Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

The Godfather (1972) -vs- The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Vote in the Great Godfather Smackdown: An Offer You Can't Refuse...

The Smackdown.  By now it's all become a part of our collective cultural memory -- the horse's head showing up in the bed, making an "offer he can't refuse" and that haunting score by Nino Rota.  Imagine being in the theaters though, almost four decades ago when the original "The Godfather" was in release back in 1972. For years new viewers of the Godfather Trilogy were exposed to either increasingly degraded theatrical prints or VHS or DVD copies that were, in many cases, even worse.  For the past two years, though, Francis Ford Coppola and a small army of digital restoration experts have been at work reclaiming the golden glory for high-definition Blu-ray, standard DVD and even a few more theatrical prints out in some major cities.  It's not the purpose of this Smackdown to lay out that process but if you want to know more about "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration," there have been some excellent articles including The New York Times and Slate Magazine.

What is most astonishing about "The Godfather" which won the 1972 Oscar for "Best Picture" is that two years later "The Godfather, Part II" also won the Oscar for "Best Picture."  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.  We'll give them our usual treatment but, unusually, we'll let a number of our critics weigh in with their own analysis and then, at the end of this review, you can put in your own two cents by voting in our Smack-Poll.  Also, if you're up for it, we'd love for you to leave a comment that describes the circumstances where you first saw "The Godfather."

The Defending Champion.  If you think about it now, the "Godfather" films are the modern world's version of those Shakespeare plays about kings and princes.  This is the film where Vito Corleone, the aging Don of a powerful Mafia family hands off the power, reluctantly, to his youngest son Michael, delivering one of the saddest lines in cinema, "Michael, I never wanted this for you."  Al Pacino's Michael Corleone is one of the greatest acting performances on screen ever and his transformation from shy son to ruthless criminal makes you forgive any of the actor's excesses over the years.  The film opens on a wedding where Michael has returned from World War II just in time to see his sister Connie get married. All of the men in Michael's family are involved with the Mafia and it's assumed that the older brothers will handle the criminal duties while Michael lives a legit and decent life. It's truly the story of the family but the engine that drives the action is about a drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo who wants Don Corleone (Marlon Brandon) to go into the drug trade with him.  Corleone refuses, gets shot by hit men, barely survives.  This opens the door for his son to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo that changes him and his family forever.  It's the story of the old ways surrendering, violently, to the new ways.  You probably know all this.  Beautifully photographed, scored, directed, written.  Most people have it on their Top Ten lists and more than a few place it as #1. 

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... THE GREAT DEPRESSION

While the world today is transfixed by the impending bailout caused by scammers who put us on a path to economic meltdown, this current crisis is a Movie Smackdown "opportunity."

In a new review, both "Paper Moon" and "The Sting" are put in the the Smackdown ring because they're about scammers who did their best work after the arrival of the Great Depression. 

To read our full review of that Economic Meltdown Smack, go to Paper Moon -vs- The Sting. 

To see an entire site devoted to Movie Smackdown Comix! like above, go to www.MovieSmackdown.tv.

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review and Comix by Bryce Zabel.

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... COOL HAND LUKE

In the wake of Paul Newman's death, it's truly amazing to see the number of bloggers who chose to refer to him in their writing as "Cool Hand Luke."  The name and the persona just stuck with Newman over the years. 

To read our full review of that film, go to Cool Hand Luke -vs- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. 

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review by Jay Amicarella.  Comix by Bryce Zabel.

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... BURN AFTER READING

To read the full review, go to Burn After Reading -vs- Raising Arizona. 

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review by Mark Sanchez.  Comix by Bryce Zabel.

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... TOWELHEAD

To read the full review about taboo sex in the suburbs, go to Towelhead -vs- American Beauty. 

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review and Comix by Bryce Zabel.

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... THE 9/11 FILMS

Two films about 9/11 were released in 2006 on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack.

To read the full review, go to United 93 -vs- World Trade Center.  A reader's poll has just gone up, too, so please do express your own opinion.

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review and Comix by Bryce Zabel.

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... WITHOUT LIMITS

"Without Limits" was released ten years ago, on September 11, 1998, the second film about Steve Prefontaine's life in as many years.

To read the full review, go to Without Limits (1998) -vs- Prefontaine (1997).  A reader's poll now has over 100 votes and has been tied many times, although currently "Without Limits" has a slight lead.  Express your own opinion.

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review and Comix by Bryce Zabel.

Movie Smackdown Comix presents... THE HOUSE BUNNY

To read the full review, go to The House Bunny (2008) -vs- Legally Blonde (2001).

MOVIE SMACKDOWN! - Two Reviews... One Film... No Holds Barred!

Review by Sherry Coben.  Comix by 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

The Dark Knight (2008) -vs- Spider-Man 2 (2004)

The Smackdown. This may turn out to be our All-Time Heavyweight Smackdown -- the equivalent of Ali versus Frasier -- where both of the fighters are at the top of their games and both deserve to wear the champion's belt even though only one can.  The DC/Warner "The Dark Knight" in the ring against the Marvel/Columbia "Spider-Man 2" pits two comic book film sequels against each other, both of which are considered better than what preceded them, and what preceded them was considered fantastic.  Both are directed by the same men who were trusted with the franchise a second time after they had shed themselves of the responsibility of an "origin" story and could get deeper into their redefinition of what makes the character really come alive.  Because this Smackdown is bigger than life to begin with, we're handling it in a different way, too.  Each film will be represented by a separate critic who passionately advocates victory for his client.  To up the stakes even higher, our two critics are father and son -- a real life family feud.  Then, at the end, you will be the jury.  You will vote to determine the winner.  Let's get the fight started...

The Challenger - The Dark Knight.   "The Dark Knight" picks up where "Batman Begins" left off.  Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne has literally gone to the dark side, prowling the streets battling crime using his new Batman alter-ego as his cover.  The way the new film tells it, he's been pretty successful:  criminals are afraid to come out at night, he's got a cozy relationship with the cops, and most people are pretty happy he's getting the job done.  With the crime lords looking for a new move to counter the Batman, they find an unstable, but powerful, ally in the Joker. 

We saw this film at a DGA (Directors Guild of America) screening at Howard Hughes Center here in LA on an IMAX theater.  Given that director Christopher Nolan was there for the Q&A afterward, I have to assume it was projected to the highest technical standards.  It was breathtaking. 

Nolan said that the thing that drove him to do this sequel was his desire, after creating such a vivid new re-imagining in "Batman Begins," was to answer the question:  "Who is the Joker in this world?"  He has done that, and more.

You'll hear that Heath Ledger is phenomenal in this role and he is.  Literally every second he is on the screen, you're simply afraid to look away because you'll something unique and special about this final performance given by Ledger before he died.

Something else that Nolan has done differently here is to give us Gotham City as it's meant to be.  He admitted that his first take was a little art-directed and that in this case he went for a "slight genre shift" by shooting a great deal more on location (mostly Chicago) and to give us a crime story that is more in the tradition of Michael Mann than Tim Burton's first time out with Batman.