The UBS Evening Television & Movie News 07.02.09
Posted by George H. Sirois on 07.02.2009
The “TransFormers: Revenge of the Fallen Review [Unofficially 5]” Edition...
Welcome everyone to the latest edition of the UBS Evening Movie News. I'm George H. Sirois, and I still can't believe the amount of celebrity deaths since last Thursday. And by the time you'll be reading this, a few more will have lost us. There's nothing I can say about the passing of Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays that the rest of the 411Mania writers haven't already said, so I'll just politely defer to them and give my respects and sympathies to their families, as well as my respects and sympathies to the families of former boxer Alexis Arguerro, choreographer Pina Bausch and actor Karl Malden.
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Valsport America has closed their voting booths, and the winner is... I'll let you know Thursday morning!
And now, on with the news!
SYBIL THE SOOTHSAYER
UPCOMING MOVIES
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: After the events of "Ice Age: The Meltdown", life begins to change for Manny (Ray Romano) and his friends.
I'm a little torn on the Ice Age franchise. There are definitely some entertaining scenes, but they never really hold my interest from start to finish. Of course, the kids love them, which leads me to believe that this will take the Number 1 spot this weekend considering the mixed to bad word-of-mouth on TransFormers: Revenge of the Fallen. But after some more pondering, I'll predict this comes in at Number 2. (I could be wrong, and if my recent history tells me, I probably am.)
Public Enemies: The Feds (Christian Bale) try to take down notorious American gangsters John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s.
I'm a sucker for seeing two major stars going against each other in a story like this, and this looks like a lot of fun so I'll definitely be seeing this.
Credit: TheMovieBox.net
DVD NEWS
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has announced they are adding some Westerns to their fall release line-up and has scheduled Sam Raimi's The Quick And The Dead for release on Blu-Ray in September.
The 1995 film will arrive in 1080p high definition with high definition audio tracks. Unfortunately no bonus materials have been announced at this time, which is a real shame since no Blu-Ray release should be bare-bones. What's the point of having so much room on the disc?
The Quick And The Dead will hit stores on September 8 for $28.95.
Credit: DVDReview.com
MOVIE TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Public Enemies
CLASSIC TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Heat
JIM WEBBING AND HIS IT'S-THE-HONEST-TRUTH-DEPARTMENT
"Batman" Leaves Warners: George Clooney has parted ways with Warner Bros., moving the Smokehouse Pictures shingle he runs with Grant Heslov to Sony. The pair landed the two-year first-look pact at a time when studios are cutting back on production deals, no matter how big the producer may be.
"While we have been trimming production deals overall for the last few years, we see real value in opening our doors to producers with their critical and commercial track record and their artistic point of view," said Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chair Amy Pascal.
Clooney and Heslov had been based on the WB lot as producers for the past nine years, initially working together at Section Eight, co-founded by Steven Soderbergh, before launching Smokehouse in 2006. Clooney has been closely associated with the studio since he became a breakout star on the WB-produced "ER" in 1994.
Clooney always likes to remind us in a self-effacing tone about the time when he played Batman, so I'll say again that it's not his fault that Batman & Robin was such a waste of cinematic space.
Anyway, back to our subject. I can understand why Clooney would want to part ways with Warners. He needs a change of surroundings to hopefully re-invigorate his film career. Sure, he's done well for himself but he's already stated that there wouldn't be any more Ocean's films and the other critically acclaimed films he's done haven't been home runs at the box office. I believe this will be good for him in the long run.
Credit: Variety
So how are they gonna get their stories now?: Paramount Pictures is shutting its Gotham literary office.
Insiders said film group prexy Adam Goodman broke the news to the lit staffers in New York office this morning. The office was established nearly 20 years ago to help the studio scout for promising book properties and other potential source materials.
Aimee Shieh, veep of lit affairs, took the helm of the office last year when longtime Par lit scout Patricia Burke retired. Also let go as part of the closing of the office are Mac Hawkins, director of development, and Megan McIlroy, an assistant to Shieh.
A number of studios have New York outposts but Par's was considered to be the most successful. During Burke's tenure, the studio got the early jump on such hot literary properties as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," and "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events."
The timing of the closure coincides with the end of the studio's fiscal quarter.
Considering the times we live in and the barrage of remakes and adaptations, I would think an office like this would be thriving. So now that they're closing their New York literary offices, how are they going to get the ideas for their films? Could this be a sign that they're going to start relying on – gasp! - original material? I doubt it, but we'll have to wait and see...
Credit: Variety
Hey, I've heard of this!: George Gallo is making a run to "Columbus Circle."
The veteran writer behind such action comedies as "Bad Boys" and "Midnight Run" will direct the indie thriller from a script he co-wrote with Kevin Pollak, who has a role in the pic as well.
Selma Blair, Amy Smart, Jason Lee and Giovanni Ribisi also star in "Circle." Oxymoron Entertainment's Christopher Mallick and Blue Star Entertainment's William Sherak and Jason Shuman, who exec produced Universal's comedy breakout "Role Models," will produce.
"Circle" centers on a reclusive heiress (Blair) in an upscale Manhattan apartment building who is brought face-to-face with her fears when a detective (Ribisi) shows up to investigate a homicide next door and a new couple (Smart and Lee) moves in to that apartment. Pollak plays the building's concierge and one of the heiress' few friends. Jason Antoon has also been cast in the pic.
Principal photography starts this month in Los Angeles.
How do I know about this project? Well, since I got going on Twitter, Kevin Pollak was one of the first celebrities I started following. (I've been a fan of his since his stand-up days.) He's been constantly sending updates on the development of the script, and according to him, the readings are going well. So I wish him luck with this, and I also beg of him and the rest of the filmmakers to shoot this in New York City. When the name of the movie is Columbus Circle and the news story says production's going to start in LA, that has me a little worried.
1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: $108,966,307
Total: $200,077,255
2. The Proposal: $18,578,541
Total: $69,162,471
3. The Hangover: $17,022,166
Total: $183,054,267
4. Up: $13,061,737
Total: $250,234,554
5. My Sister's Keeper: $12,442,212
Total: $12,442,212
6. Year One: $6,022,444
Total: $32,529,560
7. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3: $5,451,107
Total: $53,456,827
8. Star Trek: $3,711,968
Total: $246,331,182
9. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian: $3,643,522
Total: $163,391,192
10. Away We Go: $1,709,313
Total: $4,088,390
ANDY CRITCHELL'S INTERACTIVE BABE PHOTO NEWS BRIEF WITH ANDY CRITCHELL
Good evening readers. For the past couple of weeks I have been featuring some unknown hotties and I am continuing the trend this week.
I ran across Theresa Correa and wow, is she ever hot! She has a Myspace page and she was kind enough to describe herself for us.
Here is what she has to say: "I was born in Baltimore, Maryland on May 27,1983, and modeling is a part-time thing I do with my spare time. My days are spent between the lights and action of The Big Apple and the peace and quiet of the Caribbean. I mostly travel. That is pretty much the duality of my life; sometimes glitz and glam yet a lot of the time low-key and simple. I find myself on both ends of the spectrum....."
Let's check her out:
And there you have it! Hope you enjoyed. Also, don't forget to check me out over in the wrestling zone where I write the hottest new TV Report, ECW Extreme Extracts. Here is the latest entry. I'm also keeping a blog here on 411 which you can read here.
Have a good weekend!
MAD PROPHET OF THE AIRWAVES
When I think back at both the comic and animated series of TransFormers: Generation 1, I see two franchises that never really got to fulfill their potential. Both series were based on the same action figures from Hasbro, yet their characters had differing personalities (Shockwave was an ambitious badass in the comics, but Megatron's personal boot-licker in the animated show) and very different origin stories that fans could choose which one they liked better. (I personally preferred Simon Furman's telling in the comics, which has Primus imprisoning himself in an asteroid that he created into a planet called Cybertron.) And just when you think something both the show and comics could capatalize from something great, the follow-up winds up being a disappointment.
There was nothing better in the comics than Simon Furman's "Unicron Saga," which ended with issue #75. Unfortunately for readers, the comic was cancelled five issues later, so Furman & Co. had to rush out a 5-issue story to wrap up the whole series that had very little bite in it. Fans of the series were taken with TransFormers: The Movie, but opinion is split on how Season 3 followed it. And no matter what side they took, the producers caved to parents complaining about Optimus Prime's death and put together a really lame 2-part episode called "The Return of Optimus Prime" and the 3-part mini-series that followed was nowhere near as good as Season 3.
When I watched TransFormers at the AMC Empire 25 theater two years ago, I was pleased for the most part. Sure, there was a good amount that I didn't care for, but the funny thing was that I didn't mind the main problems a lot of hardcore fans had. In fact, I agreed with a lot of what Michael Bay had planned for the characters. Yes, both the show and comics showed the TransFormers looking like they had truck parts or plane parts before they left Cybertron and crashed on Earth, so it made more sense to have the endoskeleton look. Yes, it was understandable that they tapped into the World Wide Web to see how humans communicate. He was even able to put in some satire with Prime's infamous "Sorry, my bad" line. Why does he say that? Well, why do WE say it?
Oh, and before you say "Prime would never say that," we're talking about a character who was on an enlarged basketball court outside Autobot Headquarters during Season 2. The fans might remember watching Prime talking to himself while dribbling a large basketball, saying "He shoots! He scores! What a star!"
My final score for the first film was a 7 out of 10 since Bay & Co. pulled it off. They showed the world that a live-action TransFormers film CAN happen. I was really psyched for the sequel since now that the world has been established, they can really open things up and go into their history. Whether they came up with their own or mined from the comics or the animated show, I was thrilled all the same.
Now that I've seen TransFormers: Revenge of the Fallen? Well, a few things come to mind, but before I get to them, let me talk a bit about what I liked about it, and BEWARE! There are some spoilers here...
The plot worked for me. Bay and his writers did a solid job of linking Cybertron to Earth, giving the two planets a connection that works better than just a freak occurrence. And like any good sequel, the stakes are raised dramatically. The first one put the planet Earth in danger of domination. The second one put it in danger of destruction, along with the rest of our solar system. Plus, a story like this allows for a look deeper into the TransFormers mythology, which is a beautiful thing since it shows the audience that these characters are more than just overgrown toys. Sure they started out as that when they were developed in Japan, but a rich backstory can be a very useful tool.
Some of the characters we've known and loved through the years were given more to do. Not only did Optimus Prime have a very exciting battle scene early in the film, but it was followed by a very poignant stand-off between him and a high-ranking official speaking for President Obama. Plus, fans were finally given a glimpse of the relationship between Megatron and Starscream. I would have preferred to see the defiant side of Starscream, but it seems like Bay & Co. are going for the slow burn, allowing Starscream's ambitions to develop along the way. If there is a third film – and judging by the box office, there will be – hopefully we'll see him finally (I don't want to say grow a pair since we see they already have pairs) man up and challenge Megatron for Decepticon leadership. Plus, Bumblebee was just awesome. He was always the runt of the litter in the other media, but here he was this very strong-willed character that would do whatever was necessary to protect Sam. But if Bay, Orci and Kurtzman wanted to keep him using radio and tv/movie quotes as his dialogue, they shouldn't have had his voice mechanisms improve at the end of the first film. Using that here seemed like a step back for him.
The character of Jetfire was very interesting and any link to the early days of Cybertron is welcome. Knowing that he was a Decepticon that turned to the Autobots was perfectly in line with what he's done before. And while some were thrown off by him using a cane, I appreciated it since the fans have seen older Autobots in the animated series like Alpha Trion and, of course, Kup. However, seeing him there and hearing him give the backstory of the weapon left on Earth left a lingering question that was never really touched upon in the animated series: how do TransFormers breed?
The elements from the first film were still there, for the most part. Shia's energy and comedic timing proved extremely valuable and he was able to bring both to the table in the sequel. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson provided the military presence, and both of them worked well with the Autobots. I didn't mind not seeing much development in them, since they were brought into this team to do a job and do it well, and that's what they do. There's still plenty of room for growth in future installments, plus they give my wife a lot to look at so she's not complaining.
I thought John Tururro's performance as Simmons was a little bit over-the-top in the first one, but he seemed more grounded in this one. The humor was still there, and thankfully it didn't detract from his character. Just like Simmons gets a measure of redemption, so too does Turturro and his portrayal of him. And while I would have preferred the parents to be less over-the-top (the pot brownie moment would have made a nice Deleted Scene on the DVD), you could tell they were having fun so you might as well do the same when you see them.
And finally, it was great seeing some new characters making their big screen debut. I was especially happy to see Soundwave, and it made perfect sense for him to be a satellite instead of a tape recorder that shrinks down to something humans can hold in their hands. Maybe in the next film, they can run Frank Welker's voice through a vocoder so he actually sounds like Soundwave instead of Dr. Claw, but I can't complain that Welker is onboard doing a character that he did so well in the animated series. Sideswipe made the most of his limited time and proved to be a kickass character in battle.
So with all this in mind, what DIDN'T I like about the sequel? Well, let me count the ways...
First of all, Michael Bay shouldn't direct sequels. Both this and Bad Boys II were sequels that went on much longer than they had any right to and neither one of them showed the focus and balance of story & action that the first films had. In fact, we were reminded this quite blatantly in this film when Sam sees his roommate's poster for Bad Boys II hanging up on their wall. It would have made more sense to have an Armageddon poster there, but since this is a sequel, either Bay or his production designer thought it best to remind the audience that he has done a sequel before. We get it, Michael, but just because you did one doesn't mean you learned from your mistakes.
Secondly, the Writer's Guild strike definitely had some lasting effects. According to what I've heard via the Internet – and Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Ehren Kruger are more than welcome to chime in and correct me – the three screenwriters put together a full outline and then went on strike. Bay had to keep pre-production moving so he put together character designs and started setting up animatics of action sequences. And apparently, he had a lot of time to kill because those were some incredibly complex sequences he put together. Unfortunately, it was a case of too much and not enough because when the strike ended, the three writers had to come up with ways to connect the dots that Bay laid out for them. Not the best way to write a script, no matter the genre. So the finished product gave us a slow-motion shot of Optimus Prime firing a missile that takes up almost as much time as Jetfire later took to spell out the plot for the audience.
Third, no matter what the shape of the script, it should have gotten one more re-write. Way too much of the dialogue was so on-the-nose and didn't bring anything to the table other than a cheap forced laugh. Just look at the whole conversation between Sam and Mikaela on the phone. She tells him, "I'm breaking up with you" and they go through some banter that ends with Mikaela smiling and saying, "Well, I guess I'm not breaking up with you." This was the dialogue equivalent to Sean Connery's character from The Rock escaping from Nic Cage's character, stealing a car and leading a high-speed chase that wrecks half of San Francisco, only to go back to Nic and lead the mission into Alcatraz. I don't care if this is a summer blockbuster; it's simple Screenwriting 101.
Fourth, show me a Batsuit with nipples and I'll show you a TransFormer with genitals. Personal additions on iconic characters just for the sake of having them don't usually go well with the audience. It becomes a question of "why did you put this in?" And if the only reason you have is that you thought it'd be funny or just for the hell of it, then they should be reconsidered. Sure, it's only a few seconds, but by the last hour, the movie was starting to really slow down despite its high amount of action, so anything that could be cut should have been cut.
Fifth, showing the finished products of TransFormers isn't enough. Being a fan of the franchise since grade school, I'm aware of the concept of "Pretenders" and it was an unexpected plus to see one in the film. But there should have been a small scene before her first appearance that showed a smaller Decepticon scanning a human, since having her in the film has people asking, why couldn't all Decepticons do this? Of course, the answer is that humans are just too damn small and there's no mass shifting in these films, but even though it's okay to leave some elements to the audience's own interpretation, a character like this should have been shown in its development stage. This brings me to the sixth problem I had...
Sixth, surface storytelling doesn't work anymore. There's more to TransFormers than what Bay has shown us. There's more to these characters, both human and robotic, than meets the eye (I'm sorry, my wife made me put that line in) and we needed some slower moments to show this to the audience. As soon as there was a possibility of getting into some more depth, the scene cuts away to the next one. The pace never really stopped and it got to the point where the film wore itself out before its last hour. I found myself experiencing the same problems I had with the theatrical cut of DareDevil, when I wanted to yell at the screen, "Slow down!" It wasn't boring in the slightest, but when all you have is one fight after another with very little room for character development, the bigger moments – like in the forest – don't have the emotional weight they're supposed to have.
Seventh, Michael Bay has very little grasp on the concept of time. So many moments could have been used to provide those deeper moments I was craving and they could have been in the scenes that involve traveling. There's a lot of it, you know. Mikaela flies from California to New York and it seems like only a couple hours passed. Sam, Mikaela, Simmons and Leo go from New York to Washington in a heartbeat. And during all of this, there's no sign of The Fallen, so while the stakes are there, we don't see anyone – including the Decepticons - doing anything about it until the pieces of the puzzle are in place. That's lazy storytelling. Clocks don't stop ticking when the antagonists are off-screen.
I'm sure there are other items on my mind, but I'll stop with eight...
Eighth, you can't give us the characters we know and love and then shove them aside to make room for characters specifically designed to insult your audience! Yeah, I'm looking at you two, Mudflap and Skids! According to Orci, Bay was directly responsible for creating these characters so I'm giving him the "wag of the finger" here. Without even taking into account that they're blatantly racist and incredibly stupid, answer me this. Why were they there? I'd compare them to Jar Jar Binks, but at least Binks wound up contributing something to the Star Wars universe by bridging the gap between the Gungans and the people of Naboo. These two didn't help Sam in any way, they didn't kill any Decepticons, they were just... there. And they sucked up valuable screentime that Ironhide and Ratchet – two established characters – could have used, instead of hanging out at NEST.
Bay said they were for comic relief. Oh really? So the moments of dogs humping, Wheelie calling Mikaela a "crazy bitch," Mrs. Witwicky chowing down on a pot brownie or 90 percent of Sam's dialogue weren't enough comic relief for you, Mike?! Or was it that you wanted characters for the kids to like? Let me give you a piece of advice. Kids like Bumblebee! They like Optimus Prime! They like Ironhide! The ones that were in the theater with me seemed to like Sideswipe! And the older ones really liked Mikaela! And if you want to blame the voice actors for developing Mudflap and Skids, you have to remember that voice actors don't put gold teeth in their characters' mouths.
Overall, I'd say that somewhere in the 2-and-a-half hours of constant action, idiotic supporting characters, and pot brownies, a good movie was struggling to get out. Instead, we got some very good pieces of a movie, but I can't for the life of me call it a good movie. I've never seen a longer movie that rushed to tell its story, and any sense of substance was choked out in favor of style, loud explosions and characters we couldn't give two shits about. And before I'm labeled a bitter fanboy, keep in mind that I enjoyed the first film quite a bit. I appreciated the changes made to the TransFormers' look and I didn't mind the emphasis on humans, because I knew there was room to grow. I saw no growth here. I only saw a series that I am willing to invest in take two steps back.
I gave the first film a 7 out of 10. This one gets a 5. I won't say Michael Bay raped my childhood, but damn it, he tried his best to crack that chastity belt, so I'll just shake my fist and say, "Damn you, Michael Bay!"
And that's a wrap for Chapter 119 of The UBS Evening Movie News! For Andy Critchell, I'm George H. Sirois and we'll see you next week!
Damn!! that woman is probably one of the best yet. I still would like to recommend Codi Milo as a hottie of the week.
Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) on July 02, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Dude, on a scale of 1 to 10 that chick is a fuckin' 13. Yowza!!
As for Transformers 2, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I agree with you entirely on Skids and Mudflap and what it caused to happen to Ratchet and Ironhide. Hell, at points I thought Ratchet and Ironhide must have died. And Sideswipe I can't recall seeing anything out of other than in car form after the beginning. Seriously, I've heard rumors of Bay leaving the franchise and I say good riddance. He does great explosions....and that's about it.
Posted By: Butters4Prez (Guest) on July 02, 2009 at 12:40 PM
That's how Bmore represents! Go Theresa!
Great stuff per the norm. Transformers 2 has given us the Great Geek Divide. Count me as one of those who knew what to expect going in and was STILL disappointed. Michael Bay made a Michael Bay film with robots. You could replace the Transformers with Go-Bots and gotten the same film. Take a real director, like James Cameron, and I guaran-damn-tee you have a much different, much better movie.
Funny stuff about studios have original stories from good writers. We all know how that's going to end up.
Posted By: stevethegoose (Registered) on July 02, 2009 at 02:42 PM
Best review of the movie so far. You explained the good and bad in the movie. You did not come across as a Micheal Bay hater or fanboy. Very good stuff!
Posted By: JM (Guest) on July 02, 2009 at 03:02 PM
