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From Paris With Love -vs- Taken

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. […]

No Picture

The Green Mile (1999) -vs- The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

September 30, 2009 Rodney Twelftree 5

Prison movies have a long and proud history in Hollywood, keeping us in rapt attention to the plight of the modern-day inmate. While Hollywoods idealized prisoner is traditionally the wrongly accused, or the murderer with a heart of gold, there are some films so perfectly realized by a filmmaker that they transcend the genre and become classics in their own right. We have two to put in the ring together that share more than a screen setting. Both 1999s “The Green Mile” and 1994’s “The Shawshank Redemption” sprang from the original imagination of Stephen King and were brought to cinematic life by director Frank Darabont. As we approach the ten-year anniversary of “The Green Mile,” it’s probably time to ask if either film deserves our critical version of a lethal injection? Take our advice: order up what would be your perfect last meal and kick back for a double-header of life behind bars!
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No Picture

Public Enemies (2009) -vs- Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

July 7, 2009 Sherry Coben 9

Gangsters have occupied a rather over-elevated rung on the movie subject matter ladder since the first hand-cranked silents unspooled for the hungry hordes a century ago. Criminals lead such dramatic lives, so full of danger and tragedy and excitement that we naturally look to them for our movie myths and anti-heroes. We fantasize and fetishize these quintessential losers so dutifully that they continue to exude glamour and power some seventy-odd years past their reign of terror. Their Depression seemed more romantic, more photo-ready than our own, their poverty and hard times made picturesque by the passage of time. Criminal desperation and anarchic violence gets rendered literary and archetypal. So which film featuring the fall of which ill-fated bankrobber/lover makes the grade? Depp’s dapper Dillinger faces off squarely with Beatty’s Barrow.
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Taking of Pelham 123 -vs- Crimson Tide

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) -vs- Crimson Tide (1995)

June 24, 2009 Bryce Zabel 4

People trapped inside the cold steel of big machines. Check.

Ticking clocks relentlessly counting down to disaster. Check.

Battles of will between A-list actors. Check again.

Director Tony Scott must have known he had a good thing in 1995’s Crimson Tide and was looking to repeat it with this year’s re-make of the classic The Taking of Pelham 123. As far as action directors go, Scott (brother of Ridley) is in the very elite. He makes movies that are almost always worth the price of a ticket at the cineplex. The best are tense, scary, hard-edged ones where his screenwriters give him high stakes and the dialogue to support them (often for Denzel Washington) and then he paces the hell out of the film itself. We have a real fight on our hands with some Scott-on-Scott violence. […]

No Picture

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) -vs- The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

June 15, 2009 Bob Nowotny 2

Both films share the same basic underlying premise from the novel by John Godey. And Godey’s premise is a goody — four gunmen hijack a New York City subway train and demand a huge ransom be paid within the hour. The money must not be late in arriving because for every minute thereafter, one of the hostages will be shot. No exceptions. What ensues is a deadly cat and mouse game of verbal sparring between the leader of the highly armored gang and the unlucky transit official who must do everything possible to delay the inevitable. It’s said that Benito Mussolini kept the trains running on time. Does Tony Scott do the same for the New York Transit Authority? Or is the original the better ride? It’s time to get out the subway tokens — all aboard!
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No Picture

Angels & Demons (2009) -vs- The Da Vinci Code (2006)

May 16, 2009 Mark Sanchez 6

Both films serve up clues in much the same way those police procedural shows unpeel that onion on TV: One piece exposing another and another. This imposes a certain predictability to the storytelling structure, if not the outcome.
That convention doesn’t help “The Da Vinci Code” very much, although it tries very hard. The story plunges into arcane church history, obscure alliances, shady characters and wide ranging speculation. This movie desperately needed to ratchet back the mystery because it hampered the storytelling pace. Director Howard handles this gamely, even creatively, but his bench lets him down. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou have their moments, but too often they are wooden together. So is the dialog. In spots the lifeless speechifying makes Hanks, a two time Academy Award winner, sound like he’s in “Plan 9 from Outer Space.”
Winning performances by McKellen, Bettany and Jean Reno as an obsessed police captain raise the interest level. So does the buzz surrounding “The Da Vinci Code” outside the theater.
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Godfather (1972) -vs- Godfather, Part II (1974)

40th Anniversary Smack: The Godfather (1972) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

October 26, 2008 Bryce Zabel 14

By now it’s all become a part of our collective cultural memory — the horse’s head showing up in the bed, the making of an offer that can’t be refused, and that haunting score by Nino Rota. What some don’t remember, after all the plotting, double-dealing and bloodshed, is that The Godfather, released four decades ago back in 1972, was one of the great family dramas ever filmed. And not just crime family either. The dynamics of the Corleone clan would be worthy of study in advanced courses in psychology, not to mention undertaking.

What is most astonishing about The Godfather, which won Oscars for best picture, lead actor (Marlon Brando) and screenplay adaptation (Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola), is that two years later The Godfather, Part II topped it with another slew of Academy Awards, including best picture. Coppola, who won that year for director and earned another statue with Puzo for adaptation, delved even deeper into the family story, setting up a multi-generational saga as deep and satisfying as anything in modern literature.

All of this pretty much qualifies the second film as the unquestioned best sequel of all time. And, of course, it triggers a Smackdown to find out which of these two extraordinary films is the best. […]

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