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X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) -vs- Iron Man (2008)

May 3, 2009 Beau DeMayo 11

Marvel Studios and Fox continue expanding its X-Men film universe with the addition of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the first in a series of Origins spin-offs designed to focus on specific characters from the X-Men franchise. With the movie already proving to be a box office blast, I’m sure we’ll get all the way to X-Men Origins: Xavier’s Wheelchair before this franchise runs out of steam. So what other film hero could possibly best the Wolverine? How about another team member who goes solo on film? Yes, another “man of metal”…Iron Man, founder of The Avengers (due out in 2011…you’re welcome, Marvel)! So today, sparks fly, metal on metal, adamantium and iron clashing to determine which of hero can hold his own alone?
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X-Men (2000) -vs- X2: X-Men United (2003) -vs- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

May 2, 2009 Beau DeMayo 0

Bryan Singer’s X-Men took a little bit of Matrix and a whole lot of Marvel and jam-packed it all into an intense 90-minute film that was surprisingly more thriller than action film. This isn’t a surprise since Singer has always seemed most comfortable in thrillers, The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil being the merits that earned him X-Men’s directorial helm. In X-Men, Logan, a.k.a. Wolverine, an amnesiac mutant with indestructible claws, is found by the X-Men, a group of highly-trained mutants who moonlight as teachers at a school for young mutants. The school’s headmaster, Charles Xavier, dreams of creating a world where human and mutants co-exist. Opposing Xavier and his X-Men is Magneto, Xavier’s former best friend and militant leader of the anti-human Brotherhood of Mutants. This is a movie made by its casting since the plot is rather slim and predictable. Watching Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan wax philisophical as comic book versions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X makes for a riveting thriller. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was risky, but amazing, casting. The visual style and look of X-Men is something to appreciate, as Singer and his production design crew throw away blind fidelity to comic book gratuity and instead adapt the comic to our real world. Gone is yellow spandex, bright purple/red costumes, eight-foot tall mutants, and Gucci-wearing shapeshifters. Everything is understated, making the film’s themes of prejudice and alienation all the more real for a modern audience.
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The Soloist (2009) -vs- Shine (1996)

April 26, 2009 Mark Sanchez 1

“The Soloist” tells a story about extraordinary gifts connected to a very compromised life. If this sounds like something straight from the headlines, it should. LA Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote about a man who changed his life, first encountered in a skid row plaza near a statue of Beethoven.
What follows is complicated like any messy life, and it will have you wondering: Haven’t I seen something like this already?
Yes. You have. Director Scott Hicks brought us “Shine” in 1996, earning Geoffrey Rush a Best Actor Oscar in a well-made, well-regarded film that touched many of the elements now reworked by “The Soloist.”
Both stories tell us about real people who inspire and piss off their friends in roughly equal measure. Both will open the eyes and heart. Does one create a more indelible portrait of dignity among people who are only too human? That’s our Smackdown.
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17 Again (2009) -vs- Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

April 18, 2009 Sherry Coben 9

The Senior Year Do-Over Movie has been done, if not to death, definitely to the point of critical exhaustion. Clearly, itâ€™s an idea that attracts actors and studios and screenwriters and even audiences, and apparently it needs updating every couple of years. â€œ17 Againâ€ is in theaters filled with wide-eyed eleven year old girls and their moms, teenagers in cliques, all pining/lusting for the lead, and it seems only fitting that once again, a Zac Efron vehicle goes toe to toe with cinema giant Francis Ford Coppola who conveniently for our purposes directed the little 1986 chestnut â€œPeggy Sue Got Married.â€ Countless other do-over films deserve a critical once-over, but symmetry demands this particular smackdown rematch. Efron vs. Coppola – The Do-Over. Let the smacking begin.
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Adventureland (2009) -vs- Waiting (2005)

April 7, 2009 Sarah Harding 0

The crappy post-college job is a rite of passage. It builds character, teaches you humility and better prepares you for â€œthe real world.â€ Or at least thatâ€™s what Iâ€™ve been told. Currently stuck in that listless limbo between past collegiate freedom and looming â€œadulthoodâ€ I sympathize with the main characters of â€œAdventurelandâ€ and â€œWaiting,â€ who struggle to find their own unique places in the supposedly grown-up world. Though the trials and triumphs of directionless twenty-somethings is hardly constitutes new cinematic ground, both films attempt to make their mark on the well-worn genre. Itâ€™s slacker versus slacker, and there can only be one winner.
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Sunshine Cleaning -vs- Little Miss Sunshine

Sunshine Cleaning (2009) -vs- Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

April 2, 2009 Bryce Zabel 1

When I first saw it, I thought Little Miss Sunshine was a true original. Three years later, from several of the same producers, came another film shot in New Mexico, with a precocious kid in the center, Alan Arkin as the outspoken grandfather, a dysfunctional family that ultimately rallies around each other no matter how weird or hard it is, and the word “sunshine” in the title.

But Sunshine Cleaning is no clone and certainly no comedy. Still, it’s strong enough to step in the ring with the champion and throw a few hard punches of its own. Both are a breath of fresh air (well, the air in Cleaners can get a little putrid), because the only super-heroics are done by damaged people just trying to get by.

From a Dad’s point-of-view, Alan Arkin’s expert timing provides some of the comic high points for both films, and his soulful screen presence as family patriarch gives them heft. In Little Miss Sunshine, his social inappropriateness is more extreme and, because of that, more hilarious. But he’s funny in Sunshine Cleaning, too and, as in the earlier film, we can see that his comedic missteps are motivated by love for his family. […]

Duplicity (2009) -vs- I Love You, Man (2009)

March 21, 2009 Sherry Coben 3

Finally, weâ€™re faced with a weekend of hard choices at the movie theater. Fresh and new and full of promise. The long cold winter of my cineastâ€™s discontent is over. No more dutiful catching up with all those earnest Oscar winners and also-rans. Beyond Januaryâ€™s formulaic chickflicks and hapless mall cops. Beyond Februaryâ€™s horror franchises and Marchâ€™s glowing blue phalluses. Hallelujah! Movie stars Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel have been tag-team tearing up the small screen, relentlessly charming and ubiquitous in their Herculean efforts to lure you into your local theater to help them win their crucial opening weekends. But where to go first? Which star vehicle gets you the most entertainment mileage for your time and money?
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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) -vs- The Long Riders (1980)

March 20, 2009 Jay Amicarella 5

The saga of the real-life James Boys, their friends, the Youngers, Millers, and (hiss) the Fords has been a Hollywood staple for almost a century, and for every film, there has been a different interpretation of the legendary Missouri outlaw. Jesse has been depicted in wildly differing films as outgoing, stoic, easygoing, stern, voluble, and taciturn. “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” dares to suggest that the man that newspapers of the day compared to Robin Hood was no more than a vicious thug, who may have been going mad from the stresses of being hunted 24/7.
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Dr. Manhattan (1986/2009) -vs- The Silver Surfer (1966/2007)

March 10, 2009 Beau DeMayo 9

We have a cosmic showdown as Stan Lee’s Silver Surfer blasts his way toward Dr. Manhattan to find out what mortal-turned-deity remains standing. Will it be Marvel’s Surfing Herald for The Destroyer of Worlds or will it be The American Atomic Superman? With the ability to atomize objects, glimpse the future, and traverse space-time itself, what matters in the end when god meets god?
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Watchmen (2009) -vs- V for Vendetta (2006)

March 8, 2009 Stephen Bell 8

“V for Vendetta” vs “Watchmen” is a messy, all out brawl, a war between two very different beasts trading heavy blows. As each film is grand in scope and boasting of numerous technical achievement, we’re going to need to really sort through each round in order to come to a valid decision.
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