Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Rodney Takes a Nap: Oscars as Sleep Aid

For the first time since I started watching the Oscars seriously around '93, when "Schindler's List" swept all before it, I think this year's ceremony will be among the most predictable of them all. I wasn't around when "Ben Hur" came out, so I don't have a comparison (except, perhaps, "Return of The King", but I wanted that film to win, so the point is voided) in film lore of something being almost such a certainty to win, it's a one-horse race.

As an Aussie, I hope and pray Hugh Jackman does the business this year, as host. Given his proven reputation for hosting shows, such as the Tony's (seriously, if I ever had to say that I had won a Tony I reckon people around the office might think I'd been eating hash-filled cookies... who calls their awards the Tonys? Oh wait, the Academy Awards are called the "Oscars", so I guess that's okay!) I think Wolverine will be fine. As long as he doesn't have an on-stage appearance with Meg Ryan, I think we'll be safe with Hugh. As long as he doesn't try and do some sort of parody of Christian Bale flipping out, the whole show will be a classy, solidly familiar affair, with little deviation from the norm.

I read Beau's report on why "The Dark Knight" should have been nominated, and honestly, there's not a lot more I can add to what he's already said, (gee, thanks Beau for stealing all my thunder!) and I think anything I do say will just be treading old ground. "Dark Knight" was not nominated, and we'll all just have to get over it.

Sherry Shrugs: Oscars Schmoscars

Bryce Zabel challenged me to write something about the Academy Awards this year. So much has already been written by countless others that I’m frankly struggling a bit to come up with something original and insightful and worth your time.

You certainly don’t need my personal predictions and picks. They’re not much different from all the others you can read elsewhere, although I should confess to a creepily savant accuracy, especially on the night. Call me psychic or cynic. Whatev. (Slumdog, Rourke, Winslet, Cruz or possibly Ms. Henson, Ledger, Boyle, WALL-E, etc. Benjamin Button will win some awards for effects and makeup, Frost Nixon will get shut out, Milk will win for screenplay in the Academy voters’ too-little-too-late apology for Prop 8. Slumdog will sweep a bunch of categories even though no actors earned a nod. Sean Penn could beat Mickey Rourke…except that Penn already won, and Oscar loves a phoenix rising from the ashes of his own trashed life. Plus Rourke’s dog died this week. But I digress.) I am possessed of two fairly aardvark, useless, yet impressive talents: predicting awards and recognizing people from a glimpse of their hands or any part of their face; baby pictures and even the grainiest high school photo reveal the adult to me. In some alternate universe, I could perhaps make a living doing one or both, but it’s not a universe I suspect anyone else would enjoy.

I don’t much care who wins. That’s not why I watch. Most of my favorites aren’t nominated, and I’m not going to get all tied up in knots sweating over it; Academy Awards rarely award the truly excellent for reasons I’ve come to accept over the years. Just scan a list of Best Pictures sometime and put it up against a list of your personal favorites; there’s precious little overlap. When you list all the amazing actors who never won recognition, you come to realize it’s a pageant-style contest aimed squarely at the middle and a show designed to promote studio product and rarely much more than that.

Revolutionary Road (2008) -vs- American Beauty (1999)

Lives of Not-So-Quiet Desperation

The Smackdown.  The hype around "Revolutionary Road," of course, centers around the fact that it re-unites Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) for the first time since the mega-super blockbuster "Titanic."  But smacking "Revolutionary Road" against "Titanic" would be like comparing apples and sailboats.  The real competition is between the family dysfunction of the 1999 Oscar winning "American Beauty" and the latest "Revolutionary Road" portrayal, both filmed by British director Sam Mendes.  If Jack had survived and he and Rose had gone on to settle into the suburbs, they might have ended up like Frank and April Wheeler.  Whether that couple would be as compelling to view as Lester and Carolyn Burnam, there's the battle ahead.

The Challenger.  "Revolutionary Road" tells the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a couple of once-free spirits who have moved into the suburbs of 1950s America and are slowly dying inside.  The problem appears to be that neither one of them are the people they once were and neither one of them likes who they've become or who their partner has become.  This is a tough spot for any couple with two children but in the America of that time where sexism is rampant, everybody smokes and drinks, and nobody says what they mean, it can be deadly.  The film is not full of event, it's full of small details of daily life and decaying marriage, realized with a spot-on intensity.  It feels so true to human nature than whenever you see anything that even remotely reminds you of yourself or your own marriage, all you can do is cringe.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) -vs- The Kite Runner (2007)

Rising Above Expectations

The Smackdown.  Childhood friendships can last a lifetime and have profound consequences. Both "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Kite Runner" tell sweeping stories in the lives of two boys -- a set of brothers in the former and a set of friends who act like brothers in the latter. They use narratives that cut back-and-forth across time, forcing them to use multiple sets of actors to portray their characters as boys turn to men. The contemporary storylines are deepened by the children's experiences we see in flashback.  Both films started as novels, force viewers (English-speaking ones anyway) to read a few sub-titles and share settings -- India and Afghanistan -- that have been scarred by terrorism as deeply as the United States. And even though "Slumdog Millionaire" is probably going to get an Oscar nomination this year, it's still going to have to hold off "The Kite Runner" to win this Smackdown...

The Challenger.  "Slumdog Millionaire" feels like it's giving you an authentic slice of life in the real India.  As directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Simon Bradley based on a novel by Vikas Swarup, it tells the story of Jamel, an impoverished orphan from the slums of Mumbai who, as the film begins, is amazingly winning on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" against all the odds.  He's being accused of cheating because nobody can believe a petty thief with his background could possibly know what he knows.  And there's the cheat which isn't a cheat at all.  Flashbacks reveal exactly how hard-won the knowledge is that is allowing him to become a sensation.  His story is embellished by his on-going relationship with his equally adept survivor brother Salim and the improbable romance with a girl named Latika.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -vs- Forrest Gump (1994)

Separated at Birth?

The Smackdown.  Walking out of "Forrest Gump" in 1994, I remember thinking to myself that they ought to make more films like it.  A decade and a half later they've done just that and it's called "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."  Both touching films are huge accomplishments in story, direction, effects and general envelope-pushing that owe a common source for their originality to screenwriter Eric Roth.  This time he's gone back further in time from Gump's baby-boomer adventures to Button's that span the years from World War I to present day.  Both leading men are blank-slates who seem to end up (Zelig-like) in the middle of big events where their voice-over is used to lead us through the narrative.  The movies also take place in the South, share a female free-spirit love interest, a strong single mom, and folk wisdom "catch phrases."  Does "Button" build on "Gump" or is it just a pale imitation?  That's the Smack attack here.

The Challenger.  "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" owes its concept to the famous remark by Mark Twain that the best part of life comes at the beginning and the worst at the end, and a short story that F. Scott Fitzgerald made out of it in 1921.  The film takes just the essence, though, and tells a new story entirely.  Basically, it's about a baby born on the day World War I ends who is biologically a very old man and who grows younger day by day.  It's a wonderful "what-if" to contemplate, down to the possibility that Button (Brad Pitt) could meet the love of his life when he's an old man and she's a kid, have a love affair when they're about the same age, and then end up with her as an old woman taking care of him when he's just a child.  The scope director David Fincher brings to the screen is large: from its WWI beginning, the film takes us all the way to modern times and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.