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.

Marley & Me (2008) -vs- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Comparing Apples and Oranges

The Smackdown. The tabloids made me do it. The temptation to compare Brad’s and Jen’s films, both opening on Christmas Day was too much for the Merchants of Venom (and now for me); Jen won Round One of their manufactured box office face-off. But this smackdown has precious little to do with money. Everyone has loved and lost a dog or two, but few have lived life backwards. The artistically ambitious “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” battles the unapologetically sappy Boy-Meets-Dog-Boy-Loses-Dog crowd-pleaser “Marley & Me.” Both films aim to earn your tears and laughter, and both succeed in some measure. Which tabloid darling most successfully rises above their ubiquity? It’s Brad versus Jen for realsies.

The Challenger.  In the already wildly successful “Marley & Me,” Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson marry, buy a dog, have some kids, and hit forty. Based on a book compiled of John Grogan’s newspaper columns, the movie is his fairly honest (if not terribly insightful) reflection on a somewhat prickly modern marriage with its requisite ups and downs. It’s “Revolutionary Road” with a puppy and a way better real estate broker. The dog is a total hellion; the world is his all-you-can-eat buffet, and his family adores him beyond all reason as dog-loving families are wont to do.

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.

Frost/Nixon (2008) -vs- W. (2008)

Disgraced Republican Presidents Edition

The Smackdown. As the nation holds its collective breath, waiting for Inauguration Day and the end of the long national nightmare that was the Bush administration, Richard Nixon arrives at the multiplex to remind us all of another horrible yet riveting chapter of American history. The timing couldn't be better. As we carve our Thanksgiving turkeys, we are truly thankful for term limits and investigative journalism and award season films. While we make a wish for the rapid and full restoration of criminally bent (if not irrevocably broken) International and Constitutional law, we ponder this little holiday season headscratcher: Nixon or W? The lesser (or greater) of two evildoers?

The Challenger. Ron Howard's “Frost/Nixon” (2008) beautifully captures Michael Sheehan's and Frank Langella's much-lauded portrayals of the title characters as played previously on Broadway and London's West End. The film started shooting only a week after the play closed; its screenplay is a worthy adaptation by its playwright Peter Morgan. Few plays make it to screen so fully intact, and the audience owes a huge debt of gratitude for whatever behind-the-scenes dealmaking resulted in such a rare gift. Langella has already earned a Tony and a Drama Desk award and an Outer Critics Circle award, and he seems a sure bet to add an Academy Award nomination to his collection. Sheehan more than holds his own as Frost; it's not for nothing that Frost's name appears first in the title. The subject of the film is Frost's groundbreaking series of televised interviews that ended with Tricky Dick's game-changingly cathartic admission of guilt regarding his role in the Watergate scandal. Even though we know exactly how this one ends, the dramatic tension sustains.

Milk (2008) -vs- Philadelphia (1993)

Brotherly Love

The Smackdown. As Proposition 8 protesters take to California streets, Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” reminds us that we’ve been here before. Thirty years ago, the religious right-backed Proposition 6 was defeated by the first wave of openly gay protest and organization. The timing could not be better.  Fifteen years ago, “Philadelphia” brought AIDs into the bright lights of mainstream consideration.  How much progress has been made in three decades?  While both films are relevant and important pieces of the ongoing struggle, which film at this critical juncture most urgently deserves a place on your "must-see" list?

The Challenger. Gus Van Sant makes excellent use of documentary footage to set the scene; we are immediately and effectively plunged back in the dark days of the sixties, when so many gays still lived closeted in shame, in real danger of discovery. Echoing familiar footage of anti-black violence in the deep south, we watch as cops round up men in gay bars, wielding billy clubs and barking unheard epithets we can only imagine. Out of this black and white horror rises an unlikely savior, Harvey Milk, our country’s first openly gay elected official. The film follows his journey from unassuming, closeted middle aged New Yorker to gay rights activist to martyr.