Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) -vs- The Amateurs (2007)

Decent Hard-Working Americans Who Play By The Rules

The Smackdown.  When the economy gets tough, the tough make porno.  That's the big "high concept" of our two films in the ring today.  Based on the news from Wall Street, better brace for an avalanche of nudity and meaningless sex.  Oh, well...

Popular culture and the movies give form to our preoccupations and anxieties. Okay, there's no explanation for "The Love Guru" and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." Other movies effectively connect the dots on themes like politics ("W," "Syriana") and human foibles ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall," "Knocked Up"). The newest release from Kevin Smith fits the formula in combining SEX with THE RECESSION for laughs.  "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" started a buzz with a trailer that doesn't contain a single frame from the film. It promises the sort of movie Smith produced over seven earlier features: engaging, funny and potty-mouthed. In this regard it echoes the spirit of writer / director Michael Traeger's well-regarded, but little-seen "The Amateurs."  It sets up a natural SMACKDOWN!: Which movie best captures the funny side of economic uncertainty?

The Challenger. Zack (Seth Rogan) works at a coffee shop, Miri (Elizabeth Banks) at a mall. By their own estimate, these platonic friends in Pittsburgh haven't set the world on fire. They can't meet the rent on the modest house they share and the utilities have been turned off. Over beers they brainstorm a turnaround: Let's make a porno movie! Their project gets off the ground, as Zack puts the touch on a co-worker for production money and they recruit talent for the shoot. "Star Whores" is about to begin production when wreckers flatten their makeshift "studio" for new condos. No problem: They move the production to Zack's coffee shop and rename the flick "Swallow my Cockaccino."
Along the way, a movie gets made. Zack and Miri learn about film making, and themselves. Kevin Smith wrote the script he directed.

Towelhead (2008) -vs- American Beauty (1999)

Taboo Sex in the Suburbs

The Smackdown.  The suburbs of Alan Ball's imagination are places that so stifle people from living reasonable lives that they go berserk looking for meaning.  That can include quitting your job, blackmailing your boss and going to work at a fast food restaurant or it can mean underage kids pulled into sexually confusing or predatory relations.  So far as I can tell, it never means anything normal.  "American Beauty" got the Oscar almost a decade ago after taking us on a joy ride into the curdled family dynamics of the Burnam household and now "Towelhead" takes us into the outer regions of Houston where coming to America looks like something that immigrants should hardly wish for.

The Challenger.  "Towelhead" begins with a 13-year-old girl Jasira (Summer Bishil) calmly letting someone completely inappropriate shave her pubic hair.  I'm not joking: do not take your kids to see this picture.  In any case, Jasira gets shipped off to live with her father Rifat (Peter Macdissi) who works for NASA in a bland tract house in a cul-de-sac of weirdness.  There's the racist and obnoxious 11-year-old next door who turns her onto sex magazines and the kid's father Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart) who actually manages to do worse things to her than force her to endure the act that started the picture.  Along the way and in between this sadness, the film, based on a 2005 novel by Alicia Erian, wants to tell a story of "sexual awakening" of this young girl.  Written and directed by Alan Ball, it's his directorial debut.

Bottle Shock (2008) -vs- Sideways (2004)

The Wrath of Grapes

The Smackdown.  With this year's "Bottle Shock" and 2004's indie darling "Sideways," we have two films that put their respective audiences smack into the middle of the California wine growing scene.  One is more about making wine and the other is more about drinking wine and it's not a small difference.  Obviously, making wine requires more commitment and a great deal more knowledge than actually pouring yourself a glass and kicking back.  But to those who are serious about it, drinking wine forces its own commitments in time and knowledge.  Picking a winner here may be like forcing a decision on whether red or white wine is best.  On the other hand, maybe we still can decide which one is a full-bodied experience with clarity and a spicy aroma and which one may be too hollow or flabby to spend time with.  Let's pop the cork and get to work...

The Challenger.  Cultivating grapes and making wine involves the hard work and honest tilling of the earth that makes farming such emotionally satisfying work.  It has the added bonus of creating an end product that isn't considered a staple but is to many people the epitome of sophistication.  It exerts a real pull or otherwise Francis Ford Coppola wouldn't have decided he liked that job as much as directing movies. 

"Bottle Shock" takes us back over three decades to the year of the American bicentennial of 1976 when California's Napa Valley put the world on notice that it was a force to be recognized by beating the best French wines in a blind taste test conducted with French judges.  The whole idea was the brainchild of a British wine seller living in Paris by the name of Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) who needs to do something to actually drive some business into his "Academie du Vin."

Hamlet 2 (2008) -vs- Mr. Holland's Opus (1995)

Back-to-Back School

The Smackdown. All over the country, kids savor the last gasp of summer and trudge back to school, looseleaf notebooks and lunch money clutched ever so tightly in their hands. Teachers meet and greet the bright and shiny new faces of their overcrowded classes and embark on a shared adventure that lasts till June. The good ones know that the influence of these encounters can last a lifetime.

No surprise then that impactful teachers inspire a huge genre of films. And with arts in education perpetually on the budgetary chopping block, the besieged arts teacher occupies a sacred little corner of the shelf. Two prime examples of the sub-genre climb into the Smackdown ring. In this corner, defending champion Glenn Holland, full-time music teacher and part-time composer. Stumbling clumsily into the ring, wearing roller skates and a caftan commando-style, it’s failed actor and drama teacher, Dana Marschz. Let’s check your work carefully, gentlemen. Everything counts in determining your final grade.

The Challenger.  In “Hamlet 2," aspiring, untalented, failed actor Dana Marschz (the brilliantly inimitable Steve Coogan) moves to Tucson, Arizona to teach Drama. Once there, his misguided attempts at original theater meet with even more abject failure and derision. Finally judged irrelevant and not worth saving, his drama program is canceled. Never one to accept defeat as much more than a speed bump, Mister M and his ragtag bunch of moppets and thugs put on one last show, swinging for the bleachers this time. Sound like you’ve seen this one before? Trust me. You haven’t.

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

All By Myself

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" when it came out in the theaters and again this evening on DVD, knowing that it was a true story, and more than ready to go back to this wild place that has touched us.  (FYI: There's a poll at the end of the review if you want to express yourself, too.)

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.