Drama Archives - Page 18 of 24 - Movie SmackdownÂ®

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -vs- Forrest Gump

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -vs- Forrest Gump (1994)

December 25, 2008 Bryce Zabel 3

When “Forrest Gump” hit the theaters in 1994, it was a pure original: nothing quite like it had come before. Tom Hanks got the title role and basically hit it out of the park playing a man-child with an IQ of 75 who manages to be involved in every major happening in America between the 1950s and the 1980s. As directed by Robert Zemeckis, the film manages to move forward relentlessly in its narrative scope and, before it’s over, Tom Hanks has taught Elvis, made JFK laugh, been a hero in Vietnam, opened up China with his ping-pong skills, run across America and had a girlfriend die of AIDS. The bases are covered every which way but it’s Hanks’s dignified, down-to-Earth performance that sets it totally apart. It might be a comedy or a drama, I’m not really sure.
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Milk (2008) -vs- Philadelphia (1993)

December 15, 2008 Sherry Coben 7

The Smackdown As Proposition 8 protesters take to California streets, Gus Van Santâ€™s Milk reminds us that weâ€™ve been here before. Thirty years ago, the religious right-backed Proposition 6 was defeated by the first wave […]

The Day the Earth Stood Still -vs- The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008) -vs- The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

December 12, 2008 Bob Nowotny 8

A few years ago, Klaatu and Gort made their way back to the ‘hood, thanks to the mega-budget re-make of The Day The Earth Stood Still. The duo arrived, over five decades after the original, with every intention of forcing some extra-terrestrial “tough love” on us.

Keanu Reeves stuck his chest out and stepped into the lead role made famous in 1951 by Michael Rennie, joined in this go-round by Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, and surprisingly, John Cleese. Certainly, the overall production and effects budget makes possible images never even imagined back in near post-war filmmaking.

But can all this money and contemporary talent add up to make this new The Day The Earth Stood Still as enduringly memorable as the old The Day The Earth Stood Still that graced the world’s screens during the height of Cold War paranoia? […]

The Dark Knight -vs- The Godfather, Part II

The Dark Knight (2008) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

December 12, 2008 Beau DeMayo 8

When “The Dark Knight” hit movie screens earlier this year, critics screamed that cinema history had just been made, that it was even better than the movie that spawned it and, just possibly, one of the best films ever released. In 1974, the same thing happened.

“The Godfather, Part II” was not only seen as the best sequel ever but it stood up as a great film, winning the Oscar for Best Picture, like its predecessor from two years earlier. The test for these sequels is whether they managed to continue and expand upon the originals that came before them, by charting fresh new territory, raising the stakes and deepening the concepts. […]