Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

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

Lives of Not-So-Quiet Desperation

The Smackdown.  The hype around "Revolutionary Road," of course, will center 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.

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

Lives of Not-So-Quiet Desperation

The Smackdown.  The hype around "Revolutionary Road," of course, will center 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 Godfather (1972) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Vote Now: An Offer You Can't Refuse...

The Smackdown.  By now it's all become a part of our collective cultural memory -- the horse's head showing up in the bed, making an "offer he can't refuse" and that haunting score by Nino Rota.  Imagine being in the theaters though, almost four decades ago when the original "The Godfather" was in release back in 1972. For years new viewers of the Godfather Trilogy were exposed to either increasingly degraded theatrical prints or VHS or DVD copies that were, in many cases, even worse.  For the past two years, though, Francis Ford Coppola and a small army of digital restoration experts have been at work reclaiming the golden glory for high-definition Blu-ray, standard DVD and even a few more theatrical prints out in some major cities.  It's not the purpose of this Smackdown to lay out that process but if you want to know more about "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration," there have been some excellent articles including The New York Times and Slate Magazine.

What is most astonishing about "The Godfather" which won the 1972 Oscar for "Best Picture" is that two years later "The Godfather, Part II" also won the Oscar for "Best Picture."  This pretty much qualifies the second film as the unquestioned best sequel of all-time (although there are supporters now for "The Dark Knight").  And, of course, it triggers a Smackdown to find out which of these two extraordinary films is the best.  We'll give the competition our usual treatment with an added bonus.  Five of our critics weigh in at the end with their individual essays.  Joe Rassulo, Scott Baradell, Sherry Coben, Mark Sanchez and Jay Amicarella all come at the material with damned unique POVs, and it's a fun read.  Finally, at the end of this review, you can put in your own two cents by voting in our Smack-Poll.

The Defending Champion.  If you think about it now, the "Godfather" films are the modern world's version of those Shakespeare plays about kings and princes.  This is the film where Vito Corleone, the aging Don of a powerful Mafia family hands off the power, reluctantly, to his youngest son Michael, delivering one of the saddest lines in cinema, "Michael, I never wanted this for you."  Al Pacino's Michael Corleone is one of the greatest acting performances on screen ever and his transformation from shy son to ruthless criminal makes you forgive any of the actor's excesses over the years.  The film opens on a wedding where Michael has returned from World War II just in time to see his sister Connie get married. All of the men in Michael's family are involved with the Mafia and it's assumed that the older brothers will handle the criminal duties while Michael lives a legit and decent life. It's truly the story of the family but the engine that drives the action is about a drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo who wants Don Corleone (Marlon Brandon) to go into the drug trade with him.  Corleone refuses, gets shot by hit men, barely survives.  This opens the door for his son to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo that changes him and his family forever.  It's the story of the old ways surrendering, violently, to the new ways.  You probably know all this.  Beautifully photographed, scored, directed, written.  Most people have it on their Top Ten lists and more than a few place it as #1. 

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.

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.