Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Defiance (2008) -vs- Valkyrie (2008)

Super Jews and Good Germans Take On the Nazis

The Smackdown. It’s Academy Award-worthy season, and you know what that means! Nazis! The multiplex is practically teeming with them. "Valkyrie" served them up for Christmas, and "Defiance" held it's own limited New Year's Eve release to qualify for awards season. Meanwhile, "The Reader" sneaked into a few theaters as well, waiting for its big push in January. Why, you ask, are the Nazis still cinema's all-purpose go-to bad guys? Silly Goosesteppers, you know why. Because everybody hates the Nazis, even the Germans! (Not all Germans, just the ones in “Valkyrie.") For your cinematic Nazi-hating pleasure, it’s “Defiance” against “Valkyrie” as we re-fight World War Two, the war everybody loves starring the villains everybody still loves to hate.

The Challenger. “Defiance” is an earnest piece of work, based on the true story of three Jewish brothers who escape Nazi-occupied Poland to hide in the Belarussian forest where they join the Russian resistance fighters and build a semi-safe haven for over a thousand other exiled Jews. There are a lot of characters in “Defiance.” Most of the exiled Jews are little more than unindividuated dress extras; we learn precious few of their stories or names. They fall into two categories – the gratefully compliant and the nasty rebels. Daniel (James Bond) Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie (Billy Elliott) Bell play the least likely looking brothers since “Twins” Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schreiber has made a career of playing Jewish… Craig not so much.

The Reader (2008) -vs- Doubt (2008)

We Care About These People Why?

The Smackdown.  This is not only the season to be jolly but out here in Hollywood it's the season of awards campaigns kicking into gear. As a member of both the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, I've received a good share of the DVD screeners that show up at the door from UPS and, over the last two nights, watched two films back-to-back that I'd never imagined Smacking down together. Both "The Reader" and "Doubt" feature lead characters that either are or probably are having sex with underage boys. If you're looking to find the rooting value in either of these films, you will have to look pretty hard yet both of them are being touted as the best of the best this year. They've already received their share of awards nominations from other organizations and the Oscars are beckoning. Because they're both out simultaneously, there is no "challenger" or "champion" designation. So before you get hyped out where you are, here's a report from the front lines.

In This Corner. In director Stephen Daldry's and screenwriter David Hare's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel, it's 1958, Berlin, and a sad woman named Hanna (Kate Winslet) starts up a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy Michael Berg (German actor David Kross). The life experience head-start he gets comes with a price. She wants him to read to her. That's right. She wants him to bring his school books and read out loud to her. At first the reading comes before the sex but, soon, the reading comes first, then the sex. About half-way through the film, things change a lot more than the sex/reading order, secrets are revealed and we are, basically, into an entirely different film that spans many decades into the future. And not joyfully different, mind you. Daldry and Hare are the same people who brought us the lost and depressing film, "The Hours."

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.

Gran Torino (2008) -vs- The Shootist (1976)

Does Who You've Killed Make You Who You Are?

The Smackdown. Rumor has it that "Gran Torino" will be the last film that Clint Eastwood acts in.  In it, he basically plays a version of his tough-guy screen characters (think Harry Callahan) who, at the end of his life, has to deal with the fact that so much of who he is derives from who he's killed.  Thirty-two years ago, another tough guy -- John Wayne -- acted in his last film, "The Shootist," where he also played a character who, at the end of his life, had to deal with the violence that had surrounded his days on Earth.  Both of these legendary tough-guys are portrayed as being brought down by disease, having cheated the bloody ravages they've inflicted on others, as they close out their screen personas in projects that say as much about their full careers as the actual films of the moment.  Lending weight to the efforts is that added fact that both of these films parallel the goodbye to these iconic characters by playing them out against times that are changing:  Detroit for Eastwood and the Wild West for Wayne. 

 

The Challenger.  In what may be his swan song to acting, Clint Eastwood directs himself in "Gran Torino."  He plays Walt Kowalski, a tormented Korean War vet and a character with a lot of relevance today, given that he's also a retired auto plant worker, still living in Detroit and wondering where and when it was that the whole thing fell apart.  After his wife dies, it's just Walt, the family he really doesn't connect with, and the next door neighbors who are all Hmong immigrants.  The story was written, not by some A-lister, but by Nick Schenk, a Minnesota wannabe who wrote the whole thing with pen and paper sitting in a bar, and then had Eastwood pretty much shoot every damn word of it.  Part of what attracted Eastwood, no doubt, is how beautifully it allows him to give us a reprise of the Dirty Harry character, but wrap it in a bloody bow of human redemption at the same time.  The narrative has Walt at his peevish best, hurling insults at the neighbors and his family, only to find himself in an odd-friendship with the Hmong kid next door who he catches trying to steal his prized Gran Torino, a car he himself had a hand in making back in the day when Detroit ruled the world.  Yet violence and gangs prevent the film from being just a sweet or comic story of friendship:  this is Clint's farewell to a character-type and he needs to go out in a way that pays off how he got in this world in the first place.  I'll say no more on that score...

Diner (1982) -vs- The Apartment (1960)

Celebrate the New Year's Eve Classics!

The Smackdown. There are a surprising number of worthwhile New Year’s Eve-themed films to consider watching should other more social-type plans fail to materialize for you. I’m no drinker, no party animal; subsequently, New Year’s Eve has always been something of a non-starter. Usually, I stay home and watch a movie or two. Or three. In doing so, I figure my odds on dealing with drunk drivers are infinitesimally small. I have chosen a few of my own personal favorites to recommend because in so doing I could justify re-watching them. I’ve even concocted some fuzzy holiday math for you. We’re celebrating the New Year, 2009. "The Apartment" ends on New Year’s Eve 1959 as does 1982’s "Diner." So…if you don’t pay terribly close attention to my slightly fudged calculations, it’s fifty years. That’s practically a golden anniversary. After half a century of social upheaval, what’s really changed? More importantly, what film’s most worth revisiting for a truly happy start to your new year?

The Challenger. Barry Levinson’s autobiographical Valentine to Baltimore Bromance, "Diner" introduced an absolutely stellar ensemble cast including Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Tim Daly, Paul Reiser, and Ellen Barkin. Five young men on the cusp of adulthood ease the pain of their imminent passage by clinging together and hanging out. All the character-revealing action (and there’s plenty) takes place over a holiday break between Christmas and New Year’s 1959. The dialogue is brilliant and convincingly real; it has the easy improvisational feel of eavesdropping on conversation. The performances are uniformly excellent. Levinson had been writing for television and films for fifteen years before this, his big directing breakthrough. He subsequently returned to his Baltimore roots a few more times with "Avalon" and "Tin Men" and "Liberty Heights." It’s proven fertile creative ground for him and for his audience.