Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) -vs- When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

Love Amid the Party Favors

The Smackdown. I can’t criticize anyone who’s not struck by the party mood as 2008 lurches to a merciful end. Recession, foreclosures, unemployment. Really, what’s to celebrate, so let’s see how a pair of seasonal movies rise above the gloom. The characters that populate “When Harry Met Sally…” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” survive the holiday gauntlet with their dignity intact. Both films beat back loneliness and offer inspiration. These days we’re all looking for that recipe. That’s what this Smackdown is all about: Whose New Year’s Eve party do you want to attend?   

Director Rob Reiner struck gold “When Harry Met Sally…” opened in 1989. The package had everything: a smart, Oscar nominated script from Nora Ephron, and several memorable scenes replayed and parodied over the years. The performances still hold up. Surrounding this is great music from both Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington.

“Bridget Jones’s Diary” quickly found a worldwide audience in Sharon Maguire’s 2001 feature film directorial debut. Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies and Richard Curtis adapted Fielding’s popular novel about a London woman concerned about love, her career prospects and her weight. Renee Zellweger shows an easy comic touch with a British accent.

Both movies offer much to celebrate; one more than the other.

The Challenger. After another lousy New Year’s Eve, Bridget Jones starts keeping a diary amid high hopes. She wants to drop some weight, cut back on smoking and drink less. Bridget is not very successful there, or in love. She falls for her scoundrel boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), who likes her well enough until a new thrill comes along. Cleaver is charming, predatory, funny and betrayal comes easily for him. Just ask lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) whose wife ran off with his best man, Daniel Cleaver. Bridget’s parents (Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones) fitfully try to match her with Darcy. He’s becoming interested in a roundabout way but Bridget is not. She’s too busy with her new job as a TV reporter. It’s not going well until Darcy helps her land the big interview. Bridget is still enthralled by the scraps of attention Cleaver tosses her way. Mark Darcy barely shows his cards: “..What I’m trying to say..very inarticulately.. is that despite appearances I like you. Very much.” Bit by bit Bridget’s eyes are opened to Darcy’s submerged decency and Cleaver’s utter lack of character.

Nothing Like the Holidays (2008) -vs- Four Christmases (2008)

Fractured Family Christmases

The Smackdown.  Let's give thanks this Christmas season for a small miracle.  Between the two holiday films getting Smacked around here, there isn't a guy who's becoming Santa, or Santa's brother, or even an overgrown Elf forced to make it in the big city.  Instead we have more-or-less semi or comically real families trying to sort out their differences when they're forced to hang-out together and share a little winter wonderland quality time.  Instead of often lame attempts at wringing some forced laughs out of the fantasy of Christmas legend, both of our competitors serve up another theme that's gaining currency in these days of corruption, panic and collapse: the edgy holiday movie.  

"Nothing Like the Holidays" offers Christmas with a Latin beat in Chicago while "Four Christmases," which began looking for laughs right after Thanksgiving and has been gangbusters at the box-office, gives us self-absorbed millennial yuppies (muppies?) forced to deal with the debris of families torn apart by divorce and separation.  Film families forced into close quarters at Christmas.  Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.  The question is:  which one here offers a real Christmas present and which is a slice of stale fruitcake?

The Challenger.  It's Christmastime in Northwest Chicago and the magnet of familial obligation draws the Rodriguez family together. It's a distinctive group that populates "Nothing Like the Holidays."  Strong willed parents Edy and Anna Rodriguez (Alfred Molina and Elizabeth Pena) are reflected in the vivid personalities of their children: Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez), just back from a tour in Iraq and haunted by the experience; lawyer brother Mauricio (John Leguizamo); actress sister Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito).  They all open their baggage during a weeklong visit: Anna publicly accuses Edy of adultery and demands a divorce.  Mauricio and his Anglo wife, Sarah (Debra Messing) squabble over starting a family; Roxanna frets over an acting career stuck in low gear.

Complications arise: Jesse can't sort out his feelings toward the woman he dumped, Marissa. Sarah discovers Edy is neither a philanderer nor the robust man of the house.  Violence threatens to erupt outside the family circle, and Mauricio manages to alienate everyone within it.  These issues play out against a colorful backdrop of Latino Christmas with its distinctive sights and and observed rhythms.  Writers Rick Najera, Ted Perkins and Alison Swan handle matters as effectively as that assembly line of relatives making Christmas tamales at my Aunt Virginia's house.

Nobel Son (2008) -vs- Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Brothers Up in Arms

The Smackdown.  Since Cain and Abel, brothers have been letting things get out of hand. The conflict is biblical and filmmakers just can't stay away from the chance to tie bad brothers and greed into a messy bow for us.  There's always room for the new. After all, it's been three decades since Michael and Fredo Corleone put the same issues out there in a pair of "Godfather" films three decades ago. Now, writer/director Randall Miller makes his own run in "Nobel Son" with plenty of greed and sibling fireworks. Just last year writer Kelly Masterson reworked those ideas in the highly regarded but under appreciated "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" from director Sidney Lumet. That's our holiday Smackdown!: Deciding which movie tells the better story of battling brothers, and which deserves a lump of coal.

The Challenger. Few people are less deserving of the acclaim just bestowed upon Eli Michaelson. His unbelievable good fortune propels "Nobel Son." Michaelson (Alan Rickman) receives word he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and it turns a simple misanthrope into a monster. Eli's colleagues disliked his aloof, condescending manner; now he's insufferable and they hate him. That pretty much sums up the feelings of Michaelson's forensic psychiatrist wife, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen) and their son, Barkley (Bryan Greenberg). To Sarah, Eli is selfish, philandering and boorish. He is dismissive toward Barkley. Eli Michaelson is irresistibly nasty. Matters might have remained at that level until Barkley misses his flight to the award ceremony in Sweden. He's been kidnapped by Thaddeus James, whose genetic link to Eli had been undisclosed until now. James (Shawn Hatosy) wants revenge and Michaelson's Nobel Prize money. A convoluted series of events follows, involving mayhem, the Stockholm Syndrome, double crosses, several Mini Coopers, a detective (Bill Pullman) sweet on Sarah, plus an unstable young woman named City Hall (Eliza Dushku). On the way to resolution, no plot twist is ignored and the story - cowritten by Miller and Jody Savin- even aims for laughs.

Tropic Thunder (2008) -vs- Galaxy Quest (1999)

"Tropic Thunder" DVD Release - November 18

The Smackdown. Movies are already an illusion -- stories committed to film that feel real but, at best, are only an impression of reality.  With this Smackdown! we have a couple of competitors about real people playing characters in unreal film and TV projects who end up being taken as authentic by people who can, basically, kill them, and so they have to suck it up and act like the heroes they pretend to be. In both "Tropic Thunder" and "Galaxy Quest" (both from DreamWorks), things are not what they seem.  Could Ben Stiller actually fight his way out of a paper bag any more than Tim Allen could save the universe from world-destroying aliens?  Roll film...

The Challenger. You're shopping for something to watch, perhaps a comedy to flavor the mix of summer movies. You need something to cleanse the memory of "The Love Guru" and Eddie Murphy's latest misfire. Going back for another dose of "Hancock" won't do, and neither will another road trip with Harold and Kumar. Maybe try out a comedy that spoofs better than "Get Smart" and comes with a load of pre-release buzz: "Tropic Thunder." It's the latest from writer / actor / director Ben Stiller and will not escape some controversy for having Robert Downey, Jr. appear in black face.

Hellboy II (2008) -vs- Hancock (2008)

Editor's Note:  November 11 marks the release of "Hellboy II" on DVD and Blu-ray, including a special three disc edition.

The Smackdown.  It really is the height of narcissism.  Give a guy powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men and he can still manage to cop a bad attitude.  And while neither Hulk nor Iron Man can really be accused of harboring sunny dispositions, the leading men of 'tude in the summer of 2008 were a couple of anti-heroes on the extreme grouchy side:  Hellboy and Hancock.  Which one of these charm school drop-outs made bad look good?  That's the Smack and, believe me, this battle is not for the thin-skinned. 

The Challenger. Into the ring strides "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" with Ron Perlman reprising his devilish character from the Dark Horse comic. The original (like the sequel) directed and co-written by Guillermo Del Toro is a fish out of water story, and so is "Hellboy II."  A superhero's work is never done and Hellboy feels unappreciated. Maybe that's why he a little touchy. He's readily spotted on the street and can't catch a break. Most folks openly question Hellboy's motives. The main story in "Hellboy II" comes into play because a prince of the underworld (Nuada, Luke Goss) wants to take over topside. He unleashes a hungry batch of tooth fairies while stealing a portion of a golden crown. The full crown will allow the wearer to activate an army of mechanical warriors. There are complications: Abe the Fishman has a thing for the villain's sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton); the irritating Tom Manning (Jeffery Tambor) has a new cohort in Johann Kraus at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense; Hellboy is having relationship problems with his combustible girlfriend, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair). All these elements come together to prove several points: Saving the earth is messy; those creatures you saw in your dreams are real, and the road to love (the inter-species type) is never smooth.