[3deroticer]

Saw this from Maxine.com and I hope to see a t-shirt from this!

[pedonbio]

I certainly agree that the "hero overcomes psychological shortcomings" theme has been over used. But if used well, it can certainly add to the story. I think we have both in the various "Spiderman" movies. The idea of a superhero who gets evicted for not paying his rent on time has a certain appeal. On the other hand, a superhero eternally wracked with guilt because his uncle was killed by a criminal gets very old very fast.

[3deroticer]

I enjoy watching any movie in 3D, and I probably didn't have to tell you that. But what I don't like about Green Lantern was that his power were too awesome. It's like playing with a kid who keeps changing the parameter of the game in order to win all the time. All he has to do is create whatever he need to do the job.

[DruulEmpire]

I suppose this means he could come up with his own Infinite Improbability Drive ...

[Shara]

I'm gonna stay with Marvel > DC

[rtpoe]

Well, the latest Michael Bay movie is out....

The NY Post's Lou Lumenick has this to say about it:

The Apocalypse arrives today in the form of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," a movie guaranteed to strike worldwide audiences deaf and dumb with a cunning combination of a brain-dead script, lousy 3-D, ADD-addled edits, a pneumatic underwear model and a lot of things blowing up very, very loudly.

Director Michael Bay, Hollywood’s answer to the Antichrist, isn’t primarily interested in your soul, though his movie does a pretty effective job of sucking that away (and sucking, in general).

Dan Kois of the Village Voice sums up the story:

The people who you think might be evil turn out to be evil. Humanity triumphs. Optimus Prime gives a speech. Chicago burns. Your brain cells perish by the thousands, their howls of agony lost to the cacophony inside your skull. Vast quantities of money, roughly equal to the GDP of Tonga, travel from America’s wallets into the coffers of Paramount. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s ass returns to its home planet to report that Earth is ripe for the plucking. Enjoy it while you can!

 
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune noted that the movie was so bad that even the projector had trouble swallowing it:

Monday's Chicago press screening of the third "Transformers" picture was delayed by 20 minutes because, as the AMC River East spokesman explained to the crowd, the auditorium's digital projector needed time to complete its "ingesting" of the feature. Well! What goes in must come out. One way or the other.

The Newark Star-Ledger's Stephen Witty responds to his own critics:

This is probably around the point that some fans will email me that they "go to the movies not to think" or that I "just don’t like sci-fi."

Well, being able to go to the movies and not think is fine — but that’s different from going to a movie that assumes you can't think...

And while I genuinely love science fiction for everything it can provide — what-if scenarios, topical social commentary, normal people caught up in abnormal events — the "Transformers" films increasingly have done away with all that, to concentrate on the last and least important element of the genre — the special effects.

Finally, Mark Jenkins of the Washington Post asks the question every rational person is asking:

And what is the evolutionary advantage of pretending to be a car, anyway?

[Hark]

Well, I guess I'll be the first to admit that I REALLY liked "Transformers 3."  Probably the best story of the series, and certainly loaded with non-stop action and bitchin' graphics.  It was +2 hours wasted, but in a good way.

To be honest, I do get tired of M. Bay's passion for only Maxim-covergirl-quality girls to jazz up his movies.  I'm a fan of curves & boobs (that's why I'm on the BEA), and they don't cut it here, so no there's love. <sigh>

[Ladon]

probably because no-one ever heard of that series (re Lensman)

I loved the series, and I think the primary trouble with converting it directly to a screenplay is that they regularly use telepathy on an intergalactic scale.  It would be really weird watching people think at each other for a few hours.

On the other hand, seeing what they came up with for a pair of DeLameters melting a console into oblivion would be really cool!  Or the negasphere simply erasing ships from existence.  Or the Galactic Fleet's assault on Gray Roger. 

The Lensman series was also said to be a big inspiration for the original Star Wars trilogy.  I'm really surprised that 'no one' has heard of it.  I've always felt it was pretty darn awesome.

[solvegas]

A movie I enjoyed was " Mr Popper's penguins " with Jim Carrey. I took my girlfriend and her 4 year old daughter and the k1d behaved herself, paid attention and was not fidgety during the movie. The last week the k1d talks about it and the silly names of the penguins and she wants to go to the zoo to see them. So I told the k1d that if she behaves we will go to Sea World to see them. She has been behaving  . Maybe raising brats ain't so hard .... 

[number3fac]

I don't expect a Michael Bay film to deliver on anything other than action sequences and special effects, and there's been nothing to indicate that he's failed on that.  While I also prefer that there's some good, coherent storytelling with minimum plot holes, my standards on that in the movie theater vary as long as I'm entertained by the visuals.  From the sporadic reviews I've read, Transformers still meets the minimum required balance so I'll be going to see it (though I've admittedly got a fanboy-based bias that tilts the scale).

The reason why they transform has been given attention in the Gen1/Beast Wars/Beast Machines continuity and makes enough sense there that you can overlook the fact that it's really just a gimmick for the toyline.  I don't see it as a criticism for the movie series though, by now I think pretty much everyone knows that if it's called "Transformers" it's about giant robots that turn into vehicles and no in-universe explanation need be given.

[rtpoe]

I happened to catch the teaser for "Battleship" the other day...

NOTE: There is a technical difference between a "teaser" and a "trailer". A teaser is released after almost all of the principal shooting has been done, and is intended to start people talking about the movie. You can tell it's a teaser when it doesn't give a definite date when the movie will hit the theaters, e.g. "Coming Summer 2012". There's still some work to be done on the movie, and final edits can even turn the movie into something significantly different. Witness the original teaser for Aliens 3, which had the Aliens landing on Earth... Trailers, on the other hand, are released when the movie is all set to go to the theaters. They'll have the "This movie has been rated" green screen at the start, and a specific date of release at the end (if the movie isn't already in the theaters).

...and aside from the gratuitous cleavage shot, it looks to be an OK movie. Apparently, a Navy combat readiness exercise runs in to an alien spaceship, and has to fight for real against an enemy of unknown capabilities. Could be a nice action flick, right?

So why did they have to link it to a game that just begs for people to make fun of the movie? Who had the bright idea of having the alien craft shoot things that look just like the pegs from the game? Was it really necessary to cast a pop star in one of the major female roles? Well, maybe they had to do the last one in order to lure people in to the theater.

Somehow, I don't see how anything good can come of this.

[solvegas]

To add what rtpoe has said, the last Battleship in the world to sail did so in 1992. I saw the trailer / teaser and I could tell that those Hollyweird people either did not get any military involvement or they simply ignored. Either way, it's preposterous. I remember seeing the  recently released last X-men movie and the scene where the battleship was firing was dumb since no battleship was in commision in 1962. I guess any type of realism is hopeless.

[Cutter]

I watched the trailer or teaser or whatever you want to call it.  I can't say that I'm impressed.

[rtpoe]

Well, it looks like this will turn into an"rtpoe talks about movies" thread.

So be it.

At least this time, it's not a Shlockbuster. Guillermo del Toro doesn't make crappy movies. What he is doing now is a big screen remake of what you could call an "anti-blockbuster": a made-for-TV movie.

Back in 1969, when there were only three TV networks (and no cable or internet!!), ABC was comfortably resting in third place in overall ratings. To do *something* to get them out of the basement, they decided to have a regular made-for-TV movie every Tuesday night. The idea proved so popular that they added movies on other nights, and CBS and NBC quickly added their own versions. Like the B movies of the 30s and 40s, they usually weren't anything special. They were simply intended to fill time with new material. What they did have going for them was professional production values and, at worst, competent writing and acting. Nonetheless, it is thanks to these MFTVMs that we were blessed with "The Night Stalker" and "Columbo", amongst other fine productions.

"Don't be Afraid of the Dark" premiered on October 10. 1973. Like almost all of the other MFTVMs, there was no sex or violence. Nothing to upset the general audience! And like almost all of the other MFTVMs, the creators worked wonders within the limitations of the format.

There's a fine review of the original here.

del Toro seems to have done little more to the story than add a daughter to the couple moving into the house, and making her the "target" of the spooks.

I understand they've changed the story radically: now, instead of a troubled couple moving into an empty house, the movie will concern a little girl who comes to live with her father and stepmother. I was at first a little skeptical to hear that they'd shifted the focus onto a little girl, but then I remembered the remake was being produced by Guillermo del Toro. Not only do I have an enormous amount of respect for del Toro, but I also remembered that chi|dren are rarely singled out for special protection in his films. The original movie impressed the hell out of us kids in the seventies by entrusting us with a grown-up ending. I hope del Toro's version is equally mature, and equally bleak. - Will "Braineater" Laughlin (from the above linked review)

I'm going to have to go see if the original is somewhere online (like others of the better MFTVMs); it would be interesting and worthwhile to compare the two.

[rtpoe]

How can you tell if a movie is likely to suck? The studio waits until the last possible minute before screening it for the reviewers. Clearly, they don't have any confidence in their product.

Among the reviews of The Lone Ranger by critics who got paid to sit suffer through it:

"Somewhere, around the hour-and-a-half mark, The Lone Ranger makes the fateful decision not to end. Worse, the movie keeps not-ending for another full hour." - Christopher Orr, The Atlantic

"A movie for the whole family to avoid... 2 1/2 of the longest hours on record, a jumbled botch that is so confused in its purpose and so charmless in its effect that it must be seen to be believed, but better yet, no. Don't see it, don't believe it..." -  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

"How/why/wherefore did it turn out this way? The evidence suggests a combination of hubris, errant revisionism, a misguided and perverse degree of violence, and a script that never worked in the first place." - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

"The Lone Ranger pours on untold Disney millions in special effects and stunt work in what blurs into one long visual non sequitur that tries to bludgeon you into submission. By the time the movie careened into its third hour, I was begging for mercy. "How could this be worse?" John Reid asks at one point, a sentiment that will no doubt be shared by millions of moviegoers around the world. Well, I guess it could have been in 3-D and run half an hour longer, but that would have violated the Geneva Convention." - Lou Lumenick, New York Post