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.

The Proposal (2009) -vs- Green Card (1990)

The Smackdown. Immigration Law Romantic Comedy makes up a very exclusive subset of the chickflick genre, and there’s a new kid on the block. Great White (North) Hope Sandra Bullock’s “The Proposal” arrives with heavyweight credentials and high expectations for box office punch.  A Canadian über-bitch book editor threatened with deportation strong-arms her assistant into an arranged engagement; complications and frolics ensue. Almost two decades ago, Peter Weir constructed his own little Valentine to New York City and unlikely romance when a Frenchman’s marriage of convenience and “Green Card” is threatened by an official immigration investigation. These immigrants are adorable, and they want to stay forever. Which begs the question: If no American falls in love with an illegal immigrant, does a tree fall in the woods? Or something like that.

The Challenger. In “The Proposal,” dancer turned choreographer turned director Anne “27 Dresses” Fletcher doesn’t miss  a romcom convention trick here; any over-initiated romcom afficianado can count them off as they accumulate like smashed bugs on the roadtrip windshield. The awkward set-up, the unconvincing animosity, the charged first kiss, the forced sharing of sleeping quarters, the omnipresent and insipid old girlfriend, accidentally seeing each other naked, the makeover, the tragically wrong choice of shoes, the requisite dirty old lady, the perverted foreigner, the overly aggressive pet, the rescue, the aborted wedding, the multi-vehicle chase, the proposal/declaration of love before co-workers/family. Check. Check. Check please.

My Life In Ruins (2009) -vs- The Hangover (2009)

The Smackdown. It’s a battle of the sexes for the ages. The balls-out edgy Men-Will-Be-Boys comedy takes on the watching-paint-dry-by-numbers My Not So Fat Any More Greek Tour Guide. Hardly a fair fight, there’s no intersection in the Venn diagram of viewers who might enjoy both outings.   One’s ostensibly for the ladies -- and by ladies I mean strictly Red Hat Society folks, the ones who talk in the theaters non-stop, moviegoers surprised by plot turns telegraphed so clearly that you wonder how these clueless souls found their way to the theater without assistance. “The Hangover” aims for a demographic blessed with a lowbrow sense of humor and no sense of decorum. It’s Dumb versus Dumber. Chicks versus Dudes. Old versus Young. Grab yourself a Jaegermeister or a giant bottle of Ouzo. You’re gonna need to get a little liquored up to make it through this double feature.

In This Corner. Imagine “Mamma Mia” without ABBA. Nia Vardalos plays a second rate tour guide in Greece surrounded by a bunch of hopelessly corny tourists and stereotypical locals. If touring Greece by bus is something you might consider actually doing at some point in your life, you might enjoy watching “My Life In Ruins.” I’ll just sit over there in the corner, doing just about anything else in the world if you don’t mind. But, as they say, those who like this sort of thing will likely like it. (Send your parents.)

He’s Just Not That Into You (2009) -vs- Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994)

EDITOR'S NOTE:  "He's Just Not That Into You" is now on DVD after making $94-million at the box-office since coming out in February 2009. Smack ref Sherry Coben reviewed it then and, if you're looking for a romantic comedy to balance out what's in the current summer box office, Movie Smackdown offers a reprise of her Valentine's review...

The Smackdown. Valentine’s Day is in the air; the stores are filled to the rafters with cards and red hearts -- and even giant chocolate bunnies as merchants rush the holidays and compress our year alarmingly.  So. You buy a card, perhaps some chocolate, some roses, some lingerie. Good for you. How about dinner and a movie? That’s the ticket. Ah, but which movie? What do women want? They want movies about women and love. They’d prefer good movies about women and love, but even mediocre to bad ones will do in a pinch. They like their chickflicks like they like their men. There. But in a perfect movie-watching universe such as ours, with a multiplex in every town and classic films readily available, for the perfect romantic date night, which movie to watch?

The Challenger. "He’s Just Not That Into You" (2009) A wise, if snarky, friend once explained his secret of a happy love life, claiming that once he accepted the basic premise that all men are (pardon his French) assholes and all women are insane, there remained precious little left to argue about. Director Ken Kwapis, screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, bestselling authors of the source material Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo  all apparently got the same memo. Movieworld “Baltimore” is a bucolic urban shire mostly peopled with hobbit-sized beautiful crazy (read: needy) women looking for marriage and the commitment-phobic assholes who refuse to love them enough. Everyone is diminutive except for the biggest asshole of all, Bradley Cooper’s Ben, a blue-eyed satyr who lopes through the film in unblinking disbelief that both superhotties Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Connelly want him. Ben Affleck plays the saintly Neil who woos and wins sad-eyed Jennifer Aniston’s Beth and gets to keep his pants in the bargain.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) -vs- Star Trek (2009)

 Girls Night Out 

The Smackdown. A warning: I’m stepping way outside my wheelhouse for this smack. Plenty of Smackdown critics live for the Boys With Toys genres. They endlessly and seriously dissect Wolverine and X-Men and Batman and Hulk and all the rest. Show me an explosion in a movie trailer? I’m a no-show. Graphic novel/comic hero pedigree? Pure Kryptonite. So… Let’s say it’s date night and you’re the girl. Common wisdom might suggest you’d be happier arm-twisting your significant (or insignificant) other into the theater for a dose of movie star magic featuring McConnaughey and Garner. Your distaff half’s pining in an entirely different testosterone-fueled direction. Should you give in and check out the Trek or put your high-heeled foot down and insist on the rom-com? Let’s do this. Captain James Tiberius Kirk vs. Connor Meade. Two alpha/hound dogs who have their way with women.

In This Corner.  It’s never a good sign when a film takes place at Christmas time, based on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, gets released in May. Trust me. In "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," Michael Douglas gets to play his age, a dead guy returned to his Hefner-esque Rhode Island manse to wheedle and cajole his young ward, every bit as sleazy as his mentor and possessed of an anachronistically inexplicable Texas twang. Is McConnaughey really that big a star that (like Costner in “Robin Hood”) he doesn’t even have to try to sound geographically related to the rest of the characters in the film? While I recognize that not all actors are Meryl Streep, the ego involved in that decision offends…but wait. Perhaps there’s something more sinister at work, something deeper and darker; think back a few months, years, decades. Another New England dynasty raised one son with a similarly unexplained Texas twang. The scion and the others proper sons of Maine. Wait. Gimme a minute. Can’t place the name…but the face is familiar. Oh yeah, and he broke the world. Maybe that’s why the sore-thumb accent grates so.