This Year’s Smacks!
Summer’s over at Movie Smackdown! but we’re still on the move! Several new critics have joined in this year, the site traffic now sets a new record every month and we’re getting a lot of […]
2007
Nancy Drew (2007) -vs- Get A Clue (2002)
The Smackdown Say, chum, I heard from some of the fellows that you’re a friend of Frank and Joe Hardy, and have I got a mystery that’s right up their alley! Here’s the payoff- What […]
Next (2007) -vs- Harold and Maude (1971) -vs- Charade (1963) -vs- To Have and Have Not (1944)
The Smackdown There are four corners in a ring (usually) and we need all of them to fit this Smackdown inside. When I first caught a preview for “Next,” I saw Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore […]
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) -vs- Armageddon (1998)
The Smackdown Honestly, I wasn’t planning on writing about “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” Truth is, I hated the first “Fantastic Four” movie and had, shall we say, minimal expectations for the second […]
Clashes of the Titans: Super-Smackdowns
Movie Smackdown! has put a lot of super-heroes into the ring against each other. Summer 2008 has already given us IRON MAN and THE INCREDIBLE HULK, but still has HANCOCK, THE DARK KNIGHT, HELLBOY II […]
Knocked Up (2007) -vs- Junior (1994)
Both of these films, naturally, follow the same general pregnancy-dictated progression. “Junior” adds the spin that it all needs to be done as secretly as possible for the obvious reasons of a) privacy and b) comedy. “Knocked Up” climbed a different hill. Even though it, too, features a mis-matched, screwed-up pregnancy, it still means for the detail to be related to by all those parents and wannabe parents out there. It needs to be observant of all the things that are truly comical in the natural universe, and it is. It also needs to get the repeat business of kids like my son by being crass and profane, and it does that, too.
It may surprise you, if you haven’t seen it or you last saw it over a decade ago when it was in the theaters, but “Junior” is actually pretty damn funny. “Knocked Up” is sometimes screamingly funny, in the way that “Meet the Parents” was almost all the way through when it first was released. Both films add that extra element, though, and that is a certain amount of sweetness to go with all the sour.
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Fantastic Four (2005) -vs- X-Men (2000)
The Smackdown When I was growing up, my favorite comicbook was the Fantastic Four (okay, it was a tie with the Avengers, but they haven’t made that film yet). Anyway, I collected X-Men and Spider-Man […]
The Departed (2006) -vs- Infernal Affairs (2002)
This weekend the theaters are full of fans going back for more of director Martin Scorsese and his muse, Leonardo DiCaprio, in Shutter Island. Scorsese and DiCaprio have worked together in Gangs of New York, The Aviator and, most recently and successfully, The Departed, the mesmerizing tale of undercover cops and organized crime infiltration of the police force. […]
Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) -vs- Ocean’s Eleven (1960)
The Smackdown For the sake of argument, let’s assume you’ve already paid to see “Ocean’s Eleven” (the 2001 re-make) and “Ocean’s Twelve” (the 2004 sequel to the re-make). The movies you haven’t seen are the […]
Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) -vs- Ocean’s Twelve (2004) -vs- Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
The Smackdown If early audience response counts for anything, bet big on “Ocean’s 13” this summer. Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (“Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Traffic”) created a popular series combining snappy storytelling and bankable […]