Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Public Enemies (2009) -vs- Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

The Smackdown.  Gangsters have occupied a rather over-elevated rung on the movie subject matter ladder since the first hand-cranked silents unspooled for the hungry hordes a century ago. Criminals lead such dramatic lives, so full of danger and tragedy and excitement that we naturally look to them for our movie myths and anti-heroes.  We fantasize and fetishize these quintessential losers so dutifully that they continue to exude glamour and power some seventy-odd years past their reign of terror. Their Depression seemed more romantic, more photo-ready than our own, their poverty and hard times made picturesque by the passage of time. Criminal desperation and anarchic violence gets rendered literary and archetypal. So which film featuring the fall of which ill-fated bankrobber/lover makes the grade? Depp’s dapper Dillinger faces off squarely with Beatty’s Barrow.

The Challenger. "Public Enemies" (2009) ||  Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp in an ambitious fever dream version of the last gasp of 1930’s glamorous gangster life in Chicago. John Dillinger is the film’s centerpiece, released after nine years in prison only to be squeezed uncomfortably and fatally between two larger and far more deadly forces – the burgeoning FBI and organized crime. Dillinger and other infamous crooks meet their famous ends at the hands of Melvin Purvis and his nameless G-men.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) -vs- The Thin Red Line (1998)

The Smackdown. War is hell. And until Steven Spielberg got involved, we'd never really experienced war through the eyes of a soldier. We'd come close, with filmmakers as diverse as Coppola and Oliver Stone all giving us their interpretations, but it always seemed to be at a safe distance.  The viewer was taken on a journey, but not our own journey. Unlike Ron Kovic or Ben Willard, who undertake a journey for us, Spielberg attempted to give us our own experience in war without having to leave the cinema. "Saving Private Ryan," which graphically shows us the D-Day landings of a group of US forces in 1944, opens with an assault on the senses unlike any we'd ever seen. It thrust us into the heat of battle, the confusion and carnage of an assault that beggars description. It wanted us to know exactly what war is really like. 

At the same time, at a different film studio, a reclusive film director had also embarked upon a journey to show us the inhumanity and insanity of war. Terrence Malick, who had disappeared from the Hollywood radar for the better part of two decades in a self-imposed exile, had returned with a lengthy, languid exploration of the mental anguish of fighting the war in the Pacific, the other major theater of World War II. Gathering some of the cream of Hollywood talent and star wattage, Malick constructed a story of broken hearts, hope and devastation, the jungles of the Pacific cast as a beautiful backdrop to some of mankind's darkest moments. With "The Thin Red Line," Sean Penn and James Caviezel lead a massively talented cast into battle, told in a style that is so completely different to Spielberg's more grimy effort, so ensuring that we experience both styles of film-making to endure the horrors of war. 

Two mighty juggernauts of cinema, lined up head to head. Both set during WWII, both featuring a large cast of known names, all vying for screen-time, all with a story to tell. This Smackdown will be a brutal, casualty ridden affair that will leave only the bravest, the strongest standing. Soldiers, open fire!!!

Mad Men (2009-2007) -vs- Revolutionary Road (2008)

 Trouble in Paradise 

The Smackdown. In the age of instant communication, instant gratification looking back 50 years seems like a trip in the way-back machine. Many of us remember this as the time our parents scrambled to attain a level of security described by the catchall American Dream.

We tie this period before the Cuban Missile Crisis to hula hoops, fallout shelters, drive-in movies, TV dinners and American Bandstand. This was a time when people in the background --mostly men-- worked overtime branding these cultural signposts as passports to the good life. This period matters. It directed the shape of many of our lives.

Against that backdrop, "Mad Men" began a low-key run on cable's AMC channel. The program caught fire and soon begins a third season. The ensemble drama is set in a fictional New York advertising agency, Sterling Cooper and follows hotshot Don Draper (Jon Hamm) in and out of the office. Along the way, dramas play out in a time capsule where the look of that material world and the attitudes of the time strike a consistent, convincing note. Even better dramatically, all is not right in this artificial paradise. So far, "M-M" has pulled in six Emmys, three Golden Globes plus a BAFTA award and the critical run may not be over.

Director Sam Mendes visited this creative neighborhood in 2008's "Revolutionary Road," just out on DVD and Blu-ray. Featuring his real-life wife, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio breathe discomforting life into Richard Yates' 1961 novel. Both look right in the environment. They have problems, and it's not a giant leap in logic to imagine the DiCaprio and Hamm characters running into each other at the train station.

Good drama plays well on large screen and small and this Smackdown! will focus on the smaller elements that advance the story: Which project evokes the stronger sense of historical authenticity and anxiety in this big apple to big apple comparison?

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) -vs- The Reader (2008)

 The Populist and the Outsider 

The Smackdown. Both "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader" seemingly deal with a country and a people's crimes toward humanity. Whether the abject poverty and destructive caste system of India or the German struggle with guilt and ultimate responsibility for the Holocaust, it is at heart what each film is using as background for very personal and disturbing stories.

It's virtually impossible to objectively determine if one nominated film is "better" than another based on production values and performances because, for the most part, all are at a sophistcated and rigorously professional level beyond reproach. So one has to find another set of values to judge by and that's most likely one's emotional and intellectual connection to the film and its power to force either or both to clash internally. So it is with "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader"; both nominated for Best Picture, one a seeming lock and the other a long shot; one a highly emotional ride of familiar and predictable proportions; the other a joyless ride of suppression and fear totally unfamiliar and unpredictable. So what is it that bonds these two films as bastard siblings and why does one inhabit your psyche refusing to let go and the other fade like a great one night stand with notable style and suspect substance?

The Favorite. "Slumdog Millionaire" tells, by now, the apparently simple story of an 18 year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai who wins 200 million rupees on India's version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". But on the night before he actually wins, he's kidnapped and forced to explain to local officials, who believe he has cheated, how exactly a "slumdog" like him could possibly be so intelligent and answer so difficult (not) a series of questions. This sets the framework for us to experience the formative years of the young man in question, jamal malik, and to discover how, in the depths of poverty, crime and personal horror, he has managed to come up with the right answers to so complicated questions (not!) and to literally, stay alive. Set in flashback, we are brought on a journey of enormous ethical and emotional proportions all pointing to his ability to convince the authorities of his ultimate innocence and to get his one chance at that great equalizer, cash, and its promise - freedom of want.

Changeling (2008) -vs- L.A. Confidential (1997)

 When Not to Call the Police 

The Smackdown. Cops in Los Angeles were using integrity for target practice long before they started beating on Rodney King in the 90s. In “Changeling” -- set 80 years ago -- director Clint Eastwood combines a shocking – and mostly true – story with standout performances from Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich to create one of the riveting films of the year. Just over a decade ago, those same elements of corruption, torture and death -- set in the decade of Elvis -- played out forcefully in “L.A. Confidential” from director Curtis Hanson. This 50s noirish tale of compromised honor snagged 71 film awards. Hanson and screenwriter Brian Helgeland earned an Oscar for adapting James Ellroy’s novel. Kim Basinger gave a career performance to win Best Supporting Actress. “L.A. Confidential” is smart, funny, very well-made and pulled $126 million in worldwide receipts, yes, but was its haunting portrayal of our centurions in search of a moral compass good enough to put away the likes of Eastwood and Jolie? We'll just see about that...

The Challenger. It’s March 1928 in the Los Angeles of "Changeling" and Christine Collins (Jolie) is called to work at the local phone company. Her little boy Walter disappears without a trace. The police don’t warm to Christine pressing for a full-blown search. Five months later a boy is abandoned at a diner in DeKalb, Illinois. Police decide it’s young Walter Collins and he’s returned to LA. Major complication: Christine says the boy is not her son, and the cops don’t believe her.

During the 1920’s enforcing the law is incidental for the LAPD. The Chief is corrupt, the force is trigger-happy and radio minister Gustav Briegleb (Malkovich) hammers an obvious point: “Once the City of Angels..our protectors have become our brutalizers.”