Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

The Godfather (1972) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Vote Now: An Offer You Can't Refuse...

The Smackdown.  By now it's all become a part of our collective cultural memory -- the horse's head showing up in the bed, making an "offer he can't refuse" and that haunting score by Nino Rota.  Imagine being in the theaters though, almost four decades ago when the original "The Godfather" was in release back in 1972. For years new viewers of the Godfather Trilogy were exposed to either increasingly degraded theatrical prints or VHS or DVD copies that were, in many cases, even worse.  For the past two years, though, Francis Ford Coppola and a small army of digital restoration experts have been at work reclaiming the golden glory for high-definition Blu-ray, standard DVD and even a few more theatrical prints out in some major cities.  It's not the purpose of this Smackdown to lay out that process but if you want to know more about "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration," there have been some excellent articles including The New York Times and Slate Magazine.

What is most astonishing about "The Godfather" which won the 1972 Oscar for "Best Picture" is that two years later "The Godfather, Part II" also won the Oscar for "Best Picture."  This pretty much qualifies the second film as the unquestioned best sequel of all-time (although there are supporters now for "The Dark Knight").  And, of course, it triggers a Smackdown to find out which of these two extraordinary films is the best.  We'll give the competition our usual treatment with an added bonus.  Five of our critics weigh in at the end with their individual essays.  Joe Rassulo, Scott Baradell, Sherry Coben, Mark Sanchez and Jay Amicarella all come at the material with damned unique POVs, and it's a fun read.  Finally, at the end of this review, you can put in your own two cents by voting in our Smack-Poll.

The Defending Champion.  If you think about it now, the "Godfather" films are the modern world's version of those Shakespeare plays about kings and princes.  This is the film where Vito Corleone, the aging Don of a powerful Mafia family hands off the power, reluctantly, to his youngest son Michael, delivering one of the saddest lines in cinema, "Michael, I never wanted this for you."  Al Pacino's Michael Corleone is one of the greatest acting performances on screen ever and his transformation from shy son to ruthless criminal makes you forgive any of the actor's excesses over the years.  The film opens on a wedding where Michael has returned from World War II just in time to see his sister Connie get married. All of the men in Michael's family are involved with the Mafia and it's assumed that the older brothers will handle the criminal duties while Michael lives a legit and decent life. It's truly the story of the family but the engine that drives the action is about a drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo who wants Don Corleone (Marlon Brandon) to go into the drug trade with him.  Corleone refuses, gets shot by hit men, barely survives.  This opens the door for his son to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo that changes him and his family forever.  It's the story of the old ways surrendering, violently, to the new ways.  You probably know all this.  Beautifully photographed, scored, directed, written.  Most people have it on their Top Ten lists and more than a few place it as #1. 

Death Sentence (2007) -vs- The Brave One (2007)

Do-It Yourself Justice

The Smackdown.  The problem with being a vigilante is that it's illegal.  So if you take the law into your own hands to get the justice you think the system is denying you, you're still likely to get the system to throw the book at you.  Not practical for the average guy.  Going back to Charles Bronson in "Death Wish," films become the way for crime victims to stand up to the really bad guys when the cops or the judges won't do it for you.  2007 saw the vigilante film genre in strong resurgence with two revenge flicks that came at the story completely differently: one from a man's point of view, and one from a woman's perspective.  For purposes of this Smackdown, Jody Foster and "The Brave One" get to the be the defending champion because that film managed $70-million in worldwide box office while Kevin Bacon and "Death Sentence" have to challenge, having made less than $16-million.  Money can't buy you love, though, especially here at Movie Smackdown.  Here's a battle of the sexes to see who made revenge the sweetest.

The Challenger.  In "Death Sentence" Kevin Bacon is Nick Hume, an ordinary businessman, husband, and father who suddenly finds his world destroyed by a senseless act of violence.  His oldest son is killed before his eyes in a robbery.  The culprit, a young initiate into a gang, is set free. Vengeful, Nick confronts him and winds up stabbing him.  Now they're even, right? Hardly.  Culprit's older brother and his gang don't think so and target Nick and his family.  The violence escalates until Nick's family is killed and he goes after the gang on their turf in the bloody finale.

Hairspray (2007) -vs- Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Thirty Years of Dancing Travolta!

The Smackdown. It was three decades ago that a charismatic sitcom star named John Travolta crossed over into feature film fame with the cultural sensation Saturday Night Fever. In the years since, Travolta has seen his career wax and wane and regularly made choices that placed him on the dance floor post "Fever," notably playing Danny Zuko in Grease and Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. This year he returned as Edna in Hairspray.

This time out we serve up a different approach to a Smackdown: two critics, each on different sides, present the evidence and make their pitch -- but you decide the winner by voting in our poll at the end. What do you think? Which is Travolta's best film where the music and the dancing are what it's all about -- the time he put on his disco shoes for Saturday Night Fever or the time he put on the fat suit for Hairspray?

Mark Sanchez for "The Challenger."  It's Edna all the way. Travolta made headlines for Hairspray by appearing in a secondary role as a woman in a fat suit. As Edna Turnblad he kept the buzz alive by performing the role so well. Travolta never descended into caricature or slapstick but showed remarkable sensitivity as a self-doubting hausfrau. She may have been self-exiled in her Baltimore apartment, but Edna noticeably blooms the more she gets out. Edna / Travolta provides one of Hairspray's many highlights in a dance number with Christopher Walken that is extremely well-staged and graceful. I'm not the only person in the audience who gasped at how effectively they managed "You're Timeless to Me." Hairspray didn't change my life but it mattered a lot more because John Travolta  breathed life into Edna Turnblad.

"Feast your eyes, Lady-in-Red. I'll never be fat, old or a woman. Tough luck for you. Let's dance."

Bryce Zabel for "The Champion." According to Roger Ebert (who should know), "Saturday Night Fever" was his original partner Gene Siskel's favorite movie and Siskel watched it at least seventeen times. I've seen it, like, maybe five times but if you dropped by the house with the DVD and wanted to screen it again, I wouldn't complain.

Let's start with the character of Tony Manero. According to the DVD extras, Travolta fought to keep Tony edgy and he won. Tony can be a real dick to the girls who adore him but, at the same time, he's got a huge heart and tons of style. He is so cut and charismatic in this film it's insane. Yet, he's got a world of sadness beneath him because he senses that his days on the dance floor won't be enough to get him out of Brooklyn or even to get him into a good life that a real adult can live in. What's also progressive about this film is how it seems not interested at all in explaining Tony. It only wants to push ahead in its story and let Tony be Tony.

The story is mature, nuanced, powerful, joyous and sad. I remember getting dressed up to go out to discos and feeling like an inadequate fool and yet knowing that I had to go and compete. And I was just a nerd in Eugene, Oregon. He was a god of the 2001 Odyssey -- imagine the pressure he felt!

This film is a musical except the characters never break into song. The soundtrack -- dominated by the Bee Gees -- was, in my few, the first flawless and pungent synthesis between film and song. The dancing is incredible. Travolta worked for nearly eight months in preparation for this role and it shows.

The Scorecard. Normally, this is where our critic ticks off the pluses and minuses of the film they're reviewing. In this one-off, however, it's where our two critics each stand up for their pick and make the argument personally.

Mark Sanchez: Edna Turnblad scores heavy points on-and-off the dance floor for John Travolta in Hairspray. Unlike Saturday Night Fever Travolta doesn't play a young Italian guy from New Jersey which in 1977 was no great reach for him. Bryce, this takes nothing away from the film: It struck a chord and had a dynamite soundtrack featuring recognized hits from the disco era. Even so, acting credibly and dancing well as a middle-age woman in a fat suit probably demanded more from Travolta as a performer. He can no longer squeeze into that white disco suit..but as Edna Turnblad demonstrates on the dance floor Travolta still has the moves. As a film Hairspray is a compelling hybrid: It takes the "Here comes the 1960s" storyline from the original movie, but owes more to the Broadway musical. The newest Hairspray features several specially-written songs. It also deals  --  breezily, for sure  --  with serious issues of racial intolerance and coming of age that still have meaning today. I guess  --  for me  --  some themes resonate more deeply. And here you have Edna / Travolta singing and dancing in the middle of it. Bryce, you'll see that for yourself as Hairspray is now available on DVD.

Bryce Zabel: Honest, Mark, Hairspray's a fine film and it's a pretty harmless diversion for an evening. But it's no singular achievement like Saturday Night Fever. That film single-handedly kick-started disco into a white hot phenom even as it was starting to wane in 1978. I guess I could concede that both films capture that excitement that goes with wanting to take whatever skills or magic you have and take them as far as they'll go. But SNF added to that by showing that even that isn't enough. At the end of the dance, at the end of the audience cheers and adulation, you still have to go home with yourself. Every time I see this film, it moves me. Even more in SNF's favor, I think, is that the music is chock-full of songs that define a time perfectly. There really aren't any songs (I don't think) in Hairspray that exist as mega-hits outside of the film. SNF was a marriage of a huge film and a huge soundtrack. There was a time in my life (yes, I'll admit it) when I listen to that album every single day. But, no, I never did own a white suit...

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you only want to judge this on the dancing, though. There's no question that Travolta still has the dance chops in Hairspray (as do others in the film), but his work in Saturday Night Fever is passionate and powerful. The solo number he does at the 2001 Odyssey is probably the best dance sequence in film ever.

The Decision. Okay, then, you've heard our passion. Now it's your turn to weigh in. Please vote your choice in our MOVIE SMACKDOWN! Vizu poll and let us know how you feel. We'll give it a few weeks, then post back with what the people's verdict is, and we'll ask all our Smackdown! critics to give us their opinions.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

American Gangster (2007) -vs- Hoodlum (1997)

Bullets Fly... People Die
Review by Mark Sanchez

The Smackdown. Audiences love gangsters on film. They appeared as early as 1912 in D.W. Griffith's Musketeers of Pig Alley. Little Caesar, Public Enemy and Scarface set the tone in the early 1930s for generations of hard-talking hard guys on film: Rico Bandello, Duke Mantee, Vito Corleone, Tony Montana, Tony Soprano, Frank Costello. Now, there's Frank Lucas. He's the American Gangster grossing more than 80 million dollars the past two weekends. Lucas ran the drug business in Harlem in the 1970s. His story from director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Hannibal) presents fictionalized fact and has elements linking it with Bill Duke's Harlem mobster tale from 1997, Hoodlum. Here's our Smackdown: Which film draws the more compelling picture about personal corruption as bullets fly and people die.

"Tell you what, Frank, give me what I want and I'll throw in the tape deck."

The Challenger. American Gangster shows Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) emerging from the shadows on the death of his hoodlum mentor, Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson. The apprenticeship is over and Lucas hatches a plan to extend his hold over the heroin trade far beyond anything Bumpy could envision. He enforces his will through smarts, intimidation and murder. Lucas has family members strategically placed across the region. His involvement is largely unknown to authorities. By the mid-1970s his rule blankets upper Manhattan and Frank lives like some CEO with a trophy wife. A chinchilla coat she gives him draws the attention of drug cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) who begins connecting the dots. The contrast with Lucas is night and day: Richie's life is a mess, his wife is divorcing him, and he's an outcast in the station house because he didn't pocket a million dollars in unmarked bills seized during a bust. Their fates are firmly linked but ironically, Lucas and Roberts don't actually meet until late in the film. Frank Lucas is not the only bad guy snared by Roberts (that group also includes dirty cops). None of it might have happened if Roberts hadn't noticed Lucas wearing that gaudy chinchilla coat at the boxing match. Steven Zaillian adapted the screenplay from an article by Mark Jacobson.

American Gangster (2007) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Family Values

The Smackdown. It can't be easy being a young criminal crime boss and drug lord, coming from a struggling underclass, living in the shadow of an even more powerful criminal. Both Frank Lucas and Michael Corleone step out on their own in "American Gangster" and "The Godfather, Part II" and become, in many ways, even more frightening than that which spawned them. Both killers also love their families (or say they do). This crime story Smackdown not only pits the great actors of their respective generations (Al Pacino & Robert DeNiro, Denzel Washington & Russell Crowe) against each other but two of the most accomplished directors: first Francis Ford Coppola, and now, Ridley Scott.

"Frank, I'm only sayin' the Italians pay on time. Just don't make me nostalgic for them, okay?'"

The Challenger. "American Gangster" is based on the true story of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas who cornered the heroin market in his part of NYC about thirty years ago. In the script by Steve Zaillian directed by Ridley Scott, we see how Lucas made a staggering amount of money by being what he thought of as a  better businessman -- his H was twice as pure and twice as cheap as the competition on the streets, and he even branded it as "Blue Magic." Lucas, played to perfection by Denzel Washington, has that explosive coolness he manifested in "Training Day" and packaged into a film that feels, at times, epic by showing his roots as a driver, bodyguard and "collector" for another Harlem bad-ass (with class!) named Bumpy. Lucas, shall we say, has a couple of different sides to his personality: in the opening scene he sets a man on fire and empties a gun into him, but later he buys a mansion and moves his dirt poor family in with him. "Gangster" has a duality to its structure, too, in that almost equal screen time is given to the character of Richie Roberts, the squeaky-clean detective who eventually took Lucas down and two-thirds of the corrupt New York drug cops with him. Played by Russell Crowe, Roberts is our counter-point in more ways than good-vs-evil: his own family is falling apart, even as Lucas's is spending quality time together.