Last night the household watched "Transformers". Now, I can honestly say I wasn't a fan of the cartoon growing up. I used to rent VHS tapes with "Transformers" episodes on them from Blockbuster Video, but I could never successfully sit through a full episode. I opted for "The REAL Ghostbusters" instead.
Taylor got the Michael Bay epic from Netflix. We sat down knowing full on that it was going to be a cheesy popcorn film.
It was terrible. It was the only movie I've seen where I've felt the need to walk out without seeing the ending. The number one pet peeve I have with anything media-wise is when the creators place the location and time in a well-defined setting using pop culture references to do so. Case in point: in "Transformers" the protagonist wears a Strokes T-Shirt throughout the film. The robots speak in terrible ebonics dialect. Characters use current shitty pop stars and movies in analogies ("Hey 50 Cent, you wanna see my piece?", "Haven't you ever seen 'The 40 Year Old Virgin'?"). These films and movies are not relevant time pieces. Quentin Tarantino refers to movies and music all the time, but what he refers to has to deal with the topic at hand, such as a car chase movie during a car chase. He pays homage to TIMELESS classics. "The 40 Year Old Virgin" is neither TIMELESS or CLASSIC. Even if it would be in the future, it's still too early to reference it. It's poor taste. Well, for me, at least.
Also, product placement was fucking everywhere in this movie. It was so blatantly obvious. Huge Burger King backgrounds, Panasonic chips that would decide the fate of the universe, the robots wake up from their everyday machine state (cars, trucks, boom boxes) because the main character starts bidding a sacred map that Morticon or whatever the fuck the antagonist's name is on eBay. You kidding me?! The driving force of the story is held together in the realms of EBAY?!??! Terrible.
Product placement is inevitable, I know this. But do it tastefully, subtlety is the key. Do not talk about the products. Do not reference the products. Just USE the products as a meaningless prop. Make up the product name if you are actually going to need it in the story, like Tarantino does with Big Kahuna Burger, Red Apple cigarettes, Hattori Hanzo swords.
If you are a reviewer/critic who actually liked this movie, you will be shunned forever by me. Your reviews will be blocked when I peruse MetaCritic or Rotten Tomatoes.
Jay Weissberg at Variety: fuck you for your 90% awesome review. You will be shunned.
Kirk Honeycutt at The Hollywood Reporter: fuck you for your 90%. You will be shunned.
Luke Y. Thompson at LA Weekly: 85% fuck you.
Claudia Puig at USA Today: "Perfectly embodies the concept of a summer blockbuster with its simple good-guys-vs.-bad-guys plot, cheeky humor, and flawless special effects"? If this was sarcasm, you'd be loved. But it wasn't, you literalist retard. You are shunned.
On the other side of the coin: New York Times, Onion, Time, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Reader -- your reviewers hated the movie. You will be honored with a toast of my popcorn filled hand. And if I ever meet you, you will be embraced with a knowing brotherly eye and nod -- we know. We know.
The following clip is basically all that this movie amounts to. One big commercial for corporations and 80's nostalgia. This is a sign of what most people are delving into with their pop culture swims. Even when you want a break from thinking, this could make you take a permanent break from ever having a seminal thought again.
Michael Bay is the Antichrist.
Kaiser Chiefs -- "Never Miss a Beat"
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment