Well, I should be getting my first look at Zeu's pencils soon. While I wait, I thought I'd share nothing important.
I watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen this weekend. Took a couple of days. That is one long movie. I started it at around 3:30 in the morning on Sunday. I was wide awake (an unfortunate hazard of working this overnight shift), and it was available for free on HBO. I thought, "Why not? I want to finally see what a turd this movie really is."
After watching it--and actually enjoying it, but more on that in a minute--I reached what I was pretty sure was the beginning of the final act. I was getting pretty sleepy, and it was around 5 a.m. at this point and I figured it might behoove me to actually go to sleep for a little bit. So I decided to check and see just how much of the movie was left, in case it was worth just staying up to finish.
A frickin' hour and a half still left to go.
Wow.
It was at this point that I started to wonder if maybe I had been giving this movie too much credit.
One of my biggest pet peeves with the first one was the terrible pacing. The first third of Transformers was fun, engaging, a little silly, but mostly clipped along nicely. But it was the scene where Sam brings home the Transformers and they have to hide in his backyard that things felt like they hit a brick wall. Specifically when he and his parents stopped the movie in its tracks to have a long, "hilarious" conversation about masturbation. So gratuitous, and completely appropos of nothing (not to sound like too much of a tool). It was like Michael Bay had this great scene his kid had written for a Judd Apatow movie, and he just had to find a place to work it into the script. Well I remember watching the film in the theater and having the very noticeable sensation that the film was completely unraveling right before my eyes.
So when, an hour and ten minutes into Revenge of the Fallen and reaching a point that felt distinctly like the beginning of the end, I found out I wasn't even halfway done...well, my heart sank a bit. Up to that point I had actually been pleasantly surprised by how much I was enjoying the movie.
And as I got ready for bed, I was contemplating why this one actually seemed to be a better movie. There are a few reasons, but one of the ones I kept returning to was: No Jon Turturro! He was a pain in the butt in the first movie, and his presence to me marked the complete breakdown of the whole story. He was just such a ridiculous character, and totally out of place. Good thing he wasn't in the sequel.
Those of you who have seen the movie know what I'm about to say.
I spoke too soon.
I sat down to watch the rest of the movie on Sunday and not three minutes after I hit play, whom did I see fill the screen? Turturro himself, reprising the same silly role from the first film.
However, I must say...he didn't annoy me quite as much. I still think he was unnecessary, but then again much of Revenge of the Fallen was unnecessary. Heck, the whole movie was unnecessary. And yet I think the fact that I didn't find Turturro quite so grating is less a credit to any restrained acting on his part, but actually a byproduct of what made the whole movie, for me, more palatable than the first. That is, the silliness was more evenly distributed throughout.
What didn't work for me in the first one was how it couldn't seem to decide if it was trying to make a goofy subject into something serious, or just trying to add some serious elements to an unabashedly goofy story. It had elements of both, and really it could've been OK, but the inredients just weren't mixed properly. I think with Fallen, they got a lot closer to the correct proportions.
But I'm pleased to say that even after watching the remaining 90 minutes (split up over another two sessions) I still enjoyed the movie on the whole. All the things that people said made the movie terrible, like the shuck-n-jive Autobot twins, I didn't actually mind. So Devastator had testicles? Is that really surprising given we saw a robot pee on a man's head in the first film?
When I think back on Fallen, in fact, I can't really think of that may things I truly had a problem with. Even the relationship between Sam and Michaela, for some reason, felt genuine. In the first movie, it felt like she just couldn't wait to get away from this nerd. By the end, I really expected her to break up with him. And even at the beginning of Fallen, it felt strained. In fact, the very first thing out of her mouth is that she's breaking up with Sam. Of course, she's kidding (or is she?), and the relationship continues. But I think that acknowledging the tenuous nature of the relationship actually served to make it more believable. I kind of found myself rooting for Sam, and hoping that Michaela would give him a chance.
Actually, that reminds me of probably the biggest problem I did have with the movie: the terminator transformer. I think the filmmakers were perhaps trying to bank on last summer's other big film, Terminator Salvation, and they brought in a Terminatrix of their own. (Yes, I know that's a reference to T3, but go with me here.) Since when can Transformers mimic people? And if they can, then why the hell wouldn't they just do that ALL THE TIME? Hello? It seems like if you're trying to infiltrate the human race, hide in plain sight, and gain access to their biggest secrets, a good place to start would be to LOOK LIKE A HUMAN.
When stuff happens in movies and books that seems out of place, unrealstic, or just plain stupid, I often stop and ask myself if it really mattered in the grand scheme. And thankfully, all the stuff with Transformadam didn't really have a big impact on the story.
I still hate the design of the Decepticons. In fact, I hate the way the robots all look in general. Way too over designed. I mean, as much as those things move around, they really should've been made with more simple, large pieces. Like Duplo.
But that's part of where I think the first movie failed, when it was trying to make the Transformers more "realistic." Obviously the way they looked in the cartoon was, well, cartoony. It wouldn't work in real life. But I'm sorry, when you have a fight between robots and you can't tell where one ends and the other begins...or how many there even are in the fight...except by flashes of blue or silver here and there...that's a bad design. But that's something that's never going to change, I suppose. And frankly, that's the same problem that plagues most CG creatures and vehicles these days. But that's a whole other blog post I could write, so I'll stop there.
But my experience watching and enjoying Fallen reminded me that my taste in movies is often counter to popular opinion. I started thinking of all the movies I like that I really have no reason to. Movies that everyone hates but me. And maybe it's the fact that they are so hated that endears me to them, to some degree. Everyone likes to root for the underdog. But there's more to it than that. There's usually an earnestness in movies that everyone hates. There's an honesty in their storytelling, and that's what I appreciate. And I think it's that honesty that turns people off, like a girl who only dates assholes. The average viewer wants a film that hates them, that is doing them a favor by even letting them watch it. They want a movie that smacks them around and says "I'm too good for you!", and then goes out drinking with its friends all night long and doesn't even come back home until the next afternoon with the smell of cheap whiskey and even cheaper perfume on its clothes.
I like the movies that wear their heart on their sleeves. I like the movies that try to impress by just putting it all out there in front and saying "Am I good enough now?", with an added whisper, "I love you."
I like the movies that maybe aren't the best looking movies in the theater. They might not wear the fanciest clothes or play sports. But they will stay up until 3 in the morning with you on the phone just because you've had a bad day. They will drive over to your house to bring you soup when you're not feeling good. And they'll take you to the prom when your big, pretentious movie bails on you at the last minute. They already havea tux and everything.
Movies like:
Super Mario Bros.
Lost in Space
Robot Jox
Mortal Kombat
Batman Forever
Speed Racer
Twister
Jurassic Park
Rocketeer
Josie and the Pussycats
Happy Feet
(more to come)
(And what of art films? Basically the same as the other kind, expect more passive agressive than abusive. They make you feel bad about yourself through words instead actions. They're the intellectual asshole.)
So that's my take on movies. Some of my favorite movies are pretty widely panned. There are some exceptions in that list, of course, namely Jurassic Park and Twister. Hey, sometimes the underdog just gets lucky.
Like Sam and Michaela.
(Wow, I actually managed to bring that full-circle. Well, at least 3/4 circle. That's good enough.)
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