The Smackdown Two writer/directors have given us their film takes on hit men with existential doubts about their chosen profession who work out these issues sitting in touristy hotel rooms. In Richard Shephard’s The Matador, […]
In a lot of ways, the Oscars and other awards shows are really the Ultimate Smackdown, although a little cluttered for our tastes, given our preference for mano-a-mano film-on-film violence. Still, now that the writers […]
If you’re looking for a film that will make you feel a little better about your own life, try either of these. They’ll also make you feel better about the “human spirit” and other noble thoughts but, basically, you will realize that all the crap you complain about every day really is just crap and that you should take a chill pill and try to realize how good things really are. Both “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “My Left Foot” which preceded it by almost two decades feature lead characters who are suffering through horrific physical challenges which make it nearly impossible for them to communicate but, because they are just as alive inside their brains as any of us and maybe more so, they rise above their fear, pain and sadness to communicate anyway. In the end, in both films, it turns out to be less about what they say than the fact that they said anything at all that is so inspirational.
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The Smackdown We can probably all agree that children should be protected from seeing and hearing and thinking about sexual contacts in the world around them and yet, sometimes they aren’t, sometimes they get a […]
Even as the Golden Globes were falling apart over the on-going WGA strike, the show at tonight’s 13th Annual The Critics Choice Awards managed to go on because the event is put on by the […]
The Smackdown Here are two films from director Mike Nichols which, even looking in the rear-view mirror of history, have a lot to say about the human cost of invasion in Afghanistan and a national […]
From the Editor | Bryce Zabel The results are in from our 2007 Christmas season Santa Smackdown where each of ten critics put forward their favorite Christmas film, and we let our readers vote. As […]
Don’t you just hate it when flesh-eating zombies force you to stay home at night like some kind of shut-in?
Richard Matheson’s original 1954 novel, I Am Legend, put ideas into the 50s zeitgeist that have stayed with us, spawned spin-offs, rip-offs and re-makes. Even horror master Stephen King was influenced mightily by it. After years of starting and stopping, they finally got a film in theaters that used the original, powerful title that the writer himself felt was appropriate for his work.
That film is, of course, I Am Legend. It follows a lineage of trying to adapt the brilliant original literary vision to film with spotty success (at least, critically); from the 60s version made in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis; to the 70s version where Charlton Heston brought his post-Planet of the Apes sci-fi cred to the endeavor; to this post-millennial version which wants to do what all the others set out to do but fell short of, but with today’s fears, not yesterday’s. These are three films that say as much about who we were at the time of their production as they do about the actual films themselves. One thing they prove, however, is that flesh-eating zombies just never go out of style. […]
The Smackdown. You certainly don’t need to believe in Santa Claus to take inspiration from a good film that is either about the holiday or uses it as its backdrop. So here at Movie Smackdown! […]
The Smackdown I vaguely remember Charles and Diana getting married about what seems like a century ago, and something about a dress that was three kilometers long or something but, honestly, after that all of […]
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