February 2010 - Page 2 of 3 - Movie SmackdownÂ®

Romantic Comedies To Truly Love

February 17, 2010 Sherry Coben 7

Seems I’ve been relentlessly bashing Romantic Comedies since I started writing for Movie Smackdown. I’m only hard on them because I want them to be better, because I know they can be better. Just in case you don’t believe me when I tell you I love the genre, here is a little (partial) list of romantic comedies I will happily defend, presented in reverse chronological order. All of them are worlds better than the execrable holiday-themed callow crass cash cow currently raking in the moolah at the multiplex near you. Trust me, you’re better off renting and watching any one of these in the comfort of home than taking a chance on finding true movie love in “Valentine’s Day.”
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An Education (2009) -vs- Say Anything (1989)

February 16, 2010 Bryce Zabel 3

Listen up, ‘rents. Being a father is never easy, but being the father of a teenage girl, and trying to get that one right is a true challenge. Both of these films — two decades apart in production dates and period settings — show fathers who, with the best of intentions, get it all wrong, but they get it wrong in exactly opposite ways.

You can care too little and you can care too much. When you’re in the middle of things, it’s not always so easy to see which is which. Believe me, as a father of girl who has just left her teenage years behind, these are matters I’ve thought a little bit about. I keep thinking of the famous Kenny Rogers’ song (“The Gambler,” written by Don Schlitz) that you gotta know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. Like that’s easy. Still, what we have here to consider are a couple of fathers who don’t know best, not by a long shot… […]

Valentine's Day -vs- Amelie -vs- Love Actually

Valentineâ€™s Day (2010) -vs- Love Actually (2003) -vs- Amelie (2001)

February 16, 2010 Sherry Coben 7

“Valentine’s Day.” From everything I’ve seen and heard, I’m fairly certain that Garry Marshall is a very nice man, and I know he set out with the best of intentions making this film as did all his friends and associates who helped. No one ever intends to make a bad movie, and smacking this film feels a little like hitting a puppy. This movie sits there humping your leg, blissfully unaware and unashamed of the giant stinking turd it’s left on the cineplex screen. To extend the metaphor past all usefulness, this puppy hasn’t yet been spayed. It takes major cojones (or perhaps hubris) to engage such a weak, ungifted and unsuited company of players in hopes of recapturing the success of “Love Actually.” With a few major exceptions, the actors just plain aren’t good enough to rise above the lame material; most are unable to land any of the marginal jokes or even to remind us of any human beings we’ve met.
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Valentineâ€™s Day: Itâ€™s As Bad As They Say It Is

February 14, 2010 Bryce Zabel 4

What a waste of film stock.

That thought kept running through my brain over-and-over while watching all 117 excruciating minutes of this god-awful film that will end up earning $66-million over the four-day holiday. I don’t care. It could make $66-billion and it would still be one of the biggest disappointments that’s hit the theaters in the last 25 years. If you haven’t seen it, please don’t. It will only encourage them to do this to us again.

It’s just tone-deaf. Even though Katherine Fugate gets the screenwriting credit and must share the blame, watching the film’s directing choices leads to the strong conclusion that director Garry Marshall is mostly responsible. I’m betting he came up with or forced Fugate to put in some of the film’s most hideous moments. It’s his out-of-touch sensibility that infuses every frame with such a stunning lack of authenticity. Some people say the structure and even some of the details try to rip off “Love Actually” but this film should be so lucky as to have stolen something from Richard Curtis’s masterpiece. […]

From Paris With Love (2010) -vs- Taken (2009)

February 12, 2010 Bryce Zabel 4

Watch out when the American CIA comes to Europe in any movie made by the collaboration between French filmmakers Pierre Morel and Luc Besson because the body count will be high and the local infra-structure will certainly suffer. While both of these films let their leads hunt down and kill prodigious amounts of bad guys, one of them wanted to be Taken seriously while the other one merely wants to let you know that it’s a comically violent gift sent you From Paris with Love. The truth is if the CIA really had any agents who behave like Liam Neeson or John Travolta, the entire War on Terrorism would probably have been wrapped up by now. And Paris would probably be burning. […]

Temple Grandin (2010) -vs- Adam (2009)

February 8, 2010 Sherry Coben 5

Autism. With the diagnosis on the rise, most of us find ourselves only a few degrees of separation from this little understood condition. Two of Hollywoodâ€™s most glamorous young newlyweds spent their first year of marriage exploring the subject in depth. Claire Danes stepped into the mighty big shoes of â€œTemple Grandinâ€ in HBOâ€™s effective biopic while her husband Hugh Dancy played Hollywoodâ€™s first big-screen romantic lead with Aspergerâ€™s syndrome in â€œAdam.â€ Both films rise well above a berth in the overcrowded â€œDisease Of The Weekâ€ pigeonhole, but letâ€™s see which spouse lands the knockout punch and gets cinematic autism exactly right.
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Quarantine (2008) -vs- Cloverfield (2008)

February 7, 2010 Rodney Twelftree 0

Sometimes, it’s the reality of a scenario that scares us the most. Film-makers are turning to more and more alternate methods of delivering a film to jaded, YouTube-obsessed audiences. With the two films on offer in this Smackdown, we delve into the world of “found footage” cinema and its gradual proliferation among the mainstream today. One, “Cloverfield,” takes us into New York city during a terrifying alien attack. The other, “Quarantine,” (a remake of a successful Spanish film entitled “REC” from 2007) delivers the story of a group of apartment residents, some fire-fighters, police, and a news crew, who become trapped inside a block of units when they are sealed in to stop the spread of a mysterious virus. Both are filmed in the Single Camera Perspective. Both are equally gripping. Both are filled with images and moments that will stay with the viewer forever. But which is better: alien attack and mass destruction, or simple, human drama played out with feverish speed and incalculable terror?
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I â™¥ UK: The BAFTA Awards

February 4, 2010 Sherry Coben 0

Did you ever get the feeling that you woke up on the wrong side of the bed? I can top you. Every day, I wake up on the wrong side of the world. A longtime (perhaps even lifetime) Anglophile, I’ve always preferred Britcoms to sit-coms, the BBC to ABC. Cary Grant and Hugh Grant light my proverbial fire. I wouldn’t want to face a movie world without my dear Merchant-Ivory, Richard Curtis, and Mike Leigh. Without Monty Python, Blackadder, The League of Gentlemen, Ricky Gervais, Steve Coogan, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, AbFab, Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg, and other comedy geniuses too numerous to list here, life would be a darker and far less entertaining slog. Still, I’ve made my peace with my circumstance. My ancestors left the steppes of Russia for the promise of American freedom, and I accept that. I do.
But then I read this year’s list of BAFTA nominees.
It’s official. I do not belong here.
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Precious -vs- Precious: Based on the Novel â€œPushâ€ by Sapphire

February 3, 2010 Bryce Zabel 1

Sorry. Just can’t do this any more. Can’t waste any more of my precious life energy writing it all out. So, here it is, one last time… all 38 blessed characters…

“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

Okay, we’re done here. From now on, it is the policy of this website to refer to this Oscar nominated film as “Precious.”

How did it happen that a film could be called by a title that sounds this unnecessary and pretentious? After all, all of the films in the “Adapted Screenplay” category could give themselves the same treatment. Then we’d be looking at films like “Up in the Air: Based on the Novel ‘Up in the Air’ by Walter Kim.” Or how would you have liked to see this on the big screen — “Star Trek: Based on the TV Series ‘Star Trek’ by Gene Roddenberry.” Ugh… […]

Boldly Not Going There

February 2, 2010 Beau DeMayo 6

Yes, I'm still smarting over the Academy stiffing "The Dark Knight" last year — a film that will stand the test of time and be remembered as the game-changer that it was. Other nominees from […]

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