Tag Archives: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Top Best and Worst Films of 2011

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We all had our fair share on films that made us smile and made us frown. To celebrate my recent Writer of the Year award and a step to a new year, I will reveal my list of best of worst films of 2011. I, however, did not get the luxury to see some of the films I would have liked to have seen (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Artist, Melancholia etc.) and this will be a mix of UK and North American release dates.

*BEST*

1) Drive – Nicolas Winding-Refn crafts an artistically pulpy film noir that delivers heart-stopping tension but also brings some humanity to the story. Ryan Gosling is compelling as the nameless driver but it is Albert Brooks that steals the spot-light as the menacing Bernie Ross. The car chases (especially the pre-credits sequence) are brilliantly shot and the editing is fluid. The cinematography brings the darkness to the Los Angeles glamour that we all have been acquainted to from many films set in the City of Angels.

2) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – The thought on making an English version of the novel when there’s already a Swedish TV/Movie made two years ago made us all cry in outrage. Then David Fincher came along and proved the nay-sayers wrong! Even if you’ve already read the novel or seen the 2009 foreign film, Fincher still delivers a dark and intense thriller. Rooney Mara makes a career-making turn as Lisbeth Salander and I honestly prefer her take on the character than Noomi Rapace’s (not saying Rapace’s was bad, just prefered Mara’s a bit more)

3) Black Swan – It is essentially Darren Aronofsky’s Swan Lake, though it’s about a ballerina (Natalie Portman) who gets chosen to play the lead of the new version of Swan Lake. The sense of paranoia from the cinematography, visual effects and even from Portman’s Oscar-winning performance is executed brilliantly. You really feel you are descending into madness, blurring the fine line between reality and fantasy. It’s also a body horror film, as Portman’s character slowly becomes the Black Swan. It was seriously a dark start for 2011 but it got me hooked till its perfect finale.

4) War Horse – Spielberg never ceases to amaze with his filmmaking skills (okay, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull aside). The trailer for this film came off (for me anyways) as a parody, so it’s incredible that a filmmaker like Spielberg was able to make that work! The ensemble British cast is astounding, from the likes of David Thewlis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Emily Watson, Paul Mullan and Liam Cunningham. The score by John Williams is one of the best he’s done since Munich and the cinematography by Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan) is breathtaking.

5) The Tree of Life – The biggest Marmite movie you’ll come across; you’ll either love it or you hate it! I, however, loved it and found it incredibly intriguing and ambitious. The film’s story is driven thematically and visually, being an expressionistic piece of work. Brad Pitt delivers one of his best performances in his career (along with Moneyball and The Assassination of Jesse James). A personal film that asks universal questions and it is such a beautiful and majestic piece of filmmaking.

*Honourable mention; Hugo*

*WORST*

1) Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Second highest grossing film of 2011 (behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) but it comes up to my list as the most unbearable film to watch of 2011. The human characters are ungodly annoying, Shia LaBeouf has nothing we could relate to and constantly screams more in this film than the two previous films combined! The new girl in the block, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, is completely emotionless and nothing more to show than her looks. The action sequences are better executed this time around but the Transformers gets shoved aside in favour for the human characters. The film is also way too long, the rest of the film is just filled with filler and characters that don’t need to be in the film (i.e. Sam’s parents). Michael Bay said he didn’t care for Transformers before he made the first film and it still shows he’s not suited for this film.

2) Sucker Punch – This is an unfortunate case where you give too much money and creative freedom to a film director that’s all about style and no substance. The problem is, it tries to bring a message and empower women but there’s nothing to it to get and the women are no way represented in a positive note by wearing corsets and fish nets. The film is completely incoherent (both in story and style), the action sequences have no purpose but to be there and non of our heroines have any characteristics to make them any different from another. It is a complete mess of a film and hopefully Man of Steel will bring Snyder’s reputation back.

3) Green Lantern – Talk about being hugely disappointing. The marketing for this film was far superior than the final product (I have seen an Extended Cut version was released but heard it barely made any improvements). This really could’ve set a new movie franchise for Warner Bros./DC Comics; you had a director that’s competent in action and drama (both GoldenEye and Casino Royale are proof of that) and Ryan Reynolds being the likable cocky hero. This could’ve been as exciting and epic like Star Wars but the script and creative decisions got lost in the abyss. The film looks and feels so lifeless and artificial, you cannot help but feel underwhelmed this could’ve been a great film if more time and effort was put into it. The ending teased with a sequel baiting scene but this bombed at the box-office (even though Warner Bros. were convinced it would be a success that they green-lit a sequel. . . . Beware Green Lantern’s light? I think he should beware of our expectations).

*Dishonourable mention; Cowboys & Aliens*

*BEST BLOCKBUSTER*

X-Men: First Class – The X-Men franchise nearly had the last nail to its coffin, after the dull X-Men: The Last Stand and the terrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Matthew Vaughn, after his huge success with Kick-Ass, comes along and tells the story of the complicated friendship between Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) and the origins of X-Men. The film is the best of the series, creating a huge sense of fun but not having the spectacle get in the way of character development (especially between the two leads). Both McAvoy and Fassbender are incredibly engaging from the start, though the project started on being another origin story but solely about Lensherr’s past and eventually becoming Magneto. Although the thing that brings the film down is January Jones as Emma Frost (strong contender for Razzie nomination) but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the hell out of this film.

*BEST TRAILER*

There was some huge decision making for which trailer would win this particular award, so it wasn’t easy to choose from previews of what is about to come in 2012. As much as the latest trailers for The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey were hugely exciting but I would go for Ridley Scott’s, Prometheus. All to do with Ridley Scott returning to the genre that got him on the Hollywood map (Alien and Blade Runner) and the fact it looks spectacular. Being an Alien prequel but not featuring any xenomorphs that we all know an love. Though it does show snippets of the origins of the derelict ship featured in the first film (and second film if you watch Special Edition version of Aliens). Also the cast looks fantastic, ranging from Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce and Idris Elba. The trailer even pays homage to the trailer of Alien (the title slowly fading in and the eerie sound effect that rings through-out the trailer).

Why Films Are Getting Stupider (Probably)

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When DreamWorks’ CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, stated last month that 2011 had so far been one of the worst years for cinema in recent memory, it was easy to see where he was coming from.

Sure, the CEO of DreamWorks complaining about the quality of filmmaking does reek of hypocrisy (this is the man responsible for the unforgivable Shrek sequels) and yes, this year is probably not worse than 2010 but still, it’s hard to imagine 2011 being remembered as a golden year for cinema (or une année d’or if you want to be all Cannes about it).

How will it be remembered?

Perhaps as the year Harry Potter part 7 part 2 was able to stake a legitimate claim to the title of ‘Best Film of the Summer’, or the year Hollywood was running so low on ideas that they made a freaking Smurfs movie even though no one asked for one and scientific studies (probably) showed that most people would rather have a knitting needle shoved into their eye than have to pass posters emblazoned with the vacuous faces of the smug blue bastards on the tube everyday. Or perhaps 2011 will quite simply be remembered as the year cinema got even stupider.

The central problem with cinema today is that the film industry is no longer making movies for adults. I believe that the blame for this can be attributed to one little word: ‘demographics’.  For a long time now, the balance between ‘show’ and ‘biz’ has been out of whack. Studios are so focused on revenue that films are increasingly being made solely to appeal to the broadest possible consumer demographic, forsaking little things like quality and integrity.

It seems that some marketing genius somewhere has also decided that people over the age of about 15 don’t go to the cinema anymore.  In addition to this, it’s common knowledge that the young, perhaps due to their not-as-yet-entirely-formed brains, are much more inclined to buy the ‘merchandise’ that movie studios are busy fashioning out of cheap plastic and the tears of orphans in some factory in the Far East. This has led to film studios pouring huge amounts of time and money into films aimed at teenagers and, God help us, tweenagers. (It should be noted at this juncture that this demographic of course deserves to be rewarded for its valuable

Unnecessary and irritating

contribution to our flagging economy and for the fact that it isn’t comprised of ungrateful squatters insistent on milking dry our society’s bizarre idolisation of the young).

This not only leads to more films being made specifically for a younger age group, but also to the tweaking of films that traditionally might not have been aimed predominantly at a youth market (this is why every big Hollywood film now has to have a seemingly unnecessary and irritating teenage character who makes wisecracks and adds little or nothing to the plot).

In addition to this, there are countless examples of screenwriters having their work butchered because Hollywood execs are worried that this youth market won’t understand words of more than two syllables or be able to focus on the screen for 15 seconds without an anaemic chase sequence or a cutesy CGI rabbit prancing around.  In short, they are attempting to make movies so stupid that even the stupidest person in the room can enjoy them.

Of course, this is based on the mistaken assumption that teenagers and children are idiots. I don’t believe this and I’m sure you don’t either. In fact, in my experience kids are more equipped than most to follow the plot of even the most byzantine blockbuster because not having student loans to pay off or a job to worry about means that they are able to focus much more energy on understanding the intricate details of a fictional world.

Naturally, some children are idiots in the same way that some adults are idiots (children and adults share many similarities like this, something the use of ‘demographics’ fails to elucidate) but on the whole, children are pretty smart. If you don’t believe me, just ask any little boy about his love of Star Wars or James Bond or dinosaurs and I guarantee that he will amaze you with an answer so extensive and detailed that even Temple Grandin would probably think it was a

All it takes is one strong gust of wind...

little over the top.

No, I don’t think that the youth market is stupid and neither do you, but as we all know, conventional wisdom has no place in Hollywood and clearly they think the little darlings are as thick as box of rocks.  Don’t believe this? Don’t believe that movies are getting stupider? I have a statistic: the average shot length (ASL) of US films in 2008 was 2.5 seconds (the most recent statistic I could find). This means that roughly half the time in 2010, movies could not go 2.5 seconds without cutting to a different shot. The average movie studio believes that we can’t go more than about three seconds without the under-15s getting distracted and leaping around the cinema trying to catch imaginary butterflies.

If this is not an absurd underestimation of our collective intelligence then I don’t know what is.

Compare this to the fact that in 2000 it was 4.7, in 1994 it was 6.8 and in 1972 it was a whopping 8.6 seconds and you have categorical proof that films are getting dumber and it’s children’s fault.

 

Of course, the fact that so many films are being so heavily targeted to the youth demographic means that anyone over the age of 15 is skipping the cinema and staying home to watch Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic instead. This means that when the marketing guy checks the figures again, he naturally comes to the conclusion that no one over the age of 15 goes to the cinema and so he reports that the studio should be even more heavily targeting their output to the youth demographic who are of course all suffering from ADHD, anterograde amnesia

Did you know that if you watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon whilst simultaneously listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon it actually drowns out the piss-poor dialogue?

and crippling stupidity. This in turn, leads to more stupid movies and even fewer intelligent adults going to the cinema. The marketing guy then checks the figures again and so on and so forth. It’s a vicious circle, but I’m sure you’ve got that now (unless of course you’re a teenager, in which case we’ll be here for hours).

Compounding this problem is the fact that films getting steadily stupider means that cinemagoers (on the rare occasions that you do go to the cinema) are becoming less demanding, indoctrinated by this widespread idiocy. This means that the bar for what people will pay to see at the cinema just keeps getting lower. So when you forked over your hard-earned cash to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon (even the title has a typo) because ‘y’know it passes the time of day and there are like some real cool ‘splosions and such’ you were actually creating a demand for more horribly inane movies to be made. Basically, it’s your fault.

By now this relentless negativity, this somewhat condescending end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it attitude that I’ve adopted has started to wear you down and you’re probably left asking firstly, whether things are really as bad as I’m making out and secondly whether we can do anything to prevent cinema’s seemingly inevitable descent into idiocy.

Well, the answer to the first question is a tentative ‘not really, I’m being dramatic’. While on the whole, studios do seem to be churning out more and more movies that are little more than products designed to generate revenue, all is not lost. This year alone has seen

Apathy is bad

many surprising, heartfelt, challenging brilliant films such as Win Win, True Grit, Tree of Life, Beginners, Bridesmaids and Submarine so we definitely shouldn’t give up hope yet.

And the answer to the second question is ‘yes’, you can prevent it by going to see the films I listed above because demand creates supply.

If more people go to see intelligent and well-made films, then more intelligent and well-made films will be made, it’s basic economics. Now, I’m not saying that we all need to be watching Eastern European art house films with inexplicable costumes and ugly people crying, just choosing the better option.

If you’re going to the cinema this evening, don’t go and see Transformers, go and see Super 8 or Tree of Life instead. And later this year don’t go and see Final Destination 5 (5inal Destination, seriously?), go and see Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

Have some self-respect and demand something from cinema. Demand to be challenged, to be moved, or to laugh. Demand to be exhilarated or befuddled. Demand to be angered even.  Just don’t allow yourself to be yet another pile of laundry who just sits in that dark room feeling nothing for 90 minutes and then immediately forgets about it afterwards because you are better than that and you deserve better than that. After all, we are lucky enough to be alive at a time when the likes of Terrence Malick, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese are still making movies. Let’s take a moment to be grateful for that.

If you want to try to counteract the ill-effects of the cinematic junk food you are being force-fed, then please check out our new semi-regular feature, ‘Have you seen… ‘. The first of these is about the 1998 film Happiness and can be found here:    Have You Seen… Happiness?

Transformers: Dark of the Moon {Film Review}

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*WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Back in 2007, Michael Bay admitted he originally did not want to make the first Transformers movie, calling it a “stupid toys movie”, until Steven Spielberg changed the premise to “a kid and his car”.

It suggests that Bay was unsuitable to take the reins of a live-action Transformers movie. Despite this, the first film was a huge hit, considering it was during the year of threequels (Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and The Bourne Ultimatum). The follow-up, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, was plagued with a script that was barely finished, thanks to the writer’s strike, and although resulting in a complete mess, still made $800 million worldwide. So now the inevitable conclusion to the trilogy has come around and, as much it is a slight improvement to Transformers 2, it’s still no good.

The plot starts off with Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) making a monologue (you know, like he did with the last two movies) about the war of Cybertron (which could’ve been a potentially better movie if explored further). It’s revealed a ship managed to escape, but lands on the moon, heavily damaged. John F. Kennedy (worst rotoscoping effects I’ve ever seen) authorises Apollo 11 to land on the moon and document footage of the crash site.

Flash-forward to the modern day, Optimus Prime learns about the ship and finds his mentor, Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy). Sentinel mentions his mission was to take the pillars away from Cybertron, so it’d be out of the Decepticon’s reach. Though we eventually find out the Decepticons raided the ship long before, while also revealing Sentinel made a truce with the Decepticons, betraying the Autobots for the survival of Cybertron.

The problem with these movies (a flaw since the first film), is the Transformers feel more like supporting characters, but shouldn’t they be the ones leading the movie? They barely get any screen-time whatsoever. Instead, Bay focusses on the human characters; Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), Lennox (Josh Duhamel), Simmons (John Tuturro), Epps (Tyrese Gibson) and Ron and Judy Witwicky (Kevin Dunn and Julie White). We’re also introduced to a whole new bunch; Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), Mearing (Frances McDormand), Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich), Dutch (Alan Tudyk) and Dylan (Patrick Dempsey).

The problem with 11 characters vying for screen time is that they too get very little development. So, in essence, we have a film where we don’t have anything or anyone to relate to. We just don’t care about anyone. Live, die, I’ve dropped my popcorn – emotionally,  it all feels the same.

Anyway, it starts off with Sam having a hard time finding a job, but also bothered that he’s been awarded a medal by Barack Obama for saving the world twice (though technically once, since he did squat in the second film). The man clearly has angst, yet still barely makes any contribution to the narrative.

Meanwhile, the character of Carly feels it was originally written for Megan Fox’s Mikaela, but with the name changed at the last minute. Rosie’s previous “acting” experience was being a Victoria’s Secret model (also being in a VS commercial, directed by Michael Bay). It’s no surprise then, that her purpose in the film seems to be none other than to exploit her looks in the most juvenile way possible. Her performance in this film is terrible. She really brings down the film and she’s just as bad as Megan Fox (early contender for Worst Actress, put my money on it!).

The scenes involving Sam working for Malkovich could’ve easily been cut out, as could The NEST team (led by Lennox). Their sole purpose is to allow Bay to exploit his fetish for everything military. All of these characters act like cardboard cut-outs and deliver lame attempts of humour. Especially Ken Jeong’s character, Jerry Wang, who at one point locks Sam in a toilet stall and says to him “Deep Wang” (just to really force it down your throats, he says it three times and then says: “Get it? Deep Throat”). One for the kids, that.

In fairness, the action sequences in this film have been improved – no longer shaky-cam or close-up, but wide enough to see. The climactic battle at the end of the movie is very well done, but is literally the only thing worth watching. However, 90% of the battle is focused on the humans and barely on the Transformers. As much as it features Autobots and Decepticons beating the living daylights out of each other, Bay wants to have his fix by having soldiers parachuting out of a plane in flying squirrel suits and gliding down in Chicago (which was such a good plan that only one plane out of six made it).

The other problem is, as mentioned before, you just don’t care if any of the characters die in this big, winner-take-all, devil-take-the-hindmost shoot out. Plus, the tone in the film is all over the place. For example, Carly gets kidnapped and Sam is forced to spy for the Decepticons. It’s a scene where Sam grapples with the decision to betray his friends, only to go straight into pure slapstick humour. If you looked up the words ‘killing a scene’, it’d have a link to this film next to it.

A live-action Transformers movie could’ve gone any other way, but Bay decided to take this route and we’re supposed to accept what we have in front of us. The phrase people say when going to go see this movie is ‘leave your brain at the door’. Well, I honestly think it comes across as having too low standards and being easily amused. Don’t get me wrong, I like blockbusters as much as the next person, but I DO have a brain (we all do!).

Inception proved that you don’t need to dumb down your movie to attract mainstream audiences and become a box-office hit. You can bring good story-telling with some amazing set-pieces, instead, we just get a movie that’s all style and no substance. I don’t expect everything to be a Terrence Malick movie, but I at least expect a blockbuster that entertains and doesn’t insult our intelligence. If only Bay had watched X-Men: First Class.

Overall, a typical Michael Bay movie. Loud, incredibly dumb and exploitative as hell (in the worst sense)! The characters are bland and pointless, the Transformers are treated with no respect (especially Optimus Prime) and the plot is nonsensical. The worst summer movie of 2011 and one of the worst movie series ever made!

2 out of 5

 

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley 'honoured' to be Burberry Body

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Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is thrilled to be working with Burberry again, crediting the British label with helping to launch her career.

The Victoria’s Secret model and ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ actress has teamed up with the brand to become their first Burberry Body, making her the face and body of the company’s new fragrance.

Rosie said: ”It’s a huge honour to be working with Burberry again, a brand that put my career on the map and helped launch me. To be asked to be the first ‘Burberry Body’ is an amazing compliment.”

Chief creative officer Christopher Bailey – who handpicks up-and-coming British stars to appear in the label’s advertising campaigns – added: “Rosie’s effortless style and her staggering beauty made her the natural choice as the first Burberry Body.”

In the pictures, shot by renowned photographer Mario Testino, the 24-year-old model flaunts her stunning figure in a strategically styled Burberry trench.

Rosie – who lives in Los Angeles with her British actor boyfriend Jason Statham – is also the spokesmodel for the British heritage brand’s beauty range.

Patrick Dempsey's juggling past

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Patrick Dempsey used to be a champion juggler.

The ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ actor won prizes for his ball control when he was a teenager and insists his skills are a “big thing” because he can handle complex moves.

He said: “I started out as a juggler. I came second in the international juggler’s competition and the junior division in 1982 or 1983.

“I can juggle five balls at once. It’s a pretty big thing most people can do three, but when you get into five then you’re in a different league.”

While he was previously a juggler, the 45-year-old star insists he wouldn’t give up acting now because he has learned to deal with the tough parts of his profession – and doesn’t know what else he could do.

Asked if he ever considered giving up acting, he told Britain’s ELLE magazine: “It’s a very difficult profession – you have to deal with rejection constantly.

“You have to learn not to take things personally and to keep improving yourself, but you need constructive criticism to grow.

“Also, I never qualified in anything else. At this point, I just don’t know what I would do.”