Megan Fox: Genius
Probably the only good thing to come out of the "Transformers" movies is the exposure Megan Fox is getting.
And no, I'm not kidding.
I'm not talking about all the hottie pictures in manboy magazines. I'm talking about the interviews she's giving.
The piece in Entertainment Weekly was good, showing she is fully aware of what crap "Transformers" is, how little it displays whatever acting skills she may have, and that she accepts the fact that the only reason anyone pays attention to her is she's freakishly beautiful.
But a recent interview on the CBS "Early Show" was even better. With a perfectly straight face -- OK, there's a bit of a twinkle there, but she didn't laugh outright while saying this -- she told Harry Smith:
"I'm in the movie, and I read the script, and I watched the movie, and I still didn't know what was happening. So I think that if you haven't read the script, and you go and see it and you understand it, you may be a genius... This is a movie for geniuses."
In that one statement she points out that the film makes no sense at all, while still complimenting the masses who've gone to see it. Sort of.
As far as I'm concerned, this proves Megan Fox is a genius.
And, oh yes, she's also pretty hot.
The problem(s) wih the new Oscar plan
And the nominees are... "Paul Blart: Mall Cop"...
OK, things probably won't got that far. Actually, things definitely won't go that far. But the announcement yesterday that the Oscars will move from having five best picture nominees every year to 10 looked like a last gasp move by the Academy to shake things up and make the awards relevant to mainstream moviegoers again.
Will it work? Probably not. Is it going to mess up the Oscar show? The Oscar show is already a mess, so who cares?
The idea, obviously, is that if you have more movies in the running then you draw fans of those extra movies to the awards (TV ratings for the Oscars have shriveled over the years while the overall population has ballooned).
And yes, that might happen, but I doubt if it will be any kind of dramatic boost. Why? Because most of those extra five slots will likely be filled by the same sort of art house hits that now dominate the awards, not by gazillion dollar blockbusters.
"Paul Blart" will not be nominated. Neither will "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," nor a Harry Potter film, nor a "Twilight" sequel.
At best you'll get the year's Pixar offering. That would mean "Up" this year, and if you think the presence of Ed Asner at the Oscars is going to boost ratings, you're nuts.
Last year "The Dark Knight" might -- might -- have snuck in through sheer box office clout and its artsy pretensions.
But the films that surely would have filled at least three of those extra slots last year -- "Vicki Cristina Barcelona," "The Wrestler" and "Revolutionary Road" -- wouldn't have brought any extra eyeballs to the proceedings. Why? The same people -- the art house, serious cinema crowd -- who liked those movies already liked the films nominated.
And the Academy members who nominate such films are not going to suddenly turn about and fill the other five slots with comedies, sci fi adventures and sequels. The Academy likes to think of itself as a serious body. Now suddenly they're going to turn into a bunch of razzle-dazzle wacky kids because there are five more openings? Doubtful.
Yes, "Up" will get nominated. And maybe the year's best documentary, which also won't attract viewers. And possibly some marginal exercise in tension/action.
"The Hurt Locker" is already garnering buzz for that last slot this year, and "The Hurt Locker" is a film that features no known stars, takes place in Iraq and has extremely limited audience potential. How many new people do you think it will bring to the show?
The crazy thing is the Academy already does nominate and often award blockbuster films -- when they're good. Witness "Titanic," "Lord of the Rings," "Juno," "Little Miss Sunshine" and even last year's "Slumdog Millionaire." All made big money, all took home Oscars.
The problem -- at least in terms of audience -- is that often (usually) smaller art house films simply are better than the mainstream fare that brings in the bucks.
The danger here is that instead of broadening Oscar's audience this will dilute its prestige and indeed make the members of the Academy seem even more monotone in their choices.
A wiser move might have been to expand the acting categories instead. Why? Because that would bring more star power to the show, and audiences like watching stars.
Or a better idea yet: Just make sure both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie get nominated every year.
Best idea of all? Nominate Jon and Kate. Ratings will go through the roof.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
Michael Bay: Satan?
The question has been in the air for well over a decade and now I'm pretty sure the definitve answer has just arrived: Yes, Michael Bay is the Antichrist.
Bay, of course, is the director of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," a film which may turn out to be the biggest box office hit of the year. As the director of "Armageddon," the two "Bad Boys," "The Rock," "Pearl Harbor" and the first "Transformers" Bay has arguably the best blockbuster record in Hollywood over the past decade.
Why is Bay the Antichrist? Well, I'm talking about cinema, obviously, and for those of us who grew up loving character and plot and context and period, not to mention depth, texture and meaning, Bay has been paving a way for a new kind of cinema, a cinema of simplicity and sensory overload.
"Revenge of the Fallen" is his crowning acheivement. It means nothing, the dialogue and story don't matter at all, and the characters only exist to look hot (Megan Fox) or anxious (Shia LeBouf).
The only real purpose of this two-and-a-half hour film is to pummel the audience's auditory and visual senses into a zombie-like pulp. It's all explosions, fighting robots and sudden cuts to Fox sweating as if she's in heat.
This isn't film in the traditional sense, it's film as an amusement park ride. And while the "ride" experience used to factor into films, with Bay it overwhelms the film, it is the film's purpose.
I say this as someone who eats up Bay's early work. Love "Bad Boys." Enjoy the heck out of "The Rock," although the car chase sequence is the first indication of the derailment into overkill to come. I've probably watched "Armageddon" 30 times.
Porn and explosions: What more could a young man want? The scary thing here is, "Fallen" will pull more than young men. We as a culture now embrace those primal triggers en masse.
And we do so largely because of Michael Bay, who has inspired an entire generation of gut-level-directors looking to mix sex, violence and sentiment in the name of thrill-happy entertainment.
What's wrong with that? As film becomes ever more visceral it inevitably moves away from the intellectual. And while I in no way want to be stuck watching French films from the '60s for all eternity it would be nice to find some sort of balance.
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" may tilt the balance once and for all, as more and more studios find safety in over-loud blockbusters with nothing more to recommend them than the ability to shake the seats in an IMAX theater.
The question lingers with me, though: What if Bay had turned his powers to good instead of evil? What if he were the guy trying to find the balance instead of sending our common cultural consciousness hurtling toward a wide-eyed, drooling abyss?
Yeah, I know, what if Satan gave to the United Way? Bay is Bay, and in his own now thoroughly evil way he is the most brilliant and most important director of our time.
No one's imitating Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese or Clint Eastwood these days. Everybody's imitating Michael Bay. Because it's easy. And it's profitable.
Chances are the Antichrist will be easy to follow. Say your prayers, children of the cinema.
Is Hollywood suffering from Audience Deficit Disorder?
I think America's short attention span may be catching up to Hollywood.
Case in point at the moment being the separate trajectories of Will Ferrell's "Land of the Lost" and the hit comedy "The Hangover."
A couple years back Ferrell seemed nigh on invincible in theaters. He'd built a rock solid reputation on "Saturday Night Live," done some great supporting roles -- "Old School," "Starsky & Hutch," "Wedding Crashers" -- and scored big as a lead in "Anchorman," "Talladega Nights" and "Blades of Glory."
Last year's "Semi-Pro," though, showed Ferrell had lost his grip on the box office, making only $33 million ("Blades," in comparison, hit $118 million). Then he struck gold again with "Step Brothers" last summer ($100 million).
But now comes "Lost," which may not even break $50 million and cost more than twice that much. Following the past year's ill-conceived Broadway show and TV special in which he played a so-yesterday George Bush, it's prompted people to ask if Will Ferrell is over.
If so -- and I think it's unlikely -- the guy had one quick career. "Old School" was only six years ago.
It's far more probable we've just burned out on too much Ferrell. He needs to pick his projects with more care, gently expand ("Stranger Than Fiction" was a good move even if it wasn't a hit) and generally back off a bit.
But there's no denying that American audiences crave new blood, and they grow weary of the same schtick played too often.
Witness Seth Rogen. The guy ruled the world all of a year ago. Now, post "Observe and Report" and "Zack and Miri," people are wondering if he can even open a movie.
So far this year, as I keep mentioning because it signals such a cultural change, audiences have shown limited interest in big name movie stars. Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe have had bombs while Kevin James has raked in money.The star of the year's biggest movie, "Star Trek," is Chris Pine. Who?
Enter "The Hangover" starring -- no one. Three guys -- Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zack Galfianakis -- who might be vaguely familiar to some people. And the movie breaks $100 million in 10 days.
Is it that freaking good? No way. But the faces are new, and these days there's major value in that. They are not rolling out bits we've seen them do 20 times before (as Ferrell is). Everything looks more fresh, more now. Even if it's not that good, it's not the same thing we saw last movie.
Consider the career of Mike Myers. A decade ago he had one of the year's top films with "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me." Now as a culture it's easy to step back and ask, what were we thinking? But at the time Myers' brand of dumb raunch seemed fresh.
And then, surprisingly quickly, it wasn't. Now Myers counts his millions while voicing "Shrek" movies, and the way "The Love Guru" bombed shows how little people miss him.
Animation, by the way, may be the great refuge of the former comedy phenom. Rogen's recent live action films have bombed, but he's been huge in animated films ("Monsters vs Aliens," "Kung Fu Panda") during the same period. Ferrell may want to find himself a big fuzzy 3-D character to voice real soon.
Because audiences do indeed seem to tire of movie stars more quickly these days. You have to wonder if a new Harrison Ford or Will Smith will ever emerge, a star who can keep bringing home the hits for decades.
Or have we become a nation of next-addicts, craving new blood and burning out quickly on the familiar?
Movies at the halfway point
Here we are halfway through June, which means halfway through the year. Time to stop and look back over the past six months.
The first quarter was sizzling hot, now things have calmed down a bit. In fact, as of right now the year's far and away top hit, "Star Trek," is only 66 on the list of all-time hits, which means nothing has truly exploded.
"Trek" is still making money, of course, and will likely end up in the all-time top 50... but that's still a long ways from last year's "Dark Knight," which ended up number 2 all-time, or the "Spider-Man" movies, which are all in the top 16.
The year so far:
Best movie -- "Up," no real competition
Biggest financial bust -- Looks to be "Land of the Lost."
Most successful actors -- That would be Anton Yelchin, with two $100 million movies under his belt ("Star Trek" and "Terminator Salvation"), and Bradley Cooper, with "The Hangover" and "He's Just Not That Into You." Not exactly household names, are they?
Major underperformers -- "State of Play," "Duplicity," "Watchmen," "Drag Me to Hell"
Big surprises -- nothing has topped the January duo of of "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" ($146 million) and "Taken" ($145 million), both of which came out of nowhere
Good performances in middling films -- Amy Adams and Emily Blunt in "Sunshine Cleaning"; Robert Downey Jr. in "The Soloist"; Anna Faris in "Observe and Report"; the entire cast of Lymelife"
Best use of 3-D -- "Coraline"
Worst use of 3-D -- "My Bloody Valentine 3-D"
Something we should always remember -- "Hotel for Dogs" made $73 million. That's more than movies starring Julia Roberts, Russell Crowe, Steve Martin, Clive Owen, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron.
So much for the power of movie stars. And if there's one gathering storm of a story in film so far this year, it's that. The top stars in the top movie of the year so far are Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. Movie stars still matter, sometimes, but this year proves the classic model no longer rules audience decisions.
Just ask Kevin James.
David Carradine RIP
There are 222 performance listings on the Internet Movie Database for David Carradine, who died Wednesday in Thailand.
Two hundred twenty two. That's huge.
They range from early '60s appearances in TV classics like "Wagon Train" and "East Side/West Side" to his recent dirty old bad guy turn in "Crank: High Voltage," and they include six films yet to be released as well as one we'll likely never see.
Then again, much of Carradine's work went unseen. After achieving cult status with "Kung Fu" in the early '70s -- as well as the original "Death Race" in theaters -- Carradine spent his long career bobbing in and out of the mainstream consciousness. He did tons of absolute crap, he parodied his own New Age persona, he took work where he could get it.
I won't guess whether he was haunted by the legendary status of his father, actor John Carradine, or if he thought the whole Great Acting Family thing was a joke. I was not a student of the man.
But I do know that one of the most graceful, affecting, off-the-wall cool and powerful performances I've ever seen was Carradine as Bill in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." Playing a life-long murderer who knows his bill has probably come due, his final, extended scene with Uma Thurman was one of the acting triumphs of my lifetime.
True, Tarantino's dialogue had a lot to do with it. But just watch the way Carradine makes a sandwich, talks to his daughter, tells Thurman he loves her even after she has doomed him.
He exudes the confidence of a man who has chosen to live outside the system, who has manipulated that system to his will, who has sinned without regret and understands the cold blood running through his veins... and yet who retains an oddly sweet warmth.
It's a complex portrayal, and it should have been honored with at least an Oscar nomination.
I did not know the man. I do know that performance will be with me all my days.
The greatest movie site ever?
And now the greatest movie site ever. Or at least the most useful.
It's called RunPee.com and it lets you know before you go to see a film those points during the movie where you can most easily run out for a bathroom break.
No, I'm not kidding.
It's subtitled: Helping your bladder enjoy going to the movies as much as you do.
OK, it's not being run by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
It appears to be run by someone who is addicted to chocolate chip cookies and living in their mom's spare bedroom. They'd appreciate it if you could send them $1 to help with their research.
For each film there's a timeline with indicators as to when you can run to the bathroom. The indicators are accompanied by verbal cues.
For instance, in "Star Trek" there are six (a high number) potential break points marked. The last is "RunPee approximately one hour and 40 minutes into the movie when... Kirk says to Spock, "See, we are getting to know one another" and then slaps him on the shoulder"
And if you do leave at this time, you can later come back to RunPee and unscramble the synopsis of what happened while you were in the bathroom.
The suggestions themselves are, obviously, a sort of review of the film. A movie with lots of RunPee spots would seem to be a bit thin.
On the other hand, only one RunPee spot is listed for "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," a film I personally thought was one long RunPee spot.
Still, nice idea.
Terminator, Up, Star Trek: Will quality mean big bucks?
Not to give anything away, but "Up" is incredible.
Which means that this May has been -- at least in terms of quality -- the best May in five years. Toss in "Star Trek" and "Terminator Salvation" and you've got three knockout, or at least three damn solid, mainstream films.
I'm not saying these movies will earn as much as May films in prior years. I'm just saying the quality is there. Let's compare:
2008 -- Started out strong with "Iron Man" but then you get the retread Indy, the bomb Narnia and the mediocre "Sex and the City."
2007 -- Big bucks, low quality from the Thirds: Spidey 3, Shrek 3 and Pirates 3. Ugh.
2006 -- Again, big bucks, but X-Men 3 was middling good, Da Vinci was a torpid ball of confusion and does anybody even remember "Over the Hedge"? The best that month was "Mission Impossible 3," but it made the least money.
2005 -- What a turkey. "Revenge of the Sith," "Madagascar," and remember "The Longest Yard"?
2004 -- Shrek 2 was decent and made gazillions, but remember "Troy" and "The Day After Tomorrow"? I'm not actively dissing "Troy," it was just an oddity and something of an underperformer.
Getting three good "big" movies in one month -- especially a month given over to retreads and sure things -- is tough. And even though the success of "Star Trek" is virtually assured -- if only it could have run longer in IMAX theaters (it's getting yanked this week for "Museum") -- the financial success of "Terminator" and "Up" is yet to be determined.
OK, "Up" will do big business no matter what, Pixar always does, but no recent Pixar film has come close to the popularity of "Finding Nemo" ($339 million). Both "WALL-E" and "Ratatouille" came in under $225 million, and I'm guessing "Up" will stay in that vicinity as well. In some ways Pixar is too good for its own good, but I'm not complaining.
"Terminator," though, is more of a question mark. It's a straight-ahead, spectacular sci-fi war movie, and things never really lighten up much. Gloom worked for the Batman series, director McG is obviously hoping it will work here as well.
Artistically, it does. Financially? We'll see. Hope so. This installment got me primed for another. That's how you know a sequel works.
Tom Hanks' lost decade
It was sometime between 1988 ("Big") and 1994 ("Forrest Gump") that Tom Hanks became the most popular guy in America.
Every kid wanted him for a dad, every dad wanted him for a son, every wife pretty much just wanted him, not as some hot sex prospect but as that quintessentially decent guy worth spending a life with.
As an actor he proved he could go just about anywhere, picking up Oscars for "Philadelphia" (1993) and "Gump," and then topping himself with "Saving Private Ryan" and "Apollo 13."
It's been a decade, though, since "Ryan." And even though everyone agrees that Hanks remains just about the swellest guy in America, as an actor he's never regained the momentum he had in the '90s. "Cast Away" in 2000 was his last great role, and even it didn't match up to "Ryan" or "Appolo."
It's not that he's done a lot of bad movies. To the contrary, most of what Hanks chooses to do is at least interesting and generally entertaining.
But he hasn't really had the grand click, where a superb role fits into a superb movie, in a decade.
He certainly doesn't have it with "Angels & Demons," which comes out Friday. In fact it may be his most forgettable role and it's in a thoroughly pedestrian movie.
Let's face it: It's hard being the best. You are forever defined by, and compared to, your previous achievements. This is Hanks' cross to bear, probably made a bit easier by the tens of millions (actually, more probably hundreds of millions) of dollars he's made over the years.
Still, it's got to be tough. Yes, something like "Angels" keeps him in the spotlight, and yes he has produced all sorts of classy stuff over the past decade ("Big Love," "Band of Brothers," "From the Earth to the Moon" -- the list is long).
But the fact is as an actor he isn't living up to his potential. Which probably means Hollywood isn't living up to his potential, coming up with just the right script and just the right character.
Hanks has been waiting for lightning to strike again for a decade. So come on lightning -- strike.
Will "Star Trek" soar?
How high can the starship fly?
That's the question floating around Hollywood this weekend. I've seen estimates ranging from as low as $50 million for the opening weekend of "Star Trek" all the way up to $75 million.
Why the wide range? Because nobody really knows how much interest there is in the Trek franchise. It was never all that huge -- it might have been bigger if the first film wasn't such a dud -- and the last Trek film, "Nemesis," was a flat-out bomb.
Many of the TV show's original fans are in their golden years or have outright expired. And the cult phenomena has become a tired punch line after four decades.
Still... "Star Trek" is part of our cultural consciousness at this point. And that may be enough to entice youngsters -- anyone under 25, really -- who don't have any real Trek experience or luggage into theaters. They may just want to know what all the hubbub is about.
Add to that the built-in number of people who'll go see anything Trek, along with the built-in number of people who'll go see anything period, and you've filled quite a few seats.
But here's the key thing. This "Star Trek" is one rocking movie, energized by a young cast and delivered by a very modern action auteur (JJ Abrams). It is easily one of the best action popcorn flicks of the century so far and probably the best bigtime space yarn in more than a decade.
All of which I said in my review on Thursday. But to my delight, pretty much every other critic said the same things.
And that's why this may be the one big movie this summer that won't completely depend on its opening weekend. I think this one's actually going to generate buzz and bring people to theaters ongoing, and at least through the next weekend when the only thing opening is "Angels and Demons" (who exactly is going to see that movie, by the way?).
So my guess for this weekend is $65 million, with many more happy returns over the month of May. Hopefully it ends up with $250 milklion worldwide (foreign box office will be key to its success).
This may, obviously, just be addled optimism, since I'm already looking forward to the second installment with this cast. Hopefully "Star Trek" will, in this form, live long and prosper at the box office.
