Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Swing Vote (2008) -vs- Paper Moon (1973)

When Father Doesn't Know Best

The Smackdown.  Ever noticed how precocious preadolescent girls in films are always decidely smarter, more ambitious and more mature than their underachieving dads?  Movies love to tell us kids have the wisdom that adults lack.  Well, maybe a few kids should have told their parentals who are executives at Touchstone that it's risky opening a film that features a father-daughter relationship in the middle of the summer when superheroes, mummies and teen comedies generally rule the box office.  Still, it'll be interesting to see if "Swing Vote" can hold its own against such formidable box office competition -- time will tell.  A question we can answer right away, though, is whether this new Kevin Costner flick holds its own to what many consider to be a classic of this particular sub-genre -- "Paper Moon."  Can Costner get the votes he needs, or will Ryan and Tatum O'Neal con their way to a win? 

The Challenger. In "Swing Vote," Kevin Costner stars as Bud Johnson, a simple guy who pretty much coasts through life with virtually no ambition or sense of responsibility.  After all, what else would you expect from an egg processing plant worker who loses his job to "insourcing?"  Unemployed, unmotivated and uninformed, there are three things Bud does love  -- the King of Beer, the King of Nascar and his precocious, over-achieving twelve-year-old daughter, Molly. Costner teams with young Madeline Carroll in this Capraesque tale of the importance of everyman's vote.  Ms. Carroll is exceptional in her role, and the star-studded supporting cast all contribute to an engaging, timely, thought-provoking film.  Credit must go to writers Joshua Michael Stern (who also directed) and Jason Richman for a screenplay that is better than one might expect, although it requires a serious suspension of disbelief on several occasions. Propelled by the Marshall Tucker Band's driving beat of "Can't You See," the amusing, improbable chain of events which culminates in a presidential election coming down to one single vote in a little two-bit town on Route 66 succeeds in entertaining the electorate.

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (2007) -vs- Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire (2005)

Review by Beau DeMayo 

The Smackdown.  It must be some otherworldly spell that brings me back to the Harry Potter movies again and again considering I've never completed one Harry Potter book.  Warner Brother's prized franchise, the Harry Potter films not only propelled J.K. Rowling's character into cinematic history, but further cemented the young wizard's status as an international icon.  Nevertheless, with a franchise now spanning five movies, Harry Potter has always grappled with his cinematic stamina: can Harry Potter not only overcome He Who Should Not Be Named, but also the crippling sickness that arises when a franchise falls pray to its own trite formulas?  So, today, "Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire" (HPGOF) battles it out with "Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix" (HPOOP) to see which, if any, infuses the Potter franchise with enough cinematic art and energy to propel it through the rest of the franchise.

"Listen, you don't like people to use your name, I can respect that. But I was workin' some magic of my own on this total hottie when you interrupted, and this is really startin' to piss me off."

The Challenger.  "Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix" marks English director David Yate's first crack at Rowling's powerful spell-casting prodigy.  In the film, Harry Potter grapples with Voldemort's psychic-penetrations as the very institution that regulates magic, The Ministry of Magic, finds itself imploding while denying Voldemort's return.  From its dark and tense beginning, the film establishes a less-childish tone for Hogwart's students and instead lounges in the uneasy development of its adolescent characters as they face some very adult situations.  Although light on spectacle and magic, the film instead makes a fancy dazzle of Daniel Radcliff's well-practiced portrayal of Potter -- a young wizard who must watch the world fall behind him as he alone nears the deadliest moment of his life.

"If you're gonna turn out to be my dad or something, you can call yourself He Who Had Can of Whup-Ass Opened on Him, got it? Let that Force be with you!"

The Defending Champion.  In 2005, after plodding through three films, audiences finally met He Who Shall Not Be Named courtesy of director Mike Newell.  "Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire" follows an under-aged Harry Potter as he's forced into a dangerous competition of magical games designed to test the various wizards of Hogwart's.  Packed with dragons, aquatic creatures, magic, and enough pubescent hormones to make the most liberal Baptist cringe, the film takes the safety of the first three Harry Potter films and leaves it at the door of its third act, when Voldemort is resurrected in all his reptilian glory.  Finally, Harry Potter comes face to face with the visage of his destiny -- only to retreat back into the false safety of Hogwart's and a rather shoehorned happy ending which betrays the film's tragic climax.

The Scorecard.  To be honest, when "Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban" premiered, I felt that the franchise was heading into its downward slope.  The films were quickly becoming a routine of Harry meeting a challenge, arguing with his friends, whining about Voldemort possibly coming, and then saving the day.  "HPGOF" began in this same vein.  Harry Potter is forced into a multi-wizard cup and deals with his friendships falling apart due to typical "school drama."  All the while,  Voldemort is supposedly coming and something mysterious is happening behind the scenes that Dumbledore won't talk about.  Sound familiar?

However, at the end of the film, as Potter ventures with his friend Cedric into the foliage maze to retrieve the prize, things take a nasty turn.  Cedric is killed and Potter tortured at the hands of a resurrected and amazingly portrayed Voldemort.  It really is the film's crowning moment because it is so different than what has come before with these films.  However, after Harry returns, the film quickly recoils into safe and familiar territory and forces an upbeat ending of "everything is changing. "  This tone is instantly cast aside with the very opening of "Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix."

At the beginning of "HPOOP," Harry is lost and angsting over his future destiny.  Instead of us waiting thirty minutes to get into any real conflict, David Yates shoves Harry Potter's potential expulsion from Hogwart's into our faces, instantly putting us in Potter's corner.  From there, it's a tense journey.  Hogwart falls apart when the Ministry of Magic attempts to control news of Voldemort's return and Potter's friends force him to secretly teaching his fellow classmates how to defend themselves against Voldemort.  This works nicely, as it allows Potter to finally grow into a mature male who reflects on his accomplishments.  Harry Potter is becoming something of a legend.  However, this is brutally contrasted with Harry not being able to cope with that legend's price -- Voldemort invades his mind, tortures his memories, and tempts Harry with the idea of using his power for evil.  Oddly enough, as these familiar institutions begin to crumble for the sake of throwing Harry Potter into a dangerous situation, so does the predictable formula of previous Harry Potter films.

Unlike previous Harry Potter films, the main action occurs only at the end.  Here, an all out battle between wizards erupts on screen, culminating in a elemental showdown between Voldemort and Dumbledore (the fight plays on all the right cues).  What's most fascinating is that this erupting climax funnels down into a very personal moment as Harry is possessed by Voldemort and must use discipline and will to expel the Dark Lord.  The following scene is truly powerful as Harry's friends arrive just in time to see a exhausted and crippled Harry lying among the battlefield of Voldemort and Dumbledore's showdown, a flesh-and-blood legend rather than some idealized boy.

For some reason, it finally felt like these children were learning what it meant to be adults.  The childish Harry of the previous movies is gone, replaced with a darker, edgier, more determined Harry who actually seems like he has the potential to beat Voldemort.  This is a welcomed treat after four films of a Harry who's reliant on others to succeed -- although Harry's cowering presence during the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort was slightly annoying.

Let's get to it. The winner is:

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

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...

Ratatouille (2007) -vs- Toy Story (1995)

Review by Bryce Zabel 

The Smackdown. Pixar pretty much owns the press clippings  and praise handed out in the animation market these days because, basically, they do what they do better than anyone else can even imagine doing it. The only fair Smackdown then for Pixar's latest release "Ratatouille" is the first Pixar release "Toy Story." Rotten Tomatoes has "Ratatouille" hovering at a 96% freshness rating and critics heaping accolades on it -- so it's a fair fight. Both films give real emotional life to items and/or creatures that don't have such life like old used toys and filthy rats. The question this will come down to is this: what is the balance between hot, new ways of showing off your technology and the demands and rewards of good old-fashioned stories and characters?

"I can take you to the big leagues but you have to get over this stereotype you have of rats. Some of us are very clean rodents."

The Challenger. At a 4th of July party, my friend Randal actually suggested we go see this movie because the reviews had been so universally wonderful.  So, not knowing much more than that, we went to see it the next day, only a little chargined we didn't have little kids with us as cover. Anyway, the plot to "Ratatouille" works like this: Remy, a rat who seems to know good food from garbage, eventually finds himself in Paris in the once-great restaurant Gusteau's. He hooks up with a young klutz named Linguini (a human) and together, with Remy hiding in Linguini's chef's hat, they procede to light the Paris restaurant establishment on fire with their masterpieces. Naturally, Remy's family will sing the siren song pulling Remy to return to his rat home, and Linguini will fall in love and there will be an evil chef. One thing this movie does tackle rather successfully is the logic of communication. How to Remy and Linguini talk to each other. What you find out is that rats can talk rat-to-rat but rats can't speak to humans.

"Do you realize that in the next sequel we could actually have photo-realistic hair? Imagine the women we could get. Real women, not toy women!"

The Defending Champion. When it comes to animation films, there's no question that Pixar's "Toy Story" is the gold standard. When it was released in 1995, it was a revelation about the future of animation that blew away and antiquated everything that came before it. Most of you who are reading this have seen it, and even "Toy Story 2," but it concerns a little boy's favorite toy, a cowboy doll named Woody, and the toy that may soon replace him, the ultra-cool Buzz Lightyear who, unlike all the other toys isn't in on the joke that he's a toy; he thinks he's really an astronaut. Most of the action takes place in a couple of kid's bedrooms. The toys talk to toys and any interaction with the human world is kept at a distance. It's all about the toys because it is, well, a "Toy Story."

The Scorecard. "Ratatouille" scores more points than "Toy Story" in the next-generation quality it shows off. This is to be expected, I guess, since computers get larger and faster and we humans get smarter and more facile in bending them to our will. I loved the look of "Toy Story" but there is no doubt that the look of "Ratatouille" is even more refined. The hair on a rat's ass, for example, looks individual and realistic (except for Remy's blue hair).

But that may also be a problem. Do we really want to see a movie about a rat (and later, lots of rats) cooking gourmet food for humans in a classy French restaurant? Apparently this did not bother the vast majority of critics, but it bothered me. A lot. It messed with my rooting value so much that in many of the final scenes where I know the filmmakers expected us to cheer, I laughed at the lunacy of a kitchen full of hundreds of rats being accepted by anybody for a food critic to a chef.

On the character score, there is something wonderful about the poignancy of Woody being put out to pasture in "Toy Story" and the relationship of self-need and friendship that develops with the "other" toy Buzz Lightyear. Or when Buzz realizes he is, in fact, only a toy. In contrast, the problem of "Ratatouille" is simply that a kid who's supposed to inherit a well-known restaurant can't cook but a rat can. See where I'm going?

Neverwas (2005) -vs- Finding Neverland (2004)

Review by Bryce Zabel 

The Smackdown. We all know (from bitter experience) that being a kid is no picnic. Here are two movies that tell us that being a writer of kids' books isn't much easier AND both manage to use the word "Never" in their titles. Given that "Neverwas" is getting a DVD release today from Buena Vista Home Entertainment and "Finding Neverland" was Oscar nominated, our fight-to-the-finish is about picking the one movie you should rent if you want to take this particular author's journey.

The Challenger. "Neverwas" is an indie film which got some steam behind it coming out of the Toronto Film Festival in 2005. I saw it in April of 2006 at the seventh annual Newport Beach Film Festival where it was the opening night film, and the movie's West Coast premiere. It stars Aaron Eckhardt as Zach Riley who's spent his life in the shadow cast by his celebrated father, T.L. Pierson, the author of the seminal, best-selling children's book Neverwas. The book brought joy to millions, turned the dad into a Salinger-type recluse and, we guess, screwed up the kid living in the shadow. I have to admit rooting for Neverwas, sitting there in the theater waiting for it to start. The 33-year-old writer/director -- Joshua Michael Stern -- had just spoken from the heart, it was his first script produced and he directed it. Also, the film that opened the festival the year before was "Crash" and we know how that went. And you have to hand it to Stern, not many first-time directors manage to wrangle a cast that, in addition to Eckhardt, also includes Ian McKellan, Brittany Murphy, Nick Nolte, William Hurt and Jessica Lange.

"I've got it! Neverwas represents the child in my father he never could be."

"Neverwas" really is a great premise. Eckhardt's Zach (why are so many film characters named Zach?) finds out that his famous dad got the whole idea from a delusional schizophrenic when he was in a mental institution in the early sixties and then wrote he, the son, into it as the main character. Kind of a Mobius Strip of film reality.

The Defending Champion. "Finding Neverland" was a big Oscar contender in 2004, ultimately losing out to "Million Dollar Baby." Its star, Johnny Depp, was nominated but lost to Jamie Foxx for Ray. That is no slam. Every part of "Finding Neverland" was terrific in a well-written story where Depp showed even more of his ever-widening dramatic range as an actor.

"I've got it! Peter Pan will represent the child in me I never outgrew."

"Finding Neverland," of course, was hardly a low-budget indie but a big studio film that was hunting for an Oscar from the day it was released. It's the true story of J.M. Barrie, a Scottish playwright, who found his mojo in four boys whose mother is newly divorced. The great acting was based on a solid foundation. The screenplay -- by David McGee -- was based on a book by Allan Knee, The Man Who Was Peter Pan. The whole thing was artfully delivered by director Marc Forster.

The Scorecard. So, you have the champion in our Smackdown, represented by "Finding Neverland," as true story, and our challenger, "Neverwas," a piece of fiction. When it comes to story-telling, as someone who has adapted material as well as made things up out of nothing, there are pluses and minuses. In adaptation, you have a place to start but, often, you are prevented from certain dramatic moments because of what really happened. In an original, you have nothing but what's in your head, but you can go anywhere. From my point of view, if you can go anywhere, you shouldn't have so many things that look like you got lost along the way. "Neverwas" has a few. The most spectactular is the fact that the crazy schizonphrenic played by Ian McKellan has supposedly been locked up for 30 years but at the end of the film the cops are trying to evict him from his fantasy shack in the middle of the woods like he's been a thorn in their side for years.

Back at the Newport Beach Film Festival, as the nearly 1000 people who attended the opening filed out to the afterparty held at Fashion Island, you heard a lot of ambivalence. They had been rooting for the film, like me, but they could see that the writer/director just wasn't quite experienced enough to pull it off. Feeling let-down by the experience, I could hear conversations here and there between filmgoers who whispered their criticism of the dozen places in the film where you just felt it was off the rails.