Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

The Hollywood Cookbook: The Gift That Keeps on Giving!

Looking for a modestly priced gift for a special friend?  Want it to make them think of you over and over?  Would you like it to help make the world a better place. Well, that would be The Hollywood Cookbook. Every copy of it sends $5 straight off to a group of twenty charities, hand-chosen by each of the participating celebrities. It was just written up in this week's TV Guide article "The Goods: Gifts That Give Back." They ask the question: "Doing some last-minute holiday shopping? Consider a present that will make everyone happy."

If you click on the above image, it'll take you straight to the Amazon page where you can order the "Gourmand Award" edition of The Hollywood Cookbook.

If you want to really get into it, see the celebs and the recipes, etc., click here for a great website that has all things Hollywood Cookbook.  

Getting Smacked Around Good

A good film review ought to be as entertaining as the film that inspired it. 

That's the 'high concept' behind our  Movie Smackdown! site -- a whole new format in film reviews.  While For What It's Worth takes a short Thanksgiving holiday, we want to introduce you what's going on over at www.moviesmackdown.com.

Others have tried adding a bell here and a whistle there to sizzle things up in movie criticism.  First there were stars.  You got a lot or a little.  Then there were thumbs.  They were up or down.  Old School.  One note.

We're talking film reviews that have winners and losers.

That's right.  Film review as a contact sport.

Movie Smackdown! gives readers the suspense and drama of authentic film-on-film competition.  It's based on the way people watch and talk about movies these days.

We constantly compare films we've just seen with other films, right?  We'll have passionate arguments about which was better.  Sometimes, disappointed, we'll even wonder if we should have stayed home -- saved the parking and popcorn -- and watched a new Blu-ray.

Like any blockbuster, Movie Smackdown! has a "high concept."  Ours is as clean and simple as this:

Two Films -- One Review -- No Holds Barred!

Each review is a two-fer:  usually a film that's out in the theaters goes in the ring with a competitive film that's easily seen on DVD.  They each share something, anything from a theme to a director.

Every review or "Smack" breaks down like a real fight into these sections:

• THE SMACKDOWN. This section explains why the two films are being put in competition against each other.
• THE CHALLENGER. This is our newest film, the one that has just been released in theaters or on DVD or, in the case of a classic, the most recent film.
• THE DEFENDING CHAMPION. The classic film that the first film is compared to is our champion.
• THE SCORECARD. This is the section where we compare each film's strengths and/or weaknesses.
• THE DECISION. We don't allow ties. We always declare a winner.

Times have been tough lately for the mainstream media's newspaper critics.  They've been losing jobs at the same pace as the auto industry.  The problem seems to be that people don't feel they need an established critic to tell them how to feel about a film and, if they do, they'll probably ask a trusted friend or look at a favorite blog or check out the official film site.  Like so many other things today, consumers have options.

But the disconnect between audience and reviewer must be more complicated than that.  After all, why would a piece of media content that talks about movies when people are going to movies as much as ever be unpopular? 

My opinion's that film reviews, as they're done in print and on-air, are predictable.  It's like a high school essay.  Explain what the film's about, tell why you liked it or didn't, and conclude.  My high schooler's writing one now for his film class.  Been there, done that.

So we think it goes back to format.  The ways that reviews have always worked has gotten old and stale and hasn't kept up with today's audiences. 

Our way of doing things takes into account the burgeoning home viewing market and the competitive frenzy that chasing box office has created.  Then it presents itself in a breezy and fun format (film-on-film competition) that is, in its own right, a piece of entertainment.

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! will, hopefully, become more than a blog.  It was conceived to be a versatile concept that can be expressed in a cross-platform way.  It's both written and visual, and it's something that works as a blog, a TV series, mobile content and regular entertainment column.  That's the vision for it.  The end of 2008 wraps up a planned three-year "proof-of-concept" stage where ideas and forms have been tested and developed, low-risk, on this blog.   

FROM THE EDITOR:  Bryce Zabel

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! started as a one man effort and has grown to where we now feature the work of 17 different "SmackRefs" (as we like to call them).

Our SmackRefs are a diverse group of voices, men and women, old and young, in the biz and not.  Everybody writes in the same format, but you'd be surprised how versatile it is and open to creative riffs. Besides Bryce, three other strong voices can be found regularly on this site these days:  Mark Sanchez, Sherry Coben and Beau DeMayo. 

We also hear from a dozen others: Jay Amicarella, Scott Baradell, Stephen Bell, Randal Cohen, Sarah Harding, Sloane Hayes Skala, Bob Nowotny, Joe Rassulo, Lak Rana, Lorianne Tibbets, Tyger Torrez, Jonathan Zabel and Lauren Zabel. You can read about all our SmackRefs on The Critics bio page and finds links to their specific work.

There's also a vibrant visual style, all over the site and within the reviews themselves.  Designer Nancy Tokos of Tokos Design Associates is responsible for the incredible banners we've tried on so far.  These days we're going with Nancy's take on the pop-art look. 

You'll also notice that each film we review also comes with a captioned photo.  We call these our Movie Smackdown "Comix."  Armed only with an iMac, some Comic Life Magiq software and a serious authority issue, we take common publicity stills and present them in a way that you can't get anywhere else.  Then we also collect them on a special iWeb created-site where you can download them to send them around to friends (they're protected as "fair use" because of their critical commentary) and where they're collected in "albums" that can play as a pretty cool slide-show.  You really should check this out.  Because it's graphic intensive and we offer these photos in high quality, these pages load a little more slowly than, say, the blog, but we think they're worth the few seconds wait.

We've done over 300 reviews (or "Smacks") so far.  There's a Google Search box in the right sidebar that indexes only the Movie Smackdown! site.  Type in the name of a film you're interested and you might find we've already taken a crack at it.  Please write your own comments, too.  We like the feedback and, frankly, we might be wrong in our decision(s), so fire away.

You'll also find a number of polls where you can make your own decision on a Smack, especially on some of the newer reviews.  Many of these polls have hundreds of responses already.  Some of them are more lop-sided than you'd think and a few of them are nearly dead even.

Responding to that point-of-view, in 2008, AMC even named Movie Smackdown! its "Site of the Week."  They responded to our tone that we try to shed a little light but not take things too seriously either.

Movie Smackdown also happens to be a registered service mark with the U.S. government.  Accept no substitutes!

Over on the left side-bar at the top, you'll find two ways to get MOVIE SMACKDOWN! on feeds.  Come join us!

Let the million or so other film critics out there do it the old fashioned way -- one movie at a time. We’ll do it the new way.

Two films for the price of one!

READY TO BELIEVE: Free MP3 of Obama Fight Song!

Last January, while we were still on strike as members of the Writers Guild of America, my wife Jackie and I sat down in a Los Angeles coffee shop with our good friend, musician Cherish Alexander.

Before the coffee was cold, we decided, improbably given the time frame -- as a couple of striking screenwriters and a singer-composer -- to write, produce and distribute the song you'll soon hear.  It happened over a five day period and we released it immediately before the California primary.

So far, "Ready to Believe" has cumulatively had its video versions viewed close to 100,000 times on YouTube.  Plus, it's available on iTunes.  You, however, don't have to buy it in the closing days of the 2008 campaign.  We want you to download it for free and to send it to your friends.

It was written to stand-up for Barack to the Clinton campaign's charges claiming he wasn't ready for the presidency.  We find that the need for this song is as solidly right-on today as it was last February (only Clinton is on the team now and the argument's being made by John McCain).  It needed rebuttal then, and it needs rebuttal now. 

Please give it a listen.  Click the link below to just hear it.  Otherwise,right-click to actually... we'll say it again... download "Ready to Believe" for free.  Again, you have our express permission to download it and to give it away. 

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Song.mp3

Some have asked for a PDF of the actual lyrics.  Here you are:

Download_Ready_to_Believe_Lyrics.pdf

Here's the You Tube version:

Please also visit the web-page of singer-composer Cherish Alexander (http://www.cherishalexander.com/ready_to_believe/) where all the goodies are also available.  She and fellow producer Damian Valentine did an awesome job with this project as you can hear for yourself.

We know the hour is late but if you support Barack Obama, we'd urge you to join us and expose as many people as you can to this song.  Especially Obama volunteers.  We've received a good deal of email from campaign workers who thought it was like an anthemic "fight song" for the cause.  That's certainly what we intended it to be.

Remember to vote.  Even if the polls say he's ahead, you have to vote.  Take nothing for granted. 

Still fired up and ready-to-go for Obama!

Cherish Alexander, Jackie Zabel, Bryce Zabel

Insert Caption Here: Words & Pictures with Attitude

We get mail.  And some of you seem to really like the less-than-reverent way we treat the publicity stills that the studios put out to promote their films on our Movie Smackdown! sister site.

Armed only with an iMac, some Comic Life Magiq software, and a serious authority issue, we've been giving them the treatment for a few months now.

The idea is to take these common photos and spin the hell out of them so they make their own artistic statement independent of the reviews.  We want to present them in a way that you can't get anywhere else.  And we want to make movie stars and the characters they play say what we want them to say for a change, okay?

So now we've collected our first batch all in one place where you can look at them full-screen, download them or -- and this is the hot tip -- even play them as a slide-show (the button's right underneath the banner). Click on the photo to the left or the link below and see for yourself.  The actual Comix take a few seconds to load because they're high res (like we said, it's art, baby)... but it's worth it...

http://www.moviesmackdown.tv

West Wing Redux?

For a while now, I've been thinking that the upcoming Barack Obama-John McCain smackdown looked awfully familiar. As an avid West Wing TV series fan, it sure seems like that show's Matt Santos-Arnold Vinick earlier smackdown. You remember that one: aging Republican, viewed as too liberal by his own party, goes up against minority Democrat who refuses to wait his turn and defeats the establishment candidate within his own party. Like this:

And, now, it seems I'm not the only one who saw it that way. Slate magazine laid it all out recently. Check it out:

WGA Makes Deal - Gives Awards - We're Celebrating!

Talk about everything happening at once...

On the same night that the WGA leadership presented to the membership the details of a tentative deal that looks almost certain to end the strike this week, the Guild also announced the winners of the "Writers Guild Awards '08" and PANDEMIC, a screenplay I co-wrote with my wife, Jackie, actually won the "Long Form Original" category! 

This odd merging of events happened because, pre-strike, the Writers Guild Awards were scheduled for February 9.  Once the strike was on, all attention had to go to that, so the black-tie and gown festivities were sacrificed.  A simple posting of the winners on the web-site was substituted. Then, as fate would have it, the tentative deal came together this past week, and the membership meeting got scheduled for -- you guessed it -- February 9!

Who cares?  Jackie and I are thrilled that the long nightmare of a strike is almost over and with a deal that seems to be reasonable, if not everything we'd want.

"Pandemic" was a Hallmark miniseries, four hours, that was, as the award states, "original," meaning that it was not based on any pre-existing material. It's a number of interlocking stories about an unexpected strain of Avian flu and how an outbreak in Los Angeles leads the military quarantine of the entire area. In its struture, it's a bit like "Crash" with microbes.

On a personal level, Jackie and I are so honored because this award comes from a panel of writers who actually read the scripts instead of watch the movies.  We think it's humbling to be among the honored screenwriters who demonstrate why the work of writers is valuable and worth fighting for at this critical moment in the WGA's history.  Here's to everyone going back to work in the days ahead!

WGA coverage
Daily Variety coverage
Los Angeles Times coverage

Download a PDF of the PANDEMIC screenplay - Click Here

Pandemic: Aftermath

Last night, after a barbeque, my wife Jackie and I sat down with our friends to watch "Pandemic," the three-hour Hallmark Channel "special event" film that we co-wrote together last year. I've already written a lot about it: you can catch up to that by clicking here or clicking here. We even got a good review in Daily Variety.

I gave my friends my standard disclaimer on projects that I've only been the writer on: I didn't cast it, direct it, edit it or produce it. Don't give me credit for those choices but don't blame me either. It was also fun because we'd used a number of our friend's names in the production. One of them, Hendler, could have been turned into a drinking contest there were so many mentions. Another friend who watched with us, Steve Friedlander, was the character played by Bruce Boxleitner. Other friends, Scott and Andie, watched as a character named after their daughter got sick, but rallied and recovered. Two other friends, Don and Morgan, had their character cut from the film, in just another cruel Hollywood reality.

One thing that was interesting is that the simplest thing in a review is to dismiss the science behind the whole thing as improbable and/or stupid (and a few reviews did try to make that point). Today, though, Doctor Joan Bushwell (if I'm not mistaken, this is a name she uses in order to keep her privacy, taken from The Simpsons) has come to our defense! She has a blog, along with other science enthusiasts, where she talks about her two passions: pop culture and science. Today on her blog, Doctor Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refugee, she writes:

As a scientist, I thought "Pandemic" had its redeeming moments. In terms of attention to scientific detail, it far surpassed my favorite guilty pleasure, Outbreak, a film that is campy-bad and injected with an Ebola-virulent bolus of laughable "science." That, and Dustin Hoffman's chewing up of the scenery are what makes "Outbreak" such a noteworthy sci-fi film for Mystery Science Theater 3000 style viewing.

As an example of "Pandemic's" details, one of the CDC-Atlanta scientists nicely explained the concept of antigenic shift that resulted in the virulence of the Riptide virus. To the writers' credit, they did not take the clichéd H5N1 route, but instead opted for a fictional (I think) strain called H3N7. The hemagglutinin piece is not fictional, and is the variant of the Hong Kong 'flu virus of the 1968 pandemic. I'm not sure about the neuramidase variant, but I liked this touch. The writers used part of a strain that already infects people readily, and applied the antigenic shift to it. This is at least consistent with a "stuck-on-the-tarmac-make-small-talk-with-your-neighbor" conversation I had a couple of years ago with a virologist from Childrens Hospital in Philadelphia when we were stuck at the PHL airport. He noted that nasty flu strains often result from antigenic shifts from those that are already transmissible among humans. He allowed as how H5N1 deserved close vigilance, but that other strains could readily be the next big thing.

Anyway, she actually writes more and you can read the whole thing by clicking on that link before the break-out quote.

Other reaction. San Diego film critic Fred Saxon (and former CNN film critic) wrote me an e-mail:

Thank you for scaring the bejesus out of me and certainly everybody who saw the TV version of your “Pandemic” script.  Well done! Having said that, let me say this: I know you’re the writers and not the directors, but please allow me to comment on the experience. It wasn’t long before I wondered if you wrote another Faye Dunaway face lift (or two) into the script. Hmmmm? If she has one more she’ll have a goatee.  And Eric Roberts, did you write that he should be so old?  Another thing, the blood looked totally fake on the plane.  Hey, what’s up with that music?  It’s going non-stop, like in “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire”, but more annoying. Could have been much more effective had it not been continuous.  I’m just sayin’...

Fred, by the way, is also a recovered stand-up comedian, if you hadn't guessed. I won't take a cheap shot at Faye, other than to say she was originally written to be an Arnold Schwarzenneger-type governor, but the music comment was interesting. About a month ago, Jackie and I got a copy of the locked cut, but without music. Completely sweetened for dialogue and background sound, though, and it actually was more compelling. Usually, I think music really takes a piece to the next level, so this was an odd experience for me.

Also, in a few places, Jackie and I ended up getting confused by our own movie. That's because we were hired to write it as a four-hour mini-series to air in two two-hour parts. That four-hour has already been seen internationally and will make up the DVD release, but the Hallmark Channel wanted one three-hour. Take away the 45 minutes of commericals and last night's airing was about 150 pages worth of film from a script that we turned in (at producer's request) at about 250 pages.

Although he may be biased, Movie Smackdown! critic Mark Sanchez sent us this e-mail this morning:

No space aliens, costumed oddballs or special effects overload. Distinct characters, a plausible story arc and a satisfying conclusion. It's a fine, attractive project because it's not like the blockbusters clogging the multiplexes these days. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, "Pandemic" offers an accessible big story that is still human-scale in its dimensions.

Well, at least it was produced. In a world where everyone has a spec script in their desk drawer, this is a very good thing.

One Day Until the PANDEMIC is Here!

Pandemic, the three-hour Hallmark Channel "special event" film, airs on Saturday night, May 26 at 8:00pm. (Re-airs on Sunday night, May 27 at 6:00pm)

CLICK HERE for the Hallmark page with a video clip.
CLICK HERE for the Hallmark publicity "lead sheet."
CLICK HERE for the Internet Movie Data Base page.

The film (Written by Bryce Zabel & Jackie Zabel, Directed by Armand Mastroianni) deals with a bird-flu like outbreak on an airplane from Australia that eventually forces the quarantine of the entire city of Los Angeles. Yes, that's Tiffani Thiesen as the hot CDC scientist who saves the world. What more do you want from a movie?

CLICK HERE to see an extended "Behind-the-Scenes" post from "For What It's Worth."

Daily Variety gave us a mostly positive review today. Here are some highlights:

• "...an ambitious script by Bryce and Jackie Zabel..."
• "The Zabels' script is highly character-driven, mimicking the ensemble storylines that made films like Crash so engrossing."
• "Pandemic does win points for not being heavyhanded; it's all in good germy fun."
• "The Germs on a Plane approach is skin-crawlingly effective..."

Did we mention you should tell your friends? And tell them early because they'll have to figure out where the Hallmark Channel is on their cable or satellite...

Do You Know This Artist?

A few years ago, while I was trying to teach myself whatever the program that came with Windows XP was (Microsoft Paint?), I found some photos on the internet, played around with them in the program and forgot about them.

Some of them are so great, like this one, that I'd like to ask the artist if I can use them with his/her permission on this blog, for example. So, if you are the artist, or you know who the artist is, please add a comment to this post or write me.

Crow DVD Audio Commentary

The audio commentary for the two opening hours of the TV series DVD release for "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" couldn't have gone better.

Series lead Mark Dacascos and I sat in an audio room at Hollywood's Crest Digital, wearing headphones, watching the first two episodes back-to-back and talking like old friends watching a past project and remembering how much fun they had together.

I'm glad we weren't over-rehearsed because I think fans will enjoy the spontaneity and discovery we ended up having for our own work (and the work of so many others who worked so hard on the series). I think we both were honestly surprised by some things we saw and the memories came authentically flooding back. We each remembered different things and different people, from fight coordiantors and stunt men to writers and producers.

Something else that helped is that in the last year, Mark and I and our wives have had dinner together three times and really renewed our friendship. Sitting in that room was just as natural, well, except for the championship dining aspect. But we laughed a lot yesterday. So much fun...

The DVD is being released as part of the "TV Guide" brand by Hart Sharp Video. It will be out on July 24, just a few days before the San Diego Comicon which Mark and I will also attend. Thanks to the Crow fans who lobbied Hart Sharp to get Mark and I in that audio room together, and we'll see you in San Diego we hope!

The Crow flew again and it was a good thing. He wasn't dead after all!