Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

W. (2008) -vs- All The President’s Men (1976)

Presidential State of Mind

The Smackdown. Two wildly unpopular presidents and the mess they leave behind. Thirty-odd years apart but linked by a few common and terribly unfortunate threads. Hubris. Megalomania. Bad advice. Two films make drama of historical incident before the endings have quite played themselves out. It’s a tricky business, this current events filmmaking, walking the quivery line of fiction, hearsay, and reportage. We find ourselves drawn to the fiery spectacle, the political car wrecks at the side of our nation’s highway, hoping for some light and not just heat. The men who brought down President Nixon and his minions versus The Joe-No-More-Sixpacks who brought himself down and the nation and world along with him. Who wins? Not us. Not by a long shot.

The Challenger. Oliver Stone’s “W.” (2008) takes viewers through a picaresque and non-linear tour of Bush's eventful life, an investigation of a spoiled rich kid blessed with everything but moral and intellectual rigor -- his (selective) struggles and triumphs, how he found both his wife and his faith, and the critical days leading up to Bush's real life Dr. Strangelove moment – his fateful decision to invade Iraq.

The House Bunny (2008) -vs- Legally Blonde (2001)

Blonde Versus the Bored of Education

The Smackdown. Are you the kind of person who demands meaning in your movies?  Here are two films that each serve up a whopper of a morality tale: Not just any blonde can successfully take on the world of higher education, but experience in a Playboy bunny costume sure helps. SoCal sorority girl Elle "Dumb Like A Fox" Woods dons her bunny ears at a party and goes on to conquer Harvard Law.  Party girl and aspiring centerfold Shelly "Dumb Like A Sexy Forrest Gump" Darlingson leaves her bunny ears at the Playboy mansion and rescues a failing sorority filled with losers. Gee. Golly. Gosh. Get out the peroxide, grab your library card, and start up the montage music. This one’s gonna get (a lot less) ugly.

The Challenger. So there are movies you go to expecting quite a lot. And there are movies you go to expecting precious little.  And then there's "The House Bunny."  Written by the same people who simultaneously set back feminism and catapulted the very winning Reese Witherspoon to indisputable stardom with "Legally Blonde," "The House Bunny" promises to set back not only feminism and the usually charming Anna Faris, but to lower your IQ, GPA, and quite possibly your immune system.

In the screenwriters’ hamhanded effort to make their aspiring centerfold dimwit sympathetic, they manage to turn Family Values on its deserving and pointy little head. Little Orphan Shelly never gets adopted and instead finds her first surrogate family in the Playboy Mansion and her second family as house mother to a doomed sorority at a college where no one studies or goes to class. You know the college. Movie U where impossibly attractive stereotypes drink,  party, go Greek, and flirt, but they learn nothing until the pretentious life lesson speech usually delivered in the third act by the protagonist. Oh. That college. 

Michael Clayton (2007) -vs- The Rainmaker (1997)

Not Covered on the LSAT
Review by Randal Cohen

The Smackdown. American journalist and satirist Ambrose Bierce defined a lawyer as someone "skilled in the circumvention of the law" and he presciently wrote this a century before either of our two films hit the theaters and proved him right, at least cinematically. Attorneys skilled in legal short-cuts and moral flexibility give both "Michael Clayton" and "The Rainmaker" their juice. The latest, George Clooney's star-vehicle "Michael  Clayton," explores corporate greed and the massive law firms that defend these companies, casting him as a legal "janitor" who cleans up problems when things get dirty. In the "The Rainmaker," Matt Damon got to play the good David-lawyer against the bad-Goliath law firm in the starring role, but it was Danny DeVito's schemer who got to twist the law despite never having passed the bar. So, today, we put these two legal battles into the ring against each other -- separated by ten years -- and see which one gets the verdict.

The Challenger. In "Michael Clayton," Clooney plays the title character attorney for a huge national law firm that serves large corporate interests and wealthy individuals. But he doesn't practice law; instead he is a "fixer," a guy who quietly cleans up messes. The movie revolves around the firm's defense of an agriculture firm that has a pesticide that is poisoning family farmers. It has covered up its knowledge of the truth in a 'profits over lives' corporate culture. Firm litigator Arthur Edens (the great Tom Wilkinson), after years of defending these scumbags, has a moral epiphany which the firm sees as a total melt down, and resigns the case in spectacular style. Clooney is sent to quietly retrieve the wayward attorney.

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) -versus- All The President's Men (1976)

Speaking Truth to Power

The Smackdown.  Let's put a couple of films in the ring together, both of which detail courageous journalists speaking truth to power -- one during the height of McCarthyism in 1954 and the other during the beginning of Watergate in 1972. Both All the President's Men (ATPM) and Good Night, and Good Luck (GNGL) settle in to exploring only the work environment -- neither film delves into the private lives of its reporters.

"We're up against Redford and Hoffman? Gimme another cigarette..."

The Challenger.  GNGL is a critics' favorite now, there's no doubt. Check out Rotten Tomatoes and and you'll see that it is 97% "fresh" which is about as good as it can get. There is, in fact, a lot to like about it -- much of it is how original it looks and feels -- and it will probably be rewarded in the next awards season. Somehow, though, I don't see this enthusiasm in the critical ranks transmitting to the country at large. My 13-year-old thought it hurled chunks and was the most boring movie he'd ever seen. The person next to me fell asleep. And a couple on a date which sat down with great enthusiasm pronounced it "flat" and left shaking their heads.

The Defending Champion.  Alan J. Pakula did a masterful directing job with ATPM, keeping his pace taut all the way through, creating momentum out of slammed doors, parking garages and overheard phone calls. George Clooney does an equally interesting job directing GNGL, full of black-and-white claustrophobia appropriate for the times. In a head-to-head comparison, though, the one thing you can't say for GNGL is that it ever develops a hard-rolling sense of momentum like ATPM does.

The Scorecard.  Part of it is the differing sense of conflict and the actual stakes in the two films. In ATPM, Woodward and Bernstein are low-level reporters who get such a huge tiger by the tail in the Watergate break-in and the ties to the White House that it's clear they may blow it so big that their careers are over before they even start. In contrast, GNGL pits Edward R. Murrow against Senator Joseph McCarthy who, at the time, had been famous for only four years compared to Murrow's long career. Woodward & Bernstein against the Nixon White House is much more of a David & Goliath story than Murrow against McCarthy who were much more evenly matched.

In addition, Murrow wasn't proving anything that wasn't already on the public record. He was simply interpreting that record and stating his opinion about it. Both films take some liberties with the truth, of course, but GNGL's is the bigger one. In truth, by March of 1954 when Murrow took on McCarthy, lots of others had been grumbling about him for a while and Murrow's contribution was more to give form and focus to the disaffection than to expose his nemesis with original journalism. So, even without taking away from GNGL as a film, it had a bigger hill to climb than ATPM in terms of getting us to see its characters as underdogs.

I'm the son of a history teacher and a journalist-turned-screenwriter so it's easy for me to have liked both films. And I have a very close friend who was involved with GNGL and so I root for its success. Even so, it's clear that Clooney as a co-writer and a director was so intent on producing a spare, lean, insider's POV on Murrow v. McCarthy that in some important respects he fired a little wide in terms of finding the dramatic thrust that should connect his film with an audience.

 The Decision.  Because Woodward and Bernstein put it all on the line -- their present and future -- while Murrow knew he had some wind already gathering at his back -- and a film based on true events still can only do so much with what history has given it for a canvas.  Vote for "All the President's Men."  It's a better film.