Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

Wall-E (2008) -vs- Toy Story (1995)

"Wall-E" DVD Release - November 18

The Smackdown.  "Wall-E" -- the last masterpiece to roll off the Pixar assembly line -- is out as a DVD/Blu-ray.  Remember when you first heard about this two-hour-long space-opera with barely any dialogue about robots who sift through garbage?  Who knew that it could one day step in the ring against the champion and have a real shot at victory?

So our Smackdown pits Pixar's lastest advancement in computer-animated awesomeness against the grand-daddy of them all, the first authentic feature-length computer-animated film ever, "Toy Story."  We all know the deal there -- toys come to life.  Done.  We're hooked. And ever since the film's first screening, we've been running out of our front doors shouting "To Infinity and Beyond!" as we left for work each morning.  So let's pit one set of talking inanimate objects against another set of sort-of-talking inanimate objects.  Let the best merchandise win!

The Challenger.  Way, way back, back before "Toy Story" was produced and Pixar was the animated behemoth that it is today, Andrew Stanton created Wall-E. A small, "short-circuit"-styled robot (whose name is actually an acronym for the phrase "Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class") Wall-E is the last of a line of robots left on Earth to clean up the mess we've made. Due to years of gorging consumerism, the planet has been left a giant trash-heap, too littered to possibly sustain life. In a grand gesture of social responsibility, the mega-conglomerate Buy 'N Large Corporation has encouraged humanity to take a 5 year "vacation" away from the planet, allowing their robots stay behind and restore Earth to a livable state while we all relax pool-side. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.

Spy Smackdown: Bond -vs- Bond

Editor's Note:  Before "Quantum of Solace" finally hit the theaters, we asked two of our critics -- Beau DeMayo and Stephen Bell -- to go into Total Bond Immersion.  After all, there have been six Bonds (yes, six!) in this film franchise history.  The mission given to Beau and Stephen was to decide who really does (or did) do it better.  To level the playing field, they've taken these half-dozen Bonds back to their first missions.  That's the Smack: who did it better the first time around? 

The Smackdown.  (Beau DeMayo & Stephen Bell)  It's a name that has ignited decades of debate.  A name spanning generations.  A name that carries with it danger, sex, and a billion-dollar franchise.  And, no, we're not talking about James T. Kirk.  The name we have in mind: "Bond, James Bond."  Whenever another actor assumes the role of the world's greatest spy, the question is asked -- who is the best?  

Dr. No.  Sean Connery is often presumed to be the best James Bond.  It helps that he is also the first actor who received the chance to define the character for audiences, and carries with him a certain nostalgia.  In Dr. No, Connery's Bond investigates the death of a fellow MI-6 agent.  Along the way, he meets the very first Bond girl, fights a mechanical dragon, and squares off against the steel-wristed Julius No and his army of candy-colored bubble soldiers (seriously).  Despite its more fantastical elements, Dr. No's pulpy hard-boiled feel and Connery's dry, hyper-sexualized Bond set the standard for what would become cinema's longest and most profitable franchise.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  Who is George Lazenby?  A common question.  Faced with the daunting task of filling in Connery's polished loafers, Lazenby finds a lucky comfort in what is essentially a new take on the Bond Connery had established over his first five films.  In OHMSS, Lazenby's Bond abandons the pulp and fantasy of previous films and focuses instead on a misogynist spy who finds himself capable of settling down -- albeit with a crime lord's daughter.  However, all is not love and Louis Armstrong for Lazenby's layman Bond as arch-nemesis Blofeld returns with an army of hypnotized sex kittens, manipulated into unknowingly wrecking the world's economy.  The film has the touch of a serious filmmaker, whose gorgeous cinematography and sharp editing highlights what is essentially the Winter Olympics of Bond films.

Live and Let Die.  A gentle, slightly-aged Bond, Roger Moore brings a certain bored charm, a detached sense of superiority, to Double-O Seven's repertoire.  Highly groomed and witty, Moore's Bond debuts in a plot similar to Connery's debut: Double-O Seven investigates the mysterious murders of fellow MI-6 agents.  Ambling through a disjointed and campy plot, Moore matches wits with Mr. Big and his alarmingly-stereotyped army of superstitious black men dedicated to monopolizing America's drug trade.  Moore also gets a chance to court a tarot-card-wielding Jane Seymour, whom Stephen refers to as, "a super, super sexy young Dr. Quinn."  Who knew?  Apparently, she did.  She can read the future.

The Living Daylights.  By the end of Moore's run, Bond had swapped his License to Kill for a License to Social Security.  The franchise had reached a low-point, having already exhausted Bond creator Ian Fleming's original novels.  Enter Timothy Dalton, a darker and somber Bond who finds himself embroiled in an international conspiracy after assisting in the defection of a KGB officer.  A low-key thriller with no over-the-top villains or schemes, The Living Daylights suited Dalton's toned-down and funless Bond.

Goldeneye.  Stephen perks up whenever we mention this movie.  There's a reason.  Pierce Brosnan jumps into Bond by bungee-jumping into a Soviet arms factory.  With the Cold War done and over, Brosnan's Bond enters the modern era with an assertive female spymaster in Judi Dench, a treacherous Double-O agent, and a plot to sabotage the Western world's credit system.  An unofficial reboot in both tone and style, Goldeneye offered Brosnan a clean foundation on which to build his confident, charismatic, well-acted, non-smoking Bond.

Casino Royale. Casino Royale relaunched the Bond franchise, taking the story back to the very first of Ian Fleming's novels.  Daniel Craig inherits the Bond mantle, portraying the newly christened Double-O as an unsophisticated, brutal force that often times acts more instinctively than wisely.  In Casino Royale, Craig's arrogant and untested Bond battles Le Chiffre, accountant-extraordinaire for a mysterious terrorist organization operating well beyond the reach of MI-6.  Like OHMSS, this film showcases a vulnerable Bond who grows through tragic love. 

The Dark Knight (2008) -vs- Batman Begins (2005)

When Is a Sequel Not a Sequel?

The Smackdown.  Batman's back.  Unless you live in an isolated third world village, you knew this already and, frankly, even if that's where you live you probably know it anyway.  In 2005, Christopher Nolan reintroduced the world to the infamous Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy by day, caped crusader by night. His film, "Batman Begins," reinvented the iconic hero for a new generation, discarding the camp and flash of the previous films and introducing a hero that strayed very far from the classic Boy Scouts we'd come to associate superhero films with.  He took a 16 year old franchise and wiped the mud off, breaking IMAX records and pumping life into a movie hero that had been M.I.A. since a Mr. Clooney pulled on the cowl (shudder).

Now, Nolan has returned with his follow-up to "Batman Begins," the aptly titled "The Dark Knight."  Surrounded by the haunting death and supposed Oscar-worthy performance of Heath Ledger as the maniacal Joker, "The Dark Knight" has garnered more hype than any film EVER.  It has received praise unheard of for a comic book movie, prompting boasts of "greatest of all time" and shattering the record for biggest opening weekend in cinema history.  But when all the talk dies down, does "The Dark Knight" really trump its predecessor, the one that paved the way, that reimagined the Batman for the 21st century? It's time to find out, as we pit one angry-voiced Batman against an even-more-angry-voiced Dark Knight!

The Challenger.  It is official. "The Dark Knight" has set the world on fire. Picking up where "Batman Begins" left off, we follow Bruce Wayne/Batman as he attempts to remove Gotham's worst from their position of power and pass the mantle off to a new hero, D.A. Harvey Dent, played by veteran star Aaron Eckhart. Since the conclusion of "Begins," Batman has been successful in striking fear in the hearts of Gotham's villains and it appears that he might actually see the light at the end of the tunnel in his fight against crime. Unfortunately for Batman, that light happens to be an oncoming train, embodied by none other than the most notorious of the vigilante's nemeses, The Joker. As you've no doubt already heard, this is not Jacky's Joker from the 1980's. This is Heath Ledger unleashed, a rabid dog of such unspeakable evil that nothing is left untainted in his wake. The Joker's mission is simple - bring chaos to Gotham. As he moves through the city like a maelstrom, it is up to Batman, Dent, Gordon (again played by Gary Oldman) and the rest of Batman's allies to save the city from the Joker and his corruption.

Wall-E (2008) -vs- Toy Story (1995)

Toying with Our Feelings

The Smackdown.  Something happened last night that I never thought could happen.  I waited in line for a midnight showing of a G-rated movie.  I stood in the lobby of the local AMC 20, next to a skinny, teenage kid dressed up as a boxy, yellowish robot with tank treads, and stared across the hall at a line of people waiting to see "Wanted," the brash, gun-toting, slap-your-mother ultra-violent Mark Millar-adaptation. And as I watched them, I thought to myself, "Heh, losers."  Obviously they had chosen the wrong movie to see that night. How could they possibly want to see anything else other than Pixar's newest, possibly greatest masterpiece, a two-hour-long space-opera with barely any dialogue about robots who sift through garbage?  It was "Wall-E."  And it was on.

So, today, it's "Wall-E," Pixar's newest advancement in computer-animated awesomeness, against the grand-daddy of them all, the first authentic feature-length computer-animated film ever, "Toy Story."  We all know the deal there -- toys come to life.  Done.  We're hooked. And ever since the film's first screening, we've been running out of our front doors shouting "To Infinity and Beyond!" as we left for work each morning (you haven't?).  So let's pit one set of talking inanimate objects against another set of sort-of-talking inanimate objects.  Let the best merchandise win!

The Challenger.  Way, way back, back before "Toy Story" was produced and Pixar was the animated behemoth that it is today, Andrew Stanton created Wall-E. A small, "short-circuit"-styled robot (whose name is actually an acronym for the phrase "Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class") Wall-E is the last of a line of robots left on Earth to clean up the mess we've made. Due to years of gorging consumerism, the planet has been left a giant trash-heap, too littered to possibly sustain life. In a grand gesture of social responsibility, the mega-conglomerate Buy 'N Large Corporation has encouraged humanity to take a 5 year "vacation" away from the planet, allowing their robots stay behind and restore Earth to a livable state while we all relax pool-side. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.

The Happening (2008) -vs- The Sixth Sense (1999)

Starting at the Top Limits Your Options

The Smackdown.  "I see dead people." When an eleven-year-old Haley Joel Osment whispered those four little words nearly ten years ago, spines were chilled and the world was introduced to a director it would soon love to hate -- M. Night Shyamalan.  With "The Sixth Sense," Shyamalan reinvigorated horror, creating a blockbuster out of mood and character study rarely seen in the genre.

Six films later, Shyamalan has become one of the most polarizing filmmakers in American cinema. He's had a mixed bag in terms of critical success with his most recent pictures "The Village" and "Lady in the Water" falling short in comparison to "Unbreakable" and "Signs."  His distaste for critics, some apparent arrogance issues and a tendency to put himself in his own pictures (like Hitchcock only with prominent speaking roles) has not helped his popularity and each new project seems to be seen as either the next "The Sixth Sense" or the end of his career (especially where internet messages boards are concerned).

With all that baggage, then, we arrive at Shyamalan's latest venture into suspense since first finding lightning in a bottle: his first-ever-R-rated film "The Happening."  Our Smackdown pits M. Night against himself yet again as his haunting heavyweight "The Sixth Sense" goes toe-to-toe with the big-and-bad R-rated bruiser "The Happening."  Think the new guy can finally put the bully down?  DING!

The Challenger.  "The Happening" is a thriller about a family's escape from a mysterious, suicide-inducing event that is plaguing the Northeast. Have I mentioned that "The Happening" is rated-R?  Because if I haven't, I should let you know -- "THE HAPPENING" IS RATED R!!!  Never before have I seen the hype of a film based largely on the restrictions of its rating, but even before release this thriller largely built its reputation upon the idea of a new, harder-edged Shyamalan, able now to venture into places far darker than ever before.  And he doesn't hesitate to do so. The cutaways and off-screen horror that one might expect from a Shyamalan film get discarded for some in-your-face gore that could put asses in theater seats and then send them packing as quickly as they got there.

The story follows Mark Wahlberg as a high school science teacher trying to protect his family from a sudden airborne attack that transforms normal people into suicidal lemmings, forcing them to leap off buildings, hang themselves from trees, lay down in front of lawnmowers, etc. While it doesn't pack the classic Shyamalan twist ending, there is enough ambiguity surrounding the event to keep audiences guessing going in. How long that interest lasts, however, could be another thing entirely. Did I mention it's rated R?

The Defending Champion. "The Sixth Sense" was a landmark cinematic achievement. Even for someone who saw that surprise-ending coming (I did! I swear I did! BELIEVE ME!!!) the film proved something to marvel at -- a horror film that focused more on character study and mood than cheap thrills and scare tactics. I don't normally dig on horror, but the film's patience and heart was something even I couldn't ignore. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, two of which were Best Director and Best Screenplay (which Shyamalan wrote himself).