Quick clips for Thursday June 25
Because the problem with the Academy Awards ceremony is that it wasn't long enough
Yesterday in a press release that Movieline.com described as a "bombshell" (Hyperbole? On an Internet site? Surely you jest!), the Best Picture race at the Oscars just went all Val Kilmer on us, doubling in size overnight. Whereas before, only 5 movies had the honor of nomination (on average, about two of those being deserving), now a mind-boggling 10 pictures will make it to the party. This isn't overkill, this is digging up a corpse, stabbing it a few more times, setting it on fire, reburying it, then digging it up again and shooting it a few times. Apparently the Academy can only think in groups of 5, as a reasonable number of expansion like 7 (usually only about 1-2 films are "left out") would have seemed a bit more reasonable for a ceremony whose length has become as infamous as its irrelevance to mainstream Americans. Now, if they couple this with the announcements that, as a people, Hollywooders are officially done with "the montage" (I'm talking in films and in ceremonies about films), we may just be able to get the show finished in the time it takes an arthritic grandfather to shovel his driveway with an ice cream scoop. Obviously, I have a few reservations. That said, this is a somewhat shrewd movie on the Academy's part for two reasons and does hold one singular benefit (which we will see as immediately as this year). The Academy's two-fold reasoning for the Kilmerian expansion is (1) it's a ploy to get more viewers, as chances are now good that a movie you loved will make it to the final 10 (seriously, this plan makes "Dancing with the Stars" seem like a well-conceived endeavor), and (2) it's good for the movie business, as a bunch of movies will pay for ads in the trades to promote their now Oscar-nominated movie, it will allow repeat business for a bunch of films, and it generally creates a decent amount of buzz. The reason I'm in favor is because we're FINALLY going to see some deserving films that were just left out of the race make their way in. The Dark Knight would definitely have been in the field of 10, and this year, you just know that Up is going to make it (YESSSSSS). And, once the film GETS the nomination, there's no reason to think that a public outcry wouldn't possibly lead to it actually winning. So, when you think about it, this means we're getting one small piece of enjoyment for some serious long-term bloating. So, basically, it's like eating a deep-fat fried Oreo with baconnaise. Happy 4th of July, America!
Ryan's Junk Drawer
Ahh, Thursday, my least-favorite day of the week and the day on which we sort through all of the news that even I can't stretch into something long enough to resemble a whole blurb (and I can talk shit about A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G). This week has been pretty slow, I'm guessing the heat wave which spread across the U.S. made even the act of bloggery feel wretched and sweaty (as opposed to how it usually feels: sweaty and wretched). Here's the little tidbits that bit their tids this week:
I wanted to like this, I really did. Thankfully, this is exactly one tiny baby step better than Year One, or I'd have to take my own life. I enjoyed the first one, but apparently, if left unchecked, Michael Bay is a total asshole. Enjoy!
Oh, Bay!
Director ruins Transformers 2, but you’ll see it anyway
Ryan Syrek
A critique of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is as relevant to audiences as philosophy is to lemurs; still, even the staunchest giant-effing-robot proponents will find the latest overproduction from director Michael Bay to be a bitter horse-sized pill to swallow. Beyond the wholly incomprehensible script by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, which features such choice dialogue as “I’m directly below the enemy’s scrotum,” the film also presents an all-you-can-eat buffet of racial stereotypes and manages an unforgivable sin for a movie that’s only as successful as its eye-gasm-inducing sci-fi-ghting: it’s kind of boring.
At the onset, things are fun, as the surviving good transformers from the last movie—that’s the Autobots, for those who don’t speak nerd—are hunting down the surviving bad transformers—the Decepticons. Meanwhile, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is still LaBeouf-ing his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) while transitioning to college, where he meets his roommate and poorly conceived comic relief Leo (Ramon Rodriguez). Because Michael Bay movies are what testosterone would dream of if it could, every single female at Sam’s college dresses like a Maxim photo shoot.
Things go fine until a somehow-even-bigger-evil robot, The Fallen (Tony Todd), decides to return from outer space and jumpstart an ancient device that will blow up the sun. Once more, Sam must join forces with the robots to prevent them from gaining the “Matrix of Leadership,” which sounds like a self-help business seminar but is actually the key to start the sun-killing machine.
There are a myriad of aborted half-subplots throughout, including Mikaela’s leg-humping robot side-kick and a ne’er-do-well government agent, but all they serve to do is pad the running time from “inadvisable” to “sheer punishment.” But if Bay’s film will have a legacy, it won’t be the film’s length or even the sure-to-be-huge box office; it will be his ability to score a blackout in his game of bigotry bingo.
The worst offenders, Skids and Mudflaps (both voiced by “Spongebob Squarepants” himself Tom Kenny), are two shucking-and-jiving, ebonics-talking robots designed to look like monkeys and revealed to be illiterate. If that’s not your favorite stereotype, don’t worry, as there’s also a little robot who spouts Italian-mobster-speak and John Turturro, who is reintroduced in a Jewish deli and lives with his nagging mother. Wowza. Basically, box office records will fall, along with our cultural progress.
Tossing acting out the window, although it should be noted that Fox is less believable than a cover story from the governor of South Carolina, the film also sports plot devices that don’t even make sense in the context of a Transformers movie, including a Decepticon that appears as a Victoria Secret model, which begs the question as to why robots that could look human choose to hide as modes of transportation.
Yes, the effects are top-notch. Yes, there are moments of summer-movie joy. Yes, Transformers 2 was never intended to be intellectual. Yes, one of the transformers is shown to have testicles. You decide which of these things outweighs the others.
Grade - D
Yesterday in a press release that Movieline.com described as a "bombshell" (Hyperbole? On an Internet site? Surely you jest!), the Best Picture race at the Oscars just went all Val Kilmer on us, doubling in size overnight. Whereas before, only 5 movies had the honor of nomination (on average, about two of those being deserving), now a mind-boggling 10 pictures will make it to the party. This isn't overkill, this is digging up a corpse, stabbing it a few more times, setting it on fire, reburying it, then digging it up again and shooting it a few times. Apparently the Academy can only think in groups of 5, as a reasonable number of expansion like 7 (usually only about 1-2 films are "left out") would have seemed a bit more reasonable for a ceremony whose length has become as infamous as its irrelevance to mainstream Americans. Now, if they couple this with the announcements that, as a people, Hollywooders are officially done with "the montage" (I'm talking in films and in ceremonies about films), we may just be able to get the show finished in the time it takes an arthritic grandfather to shovel his driveway with an ice cream scoop. Obviously, I have a few reservations. That said, this is a somewhat shrewd movie on the Academy's part for two reasons and does hold one singular benefit (which we will see as immediately as this year). The Academy's two-fold reasoning for the Kilmerian expansion is (1) it's a ploy to get more viewers, as chances are now good that a movie you loved will make it to the final 10 (seriously, this plan makes "Dancing with the Stars" seem like a well-conceived endeavor), and (2) it's good for the movie business, as a bunch of movies will pay for ads in the trades to promote their now Oscar-nominated movie, it will allow repeat business for a bunch of films, and it generally creates a decent amount of buzz. The reason I'm in favor is because we're FINALLY going to see some deserving films that were just left out of the race make their way in. The Dark Knight would definitely have been in the field of 10, and this year, you just know that Up is going to make it (YESSSSSS). And, once the film GETS the nomination, there's no reason to think that a public outcry wouldn't possibly lead to it actually winning. So, when you think about it, this means we're getting one small piece of enjoyment for some serious long-term bloating. So, basically, it's like eating a deep-fat fried Oreo with baconnaise. Happy 4th of July, America!
Ryan's Junk Drawer
Ahh, Thursday, my least-favorite day of the week and the day on which we sort through all of the news that even I can't stretch into something long enough to resemble a whole blurb (and I can talk shit about A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G). This week has been pretty slow, I'm guessing the heat wave which spread across the U.S. made even the act of bloggery feel wretched and sweaty (as opposed to how it usually feels: sweaty and wretched). Here's the little tidbits that bit their tids this week:
- Antichrist, the new movie from batshit insane director Lars Von Trier (who seriously believes himself to be the best director in the world), is going to be opening in October in the U.S. This is good news for anyone who wanted to see a movie in which some seriously awful things reportedly happen to Willem DeFoe's genitalia. The film is supposedly just whacked, but also beloved by some critics, so it will be interesting to see if America can handle real horror: what lies in Willem DeFoe's pants.
- Of news perhaps only to those who still care about the lines of journalism and what is or is not ethical Internet behavior, Slashfilm.com (one of my personal favorites), pulled a boner and ran a Sam Mendes retrospective that carried a tag at the top saying the article was sponsored by Focus Films (one of my favorite studios), which just-so-happens to be releasing a Sam Mendes movie this week. A twitter-tiff instantly developed between some prominent blogging honchos and the guys at Slashfilm did the right thing right away and said "we hear you, we apologize, it won't happen again." The mea culpa also came from the advertising firm and the studio. This is a big deal because it could have changed how movie bloggers who get advertising (NOT ME, LORD KNOWS I DON'T SEE ONE DAMN PENNY) may have been in the crosshairs of pay-for-play writing. Nice to see one of the leaders (Slashfilm.com) step up and prevent the problem. If they hadn't backed down, this would have been a full blurb, but as it stands, it's junk drawer material because they did it all right after the fact. Not that they care about my little opinion, but my little opinion is happy.
- Moneyball, which I told you on Monday was on life support, has been pretty much euthanized. Sorry, Brad Pitt. Supposedly, Steven Soderbergh couldn't get any takers to come in and save the day after Columbia balked (get it, because it's a baseball movie). It's not officially dead, they could try some serious resurrection through budget cuts and script revisions, but I don't think this is going Lazarus on us so much as it's going kersplat (people just don't use kersplat enough these days). So, long story short, Soderbergh got his balls cut off.
- Nimrod Antal (yeah, that's a guy's real name) is supposedly directing Predators, which leaves me feeling exactly the same as I did about the project before I heard this news: totally indifferent. Other than having the worst name after Slappy McWeinerhead, Antal directed Kontroll, which I heard was atmospheric and good, but was spelled stupid, so I didn't see it. We'll know more about this one when casting and script news start leaking like a bag of nasty trash.
- Finally, Chud.com is reporting that Zack Snyder's follow-up to the unfairly blasted Watchmen is possibly going to be PG-13. This is interesting because the initial description of the hot chicks in an asylum sounded like the very best of Skinemax. This isn't for sure yet, but Snyder seems to think that the fantasy elements will negate the violence (we were hoping that the "fantasy" elements were what would get the R rating)!
I wanted to like this, I really did. Thankfully, this is exactly one tiny baby step better than Year One, or I'd have to take my own life. I enjoyed the first one, but apparently, if left unchecked, Michael Bay is a total asshole. Enjoy!
Oh, Bay!
Director ruins Transformers 2, but you’ll see it anyway
Ryan Syrek
A critique of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is as relevant to audiences as philosophy is to lemurs; still, even the staunchest giant-effing-robot proponents will find the latest overproduction from director Michael Bay to be a bitter horse-sized pill to swallow. Beyond the wholly incomprehensible script by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, which features such choice dialogue as “I’m directly below the enemy’s scrotum,” the film also presents an all-you-can-eat buffet of racial stereotypes and manages an unforgivable sin for a movie that’s only as successful as its eye-gasm-inducing sci-fi-ghting: it’s kind of boring.
At the onset, things are fun, as the surviving good transformers from the last movie—that’s the Autobots, for those who don’t speak nerd—are hunting down the surviving bad transformers—the Decepticons. Meanwhile, Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is still LaBeouf-ing his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) while transitioning to college, where he meets his roommate and poorly conceived comic relief Leo (Ramon Rodriguez). Because Michael Bay movies are what testosterone would dream of if it could, every single female at Sam’s college dresses like a Maxim photo shoot.
Things go fine until a somehow-even-bigger-evil robot, The Fallen (Tony Todd), decides to return from outer space and jumpstart an ancient device that will blow up the sun. Once more, Sam must join forces with the robots to prevent them from gaining the “Matrix of Leadership,” which sounds like a self-help business seminar but is actually the key to start the sun-killing machine.
There are a myriad of aborted half-subplots throughout, including Mikaela’s leg-humping robot side-kick and a ne’er-do-well government agent, but all they serve to do is pad the running time from “inadvisable” to “sheer punishment.” But if Bay’s film will have a legacy, it won’t be the film’s length or even the sure-to-be-huge box office; it will be his ability to score a blackout in his game of bigotry bingo.
The worst offenders, Skids and Mudflaps (both voiced by “Spongebob Squarepants” himself Tom Kenny), are two shucking-and-jiving, ebonics-talking robots designed to look like monkeys and revealed to be illiterate. If that’s not your favorite stereotype, don’t worry, as there’s also a little robot who spouts Italian-mobster-speak and John Turturro, who is reintroduced in a Jewish deli and lives with his nagging mother. Wowza. Basically, box office records will fall, along with our cultural progress.
Tossing acting out the window, although it should be noted that Fox is less believable than a cover story from the governor of South Carolina, the film also sports plot devices that don’t even make sense in the context of a Transformers movie, including a Decepticon that appears as a Victoria Secret model, which begs the question as to why robots that could look human choose to hide as modes of transportation.
Yes, the effects are top-notch. Yes, there are moments of summer-movie joy. Yes, Transformers 2 was never intended to be intellectual. Yes, one of the transformers is shown to have testicles. You decide which of these things outweighs the others.
Grade - D
posted by Ryan at
7:48 AM
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