Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

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.

Expect 'Religulous' to Raise Oscar Hell

Working in Mysterious Ways

This essay was originally published in the Los Angeles Times Gold Derby blog.

When I attended a press screening for Bill Maher's "Religulous" in New York on Tuesday, it struck me like a lightning bolt on the road to the Kodak Theatre via Damascus: yeah, "Religulous" will probably be nominated for best docu at the Oscars — and God help us all after that.

We know that "Religulous" is seriously in the derby for several reasons. First, Lionsgate hired veteran Oscars PR reps to handle its ballyhoo (Michele Robertson in L.A., Jeff Hill in New York). Secondly, the studio is giving the documentary its theatrical runs in L.A. and New York to qualify it for academy consideration, as Jeff Sneider notes at Anne Thompson's blog at Variety.com. Thirdly, the hallelujahs that film critics gave it today at the screening. More disciples are sure to follow.

In order to catch on widely like religion itself, what atheism has needed for a long time is a popular preacher to rally 'round. Maher just volunteered for the job that's been vacant since Madalyn Murray O'Hair vanished in the 1990s (eventually found murdered in 2001). But Bill Maher kicks things up a notch. He's a pop culture hipster who already has a large, anti-establishment flock, and he has a bully pulpit that O'Hair didn't: his own HBO show plus vast presence across all media.

I'd Rather Have Been Wrong...

Hostages. It's bad enough to see the daily terrorist bombings out of Iraq, but now we have to deal with troops who are being set up for capture and God-knows-what after that. The word out of Iraq today, of course, is that U.S. aircraft dropped leaflets seeking information about three U.S. soldiers feared captured by al-Qaeda, as troops intensified the search. Of course, the al-Qaeda PR team has kindly issued a warning that the hunt will endanger the captives' lives. As if doing nothing wouldn't...   {Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubayel / AFP - Getty Images}

This is all very familiar to me because I wrote the script for this kind of terror -- for HBO, no less -- back in 2003. The pilot I wrote for them actually dealt with, among other things, the capture of American soldiers by Islamic terrorists. It also predicted the car bombings that have taken so man lives.

It all started the year before, while the war drumbeats out of Iraq were only being heard in the distance, I pitched HBO a TV series that would be set in Afghanistan at the fictional military base "Camp Big Stick." It would deal with a company of soldiers, including a group involved in psy-ops, and would be called "Hearts and Minds."

Download "Hearts & Minds" PDF

HBO works differently than the broadcast networks. Rather than order a pilot first, they ordered a "bible" about how the series would work. The executive explained the theory as being how they already knew I could write a great pilot, they wanted to know how the series would work once I had done so. Of course, it's also cheaper to order a bible than a full pilot script. So, at HBO, they would read the bible then, if they liked it, they would order the pilot script.

Let's Get Small: Plutonian Edition

Now that international astronomers have everyone thinking about the cosmos for at least a day by throwing Pluto out of the Solar System, let's give a passing thought to our place in the universe. We know that Pluto got tossed out of the planetary club for being a shrimp, a "dwarf planet" that is so small it can't even control its own neighborhood. Okay, then, size matters, so think about this...

Back when Steve Martin was a stand-up comic, he made a splash in 1977 with his debut album "Let's Get Small". My friend, Thomas Skala, sent me something by e-mail a couple of weeks ago that has absolutely nothing to do with that other than by the time you get through this photo journey you will feel even smaller than Steve Martin felt at his smallest. Ready? Here's picture number one.

Now this should make you feel pretty good. There's our home planet Earth looking like the biggest baddest mother on the block. Mars, which is our closest cousin in the solar system they say, looks like a puny runt compared to us. Now let's roll in the outer planets in the solar system.

Whoa! Suddenly we're looking pretty damn tiny. I mean, if Jupiter is a basketball, then we're a marble, barely. Mars has turned into a BB. Now let's pop in our own sun, Old Sol.

Suddenly our scale is, well, underwhelming. We need the arrow to see the Earth because, at its current size, we'd miss it. We're getting seriously small. But at least we can agree that it's all relative because the sun is immense, right?

There's our sun next to a few of the other suns our astronomers have discovered out there in the galaxy. This is pretty shocking because our sun has become the BB and Earth doesn't even compute. At least we can console ourselves that that other gassy giant Arcturus must be huge beyond all belief. Not so fast.

Yep, that's Arcturus down there, looking like a speck compared to Betelgeuse and Antares.

FYI, Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1000 light years away. There are 14 brighter stars that we know about.

Definitely feeling small now?

BTW, I don't know the source of these photos. I'm sure that thanks to the reach of the Internet someone will soon tell me so I can post the credit and if any of you scientists out there want to toss in your own analysis, fire away. Or if this is all one of those demented hoaxes that would be fine to know, too. It might be a relief to think we are bigger than this makes us out to be, but I doubt it. Maybe they're right, though, maybe size isn't everything when it comes to sex or significance.

Me? I'm gonna give Steve Martin another listen and try to stay psyched up enough to get out of bed tomorrow...

Koppel: The Iranians Are Coming! Again!

Ted Koppel knows a thing or two about Iran. His coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis for ABC gave birth to "Nightline" and brought down a U.S. president. Since leaving ABC's "Nightline" last November, Koppel is now a contributing columnist for "The New York Times" and the managing editor of the "Discovery Channel." He's written a piece for the Times today called "Iran Rising: Look What Democratic Reform Dragged In."

Here are a couple of extended excerpts from Koppel's column, direct from the man who counted down the hostage crisis for America, and tells us today that the Iranians are coming... again...

Koppel's premise is simple: that the U.S. is already at war with Iran, right now, but that the conflict is currently being waged through surrogates. I can't say that Koppel knocked himself out on his journalism on this one, though, his conclusion is primarily based on a meeting with a top Jordanian intelligence official he met with in Amman. Another anonymous source, by the way, who had nothing good to say for the Bush doctrine of spreading democracy.

He reserved his greatest contempt for the policy of encouraging democratic reform. “For the Islamic fundamentalists, democratic reform is like toilet paper,” he said. “You use it once and then you throw it away.”

Lest the point elude me, the official conducted a brief tour of recent democratic highlights in the region. Gaza and the West Bank, where Hamas, spurned by the State Department as a terrorist organization, was voted into power last spring and now represents the Palestinian government; Lebanon, where Hezbollah, similarly rejected by the United States, has become the most influential political entity in the country; and, of course, Iraq, where the Shiite majority has now, through elections, gained political power commensurate with its numbers...

Apparently, Koppel also went to Lebanon a few days after that meeting in Amman, Jordan where he met with Sheik Nabil Qaouk, the commander of Hezbollah forces in the southern part of the country.

Sheik Qaouk, who also holds the title of general, wears the robes and turban of a Shiite religious leader. Indeed, he studied religion for more than 10 years in the Iranian holy city of Qom. He received his military training in Iran and his wife and six children still live there.

Sheik Qaouk portrayed Hezbollah as being a purely defensive, Lebanese entity. But the more than 12,000 missiles and rockets that the sheik said were in Hezbollah’s arsenal were largely provided by Iran.

I asked about those newer, longer-range rockets mentioned by my Jordanian intelligence source. The sheik implicitly acknowledged their existence, but refused to talk about their capacities, with which the world has since become familiar. “Let our enemies worry,” he said.

When Sheik Qaouk talked about Israel and Hezbollah, his organization’s ambitions were not framed in purely defensive terms. There is only harmony between Hezbollah’s endgame and the more provocative statements made over the past year by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president. Both foresee the elimination of the Jewish state.

This, to me, remains the one fact that simply doesn't get covered in our media's fixation on the hits, runs and errors in Lebanon. How does one calibrate whether a response is "disproportionate," for example, when the the country striking back is surrounded by countries, religious leaders, government authorities, terrorists and average citizens all of whom wish for its complete destruction and death?

Are the Israelis over-reacting in Lebanon? Perhaps they simply perceive their enemies’ intentions with greater clarity than most. It is not the Lebanese who make the Israelis nervous, nor even Hezbollah. It is the puppet-masters in Tehran capitalizing on every opportunity that democratic reform presents. In the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Egypt, should President Hosni Mubarak be so incautious as to hold a free election, it is the Islamists who benefit the most.

But Washington’s greatest gift to the Iranians lies next door in Iraq. By removing Saddam Hussein, the United States endowed the majority Shiites with real power, while simultaneously tearing down the wall that had kept Iran in check.

According to the Jordanian intelligence officer, Iran is reminding America’s traditional allies in the region that the United States has a track record of leaving its friends in the lurch — in Vietnam in the 70’s, in Lebanon in the 80’s, in Somalia in the 90’s.

In his analysis, the implication that this decade may witness a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq has begun to produce an inclination in the region toward appeasing Iran.

It is in Iraq, he told me, “where the United States and the coalition forces must confront the Iranians.’’ He added, “You must build up your forces in Iraq and you must announce your intention to stay.”

There you have it. The people in the Middle East who are afraid of Iran want us to stay in Iraq. I wonder what the Democratic position is on that one?

By the way, if you want to read the whole article on "The New York Times," you'll have to pay for TimesSelect to get at it.

• {Update: The International Herald Tribune has printed the entire thing. For free.}

What I particularly hate about this situation is that here, in July, our political leaders (on both sides!) are obsessed about the election in November. This means that Sunday's talk shows will be consumed by more finger-pointing and blame-gaming. The Democrats hate Bush so much they wouldn't lift a finger to help him even if it is in our nation's interests and the Republicans think the Democrats can't be trusted to understand geo-political realities anyway. So they'll fight each other first rather than realize that we have more in common with each other and coming together is what's needed. Especially if what Koppel's arguing really is a call to war.

What really, truly ought to happen is that Bush and the leaders of both parties ought to be meeting now, exploring what the real challenges facing are nation are, tossing around ideas for how best to respond and honest-to-God working together in the best interests of the citizens of the United States.

But, of course, they won't. Because that's not the way things work in Washington. And that completely sucks. At least that's my opinion, for what it's worth...

{TO NEW VISITORS | "For What It's Worth" offers a new way to search through previous posts. It's a one-stop-shop on a single page which you can access by CLICKING HERE. Thanks for visiting!}

The Omen (2006) -vs- The Omen (1976)

The Smackdown! Thirty years later, they've re-made the granddaddy of the Son-of-the-Devil genre. It's not quite as shot-by-shot as the "Psycho" re-make was a few years back, but it's still the same movie with different actors.

The Challenger This latest version of "The Omen" was released on June 6 which, numerically, was 6/6/06 which was just so fortuitous a date that it probably got the project greenlit just for the fact we wouldn't have another chance to re-make the movie and use that publicity hook for another 100 years. It's a handsome film with excellent production design and people who have never seen any "The  Omen" will enjoy the ride.

"Kid, as your director, I gotta tell ya, you're scaring the crap out of people over at craft services."

The Defending Champion Back in 1976, "The Omen" stood out, along with "The Exorcist", as a new genre that turned Catholic priests from pleasant guys like Bing Crosby to menacing and/or conflicted characters locked in a battle against eternal damnation. That transformation is so complete that it explains why our current "The DaVinci Code" seemed a little listless. I remember seeing this in 1976 and having a hard time sleeping that night. It was fresh and frightening, and took us places we'd never been before.

"I see a future where another Damien will rise to challenge me."

Scorecard Part of the reason to re-make a film is to bring something special to it that was either missed in the original or simply couldn't be done back then. But this latest re-make is so faithful to the original in so many ways, you are left with looking at the actors for the compelling reason to see this made. In that regard, subbing Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles for Gregory Peck and Lee Remick falls short. Schrieber's okay, but he looks like he might be in on the Devil's plot half the time and Stiles looks like such a light-weight presence when compared with Remick. Then there's the kid, Damien, our hell-spawn and again, the truth is, this latest actor, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, is a little shy of the original. In fact, when I saw the film before an almost full house on 06/06/06, there were about a dozen loud people who laughed heartily every time Seamus/Damien gave somebody the evil eye.

Decision  This latest re-make is not a bad two-hour diversion and I liked it more than I thought I would. Still, it's not a bold revisioning and the win has to go to the ages. 1976's "The Omen" keeps the title.

{To read more MOVIE SMACKDOWN! reviews, CLICK HERE.}

Decline to State

In the last few days I've had to fill out a lot of forms. One set was for USC where I'm teaching a fall class (CNTV589) for the School of Cinema and Television. The other was for the local public school district where my son is enrolling for the fall. Both sets of forms wanted to know my race, sex and religion.

You remember that question often invoked in any debate about the death penalty?  You know: "Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" It's one of those questions -- that no matter which side of the debate you're on -- still makes you think. Here's another question to ponder --

• Why do we classify people by race, sex and religion to show that classifying people by race, sex and religion is wrong?

I'm sure there are strong reasons people want to do so (and you're welcome to express and advocate them in the comments) but it just feels wrong to me.

Martin Luther King wanted us to construct a society where the color of someone's skin was not a factor in how we should treat them. I think he had it right.

On several of the forms, they had a check-off box -- "Decline to State" -- and I checked it. On the other form, they didn't even give me the option. I drew in my own box and checked it.

Decline to state. That, folks, is a statement in itself.

Keeping Up with the Steins (2006) -vs- My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

The Smackdown! -- Two movies about groups you probably don't belong to (Jews, Greeks) and how a rite of passage event impacts their families and how the child navigates through it despite their parents.

The Challenger: "Keeping Up with the Steins" -- A 13-year-old boy struggles through his bar mitzvah, despite his parent's dysfunction. The fact that the film provides multiple, repeated viewing of Garry Marshall's ass is counter-balanced by Neil Diamond's surprise cameo. Still, didn't Jeremy Piven also play a Hollywood agent struggling to achieve the perfect bar mitzvah for his son on an episode of "Entourage"? Makes it feel just a little less original.

"If we could skip the Torah reading and go straight to the party, I'd still be miserable."

The Defending Champion: "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" -- A 30-year-old woman struggles to keep her love intact, despite the dysfunction of her family. Your basic opposites attract plot, dressed up by a quick sautee in the melting pot, mixed in with a dose of the Ugly Duckling -- but it all works. No huge stars, just honest laughs, and some warm, flawed characters. Absolutely no view of any naked part of Garry Marshall's body.

"At least the limo's windows got Windexed."

The Debate: Both films live in a movie universe that feels more-or-less grounded, as opposed to the kind where Carmeron Diaz loses at love. I've got a close Greek friend, and have been to my share of bar mitzvahs over the years. There's an element of truth in both films that the writers and directors have built solid films on. Not unexpectedly, there's more schtick in "Keeping Up with the Steins." The spoiled wealthy Steins are a little harder to love than the decent hardworking Portokalos's.

The Winner:  "MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING" wins because it manages to be just a little bit funnier and still keep it all a little more real. That's the winning combo for a comedy that stays with you a long time. I'll still remember the Windex gag long after I forgot what Benjamin Stein's bar mitzvah theme finally turned out to be.

{For more Movie Smackdown! reviews, CLICK HERE.}

The Da Vinci Code (2006) -vs- National Treasure (2004)

{To read more Movie Smackdown! reviews, please CLICK HERE.}

I've never read the book of "The Da Vinci Code." I bought it when it first came out, meant to read it, but once they decided to make the film I thought I'd let myself be the only person in America who hadn't read it and try to enjoy the movie in a way that readers could not. I would bring a fresh perspective. That was the theory anyway, and it had the added advantage of adding a few more days of productivity to my life which gave me time to stay current on the entire Brad/Jennifer/Angelina situation and other important issues. So I've watched the controversy about whether or not it was offensive and to whom, and whether it was real or not, and I've thought to myself, "At least the way they tell the story will be new to me." Sigh...

"The Da Vinci Code" is finely mounted film from Ron Howard, an Oscar winning director, starring Tom Hanks, an Oscar winning actor. It's based on the book by Dan Brown, of course, a novel that may have sold more copies than the Bible it purports to undermine. None of it is enough. This is a movie you keep rooting for it to kick in, to deliver the goods you've been put on alert to expect, but they don't come. There are moments when you think it's going to work, but it strains so hard to get lift-off and it never really does. You are left disappointed and sad that so many talented people spent so much money on a such a proven project and they still couldn't pull it off completely.

"Wait a damn minute. That's why she's smiling?!"

The plot to "The Da Vinci Code" is no big mystery, at least not anymore. It involves a vast conspiracy of silence to cover up the fact that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and had a child, and that there are people out there today who are descendants of Jesus.

If this was your standard movie review, then it would be over-and-out. I'd add a few more paragraphs explaining the plot, toss in some film analysis and spin out the reasons why I couldn't get excited about it.  With Movie Smackdowns, however, we get to add a little suspense to that tired review equation because even though "The Da Vinci Code" is unexceptional, there's no guarantee it will lose in the head-to-head competition. Enter "National Treasure," a film about how there's a clue written in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence which will lead the person who can de-code it to vast treasure.

"Those Founding Fathers really had a sense of humor, you know."

These two films really do have a lot in common. They both involve large conspiracies that have survived centuries, if not millenia. They both involve the Knights Templar as being up to their chain mail in this conspiracy. They both involve well-known historical artifacts like the Mona Lisa and the Declaration of Independence. They both end up in the basement of ancient churches. They both have huge stars like Tom Hanks and Nicholas Cage playing characters who can spout mumbo-jumbo in great style and leap to conclusions like the Olympic actors they are. I loved what Roger Ebert had to say about "National Treasure" when it first came out:

If you are one of the millions, like me, who plowed through "The Da Vinci Code", you can be forgiven for thinking they've made it into a movie. And, in a way, they have, but the movie is titled "National Treasure." This new Jerry Bruckheimer production is so similar in so many ways to the plot of the Dan Brown best seller that either (a) the filmmakers are the only citizens of the entertainment industry who have never heard of "The Da Vinci Code", no, not even the countless people on the set who must have been reading the book, or (b) they have ripped it off. My attorneys advise me that (a) is the prudent answer.

Of course, what neither "The Da Vinci Code" or "National Treasure" had was an ounce of credibility in the search for the secret or search for the treasure storylines they pursued. Each one sets up its cliff-hangers briskly, places the characters in grave danger, allows for nearly impossible escapes, and then takes us to the next plot point. Here's one more point of commonality: both of these films are much better in their front halves than their back halves. As mysteries at the beginning they both more-or-less work. But as the logic falls apart in each, so did my patience.

Ron Howard's movie looks better and feels more important. He's given "The Da Vinci Code" a palpable vibe that says Important Summer Blockbuster. "National Treasure" has more of that Jerry Bruckheimer trademark crazy action, plot and character coming second. It's certainly more fun. So, what we have here, is a Director's Movie in a slugfest with a Producer's Movie.

You're probably going to go see "The Da Vinci Code" no matter what any reviewer says (according to Rotten Tomatoes, it's anything but fresh). And, even though I liked a lot of "National Treasure" better, its careening zeal to blow up its own logic just finally wore me out. Plus, there are lot of people out there who actually want to believe the conspiracy in "The Da Vinci Code" but there aren't too many people wandering around today who think we need to pull the Declaration of Independence off the wall and dust off its backside with lemon juice to see what we can see.

So the Smackdown goes to The Da Vinci Code. It could have been great, probably should have been, but in the summer blockbuster tentpole mentality that this film had to come to life in, it's probably a wonder it wasn't a lot worse.

To see a list of the 2006 Movie Smackdown! reviews, CLICK HERE.

To see a list of the 2005 Movie Smackdown! reviews, CLICK HERE.

United 93

United 93 feels like a sacred film; like something that should be shown on TV every September 11th, like It's A Wonderful Life at Christmas-time. Not only is it the best film I have seen this year, but it is without any doubt the most important film released this year, and probably this decade. I can hear the Fahrenheit 911 crowd jumping to attack that statement, but I'd ask them to take a moment to think through this.

People need to remember what happened that day, stripped of all the political name-calling, second-guessing and hidden agendas. Can anyone really doubt this need?

What happened on 9/11 was a sneak attack that easily surpassed Pearl Harbor because it was an act of war on civilians by extremists and not governments. Thousands of innocent Americans died. If you have forgotten how you felt that day, then go see this film. You will remember. You should remember. We all should.

Take a moment and give your country a break. Don't try to minimize the film by talking about Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or the war in Iraq. These were things that were set in motion by the events of September 11. That day was so tragic and awful that it deserves, for at least a few hours, to be understood in its own context and not what it spawned. In the same way that United 93 works because there is no back-story to the characters on the plane (we only know what they know and know them only by what we see them say and do on the plane), the film should be watched without trying to contextualize it with the events that grew from it. We do that every single day already from what I can read in the papers. We argue and accuse and second-guess and, from where I sit, we have forgotten the dark power of 9/11.

I've seen a lot of ink spilled in the past few weeks wondering if it was "too soon" for this film. Not for me. If anything, I wish it had come sooner.

For an actual review of the film, check the Movie Smackdown! blog in a few hours.