeing the film. At the time, back in '99 when Clinton was riding out a rocky ending based on having oral sex in the Oval Office, it seemed kind of quaint to see the President of the United States getting impeached for doing something the kids in "American Pie" thought wasn't even real sex. Their theme was "All the Way by Graduation Day." Ah, nostalgia...

"American Pie" re-defined a genre and paved the way for "Superbad" to do it again eight years later in 2007. Both "American Pie" and "Superbad" remind us 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 of these raunchy films (with the now obligatory "heart") 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...but let's get started with the challenger...

The Challenger. By the time "Superbad" came out, the option of somehow keeping my kids from seeing it had pretty much expired so I threw in the towel and went with my teenager. We'd just returned from a family vacation, jet-lagged as all hell but, as it turns out, this film was so entertaining and outrageous that the last thing you will ever do while watching it is go to sleep. As written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (who named the two leads after themselves), 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. These Three Musketeers have two goals for the evening of the last night of high school: first, supply booze to a party being thrown by a popular girl so they can achieve, second, some kind of sexual experience, no matter how messy and potentially humiliating.

17 Again (2009) -vs- Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

 Do-Over and Over and Over... 

The Smackdown. The Senior Year Do-Over Movie has been done, if not to death, definitely to the point of critical exhaustion. Clearly, it’s an idea that attracts actors and studios and screenwriters and even audiences, and apparently it needs updating every couple of years.  “17 Again” is in theaters filled with wide-eyed eleven year old girls and their moms, teenagers in cliques, all pining/lusting for the lead, and it seems only fitting that once again, a Zac Efron vehicle goes toe to toe with cinema giant Francis Ford Coppola who conveniently for our purposes directed the little 1986 chestnut “Peggy Sue Got Married.” Countless other do-over films deserve a critical once-over, but symmetry demands this particular smackdown rematch. Efron vs. Coppola - The Do-Over. Let the smacking begin.

The Challenger. "17 Again" (2009) Zac Efron is a freaking movie star. The world needs movie stars, particularly young movie stars who aren’t in the habit of wrapping their cars around trees and publicly experimenting with pharmaceuticals and notching bedposts. "17 Again" is a giant gift wrapped delivery system, the perfect presentation of the most freshly minted movie star we’ve got; from the first moment, the movie keeps unwrapping that undeniable gift and handing it over to his already-devoted fans. Their parents are dragged along, some grudgingly perhaps, sick to death of the HSM1-3 soundtracks, lured or coerced by the PG13 rating. But there is plenty here to love, even for them.

In the Land of Women (2007) -vs- Garden State (2004)

 The Sincerest Form of Flattery? 

The Smackdown. Here we have two writer-directors telling coming-of-age stories starring TV stars trying to give off a semi-leading man feature vibe while projecting angst and alienation.  Making his debut, writer-director Jonathan Kasden gives us our latest combatant "In the Land of Women" to take on writer-director Zach Braff's "Garden State." Braff goes Kasden one better (or at least one more) in that he also cast himself as the lead while Kasden (son of Lawrence) went with Adam Brody. Both lead characters are Hollywood wannabe's: Braff's character wants to make it as an actor and Brody's character wants to make it as a writer. Here's the question. Did "In the Land of Women" build a better film on the lessons of "Garden State" or did it just manage to be a weaker version of the original? 

The Challenger. You've seen Adam Brody as the comic-loving, caffeinated nerd of "The O.C." who eventually wised up, got hunkier and started dating the hot chick of the series. In this film "In the Land of Women," he's Carter Webb, an LA writer of softcore porn who wants to write "real" novels and other important work. After his extremely hot girlfriend dumps him, he ends up in Michigan because of an ailing grandmother, ends up getting to know the woman across the street -- Sarah -- a woman who looks a lot like Meg Ryan with a face-lift and her lips done. He also gets to know her daughter, Lucy, played by Kristen Stewart. In the original cut of the film, Carter ends up sleeping with Sarah the night before she has a mastectomy and audiences went berserk and it was cut. The studio demanded certain changes, shall we say, and Kasden Senior who produced the film, as I understand it, said he'd fix it, reminded everyone of his writing credits, and demanded to know what they'd written lately. The executive said, "The check." Studio got its way, whether that was good or bad, stay with us...

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) -vs- The Reader (2008)

 The Populist and the Outsider 

The Smackdown. Both "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader" seemingly deal with a country and a people's crimes toward humanity. Whether the abject poverty and destructive caste system of India or the German struggle with guilt and ultimate responsibility for the Holocaust, it is at heart what each film is using as background for very personal and disturbing stories.

It's virtually impossible to objectively determine if one nominated film is "better" than another based on production values and performances because, for the most part, all are at a sophistcated and rigorously professional level beyond reproach. So one has to find another set of values to judge by and that's most likely one's emotional and intellectual connection to the film and its power to force either or both to clash internally. So it is with "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader"; both nominated for Best Picture, one a seeming lock and the other a long shot; one a highly emotional ride of familiar and predictable proportions; the other a joyless ride of suppression and fear totally unfamiliar and unpredictable. So what is it that bonds these two films as bastard siblings and why does one inhabit your psyche refusing to let go and the other fade like a great one night stand with notable style and suspect substance?

The Favorite. "Slumdog Millionaire" tells, by now, the apparently simple story of an 18 year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai who wins 200 million rupees on India's version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". But on the night before he actually wins, he's kidnapped and forced to explain to local officials, who believe he has cheated, how exactly a "slumdog" like him could possibly be so intelligent and answer so difficult (not) a series of questions. This sets the framework for us to experience the formative years of the young man in question, jamal malik, and to discover how, in the depths of poverty, crime and personal horror, he has managed to come up with the right answers to so complicated questions (not!) and to literally, stay alive. Set in flashback, we are brought on a journey of enormous ethical and emotional proportions all pointing to his ability to convince the authorities of his ultimate innocence and to get his one chance at that great equalizer, cash, and its promise - freedom of want.