Mad Men Archives - Movie SmackdownÂ®

Mikeâ€™s Turn: â€œI Just Don’t Get This â€˜Mad Menâ€™ Thingâ€

March 27, 2012 Movie Smackdown 4

I saw the scene where Jessica Pare sang Zoo-be-zoo-be-do or whatever that song was in the Season Five two-hour that everybody’s talking about. Sure, she looked straight-up awesome cleaning Draper’s apartment in her little black panties, but is that enough to make people watch a show? (By the way, this is not sour grapes. I love Jonny Hamm, and he deserves all the action he gets, both onscreen and off. We former bartenders always stick together — which is why he even helped me get my SAG card, thank you, Hamm-bone, and CSI Miami!) […]

Smacked Around Emmys

September 20, 2011 Bryce Zabel 0

An awards show is really the ultimate Smackdown, I guess, given that there are clearly established winners and losers. Except that it’s not politically correct to use those words anymore. Notice that the when the envelope is opened the phrase is “And the Emmy goes toâ€¦” and not “The winner isâ€¦” Oh, presenters still slip from time-to-time and admit the truth but they are discouraged from this, believe me.

As the former Chairman/CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (including the 9/11 Emmy postponements of 2001), my wife Jackie and I go to the Emmys every year. I could certainly “cover” them or “review” them like the hundreds of other news organizations but, really, I’m just a guy with a camera standing on the Red Carpet and if you put me up against the massive armies deployed by Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra, The Insider, CNN, People, and everyone else, that’s not even a Smackdown, that’s a wipeout. […]

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

June 13, 2009 Mark Sanchez 1

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.
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