Month: June 2011

LFM Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

By Jason Apuzzo. The Transformers series is basically a high-speed, whipsaw collision of three things: 1) the venerable, 1950’s-based alien invasion genre, with its subtext of American freedom-fighting in the face of overwhelming technological threats from abroad; 2) a Hasbro toy line; 3) the retro-80s/MTV sensibilities of director Michael Bay.

This unusual and unexpected combination of elements have proven extremely successful at the box office over the past four years, but like any successful franchise, the Transformers movies are also more than the sum of their parts. The movies are fun, epic in scale, earthy in their humor, cheekily conspiratorial in their politics, playfully fetishistic in their focus on cars and girls, and keenly attuned to the sensibilities of the moment – what’s cool and what isn’t – in the same way the Bond films were in their heyday.

But the films offer a bit more than that, actually.  Like Michael Bay’s best work – Pearl Harbor comes to mind – the films are unbending in their affection for the things that make America special: our independent streak, our fighting spirit, our passion for technological innovation. The films also radiate middle class values: the value of hard work and sacrifice, of remaining loyal to friends, and the importance of family – even when your family drives you insane.

The high-class, professional girlfriend.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon doesn’t necessarily add anything new to this formula that wasn’t there in the first two films. The familiar elements are all there in the first half of Dark of the Moon, but what Bay adds in the film’s second half are action sequences so gigantic and complex in scale – and amplified by astonishingly detailed 3D imagery – that one can only really compare them to Avatar or to certain moments in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. And the sum of all this ultimately is quite arresting and entertaining … but sometimes a bit overwhelming.

So let me just blurt it out here and say that as much as I liked the film, it also felt a bit excessive. The first two Transformers movies I first saw on DVD, on a portable player, in a situation in which the action in my field of vision was tightly contained, and the audio channels compressed down to classic L-R stereo. Watching Dark of the Moon in 3D on a big screen in 7.1 sound – with the film’s rapid fire dialogue, multi-layered conspiracy plotlines, and mind-shattering action sequences – left me feeling liked I’d just spent 2 1/2+ hours behind a jet engine … while reading Stephen Ambrose. It was a lot to take in.

Michael Bay’s directing style might best be described as palimpsestic, like something out 17th century Baroque painting or drama: dense, tightly packed plotlines are unfolding as comic one-liners shoot at you rapid-fire, while imagery of complex machines hurtle through space in balletic, gravity-defying maneuvers … right as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is turning a corner in an outfit that makes her look curvier than Jessica Rabbit.

And you have about .3 seconds to take all that in before the next shot.

Not a millimeter of the frame nor a single audio frequency is wasted in Dark of the Moon. Every moment is packed to the gills with detail – and frequently with references to other films. It’s a unique style that I’ve come to like from Bay – the style of a muralist, rather than a portraitist – and a style that assumes the audience is capable of absorbing an ocean of detail. But sometimes, as when you’re looking at a huge mural in a museum, it can be a bit overwhelming.

This isn’t a complaint or a criticism, so much as an observation: Michael Bay seems to be inaugurating a different kind of filmmaking in the Transformers series, a type of complex, information-rich filmmaking style that assumes his audience can go back endlessly on DVD/Blu-ray after seeing the film and actually figure out what the hell happened, and savor all the details (and there are plenty to savor; especially if you like Osprey helicopters, or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s legs). Because I liked Dark of the Moon, I recommend you do that – because on first viewing it’s quite a lot to take in. Continue reading LFM Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

LFM Review: Machete Maidens Unleashed!

By Joe Bendel. Machetes and maidens: two great things that go great together and evergreen staples of Filipino exploitation films. Following up  Not Quite Hollywood, his epic survey of Ozploitation, Mark Hartley gives the That’s Entertainment treatment to the scrappy low budget actioners produced in the Philippines. Prepare thyself for an education when Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed! (trailer here) screens during the  2011 New York Asian Film Festival, kicking-off this Friday, and once again bringing a heavy dose badness to the Lincoln Center.

Much like Tito in Yugoslavia, Marcos had plenty of military hardware laying about that he was more than willing to rent out to international productions. With the memory of the U.S. liberation during WWII still fresh for older generations, the Filipino climate was relatively pro-America and definitely open for business. Yet it took a visionary like Roger Corman to fully recognize the possibilities.

The Philippines made a star of Pam Grier, who starred in several women-in-jungle-prison films for Corman’s New World Pictures. Corman also recruited local talent such as Eddie Romero to grind out Brides of Blood movies for New World. As with protégés like Jonathan Demme, Monte Hellman, and James Cameron, who learned to crank them out fast and cheap under Corman’s tutelage before finding wider acclaim, Romero would eventually be recognized as an official National Artist of the Philippines. Yet, he happily sits down to talk about Black Mama, White Mama and similar cinematic milestones.

Never a dull moment.

Like Hartley’s NQH, MMU will leave viewers thirsty for many of the films sampled in glorious detail. For instance, Bobby Suarez’s Cleopatra Wong looks particularly intriguing (killer nuns) and vaguely PG-13-ish. Whereas many alumni of Corman’s prison films frequently express amazement at just how much they were able to get away with in terms of lurid sexual content—a point Hartley is not shy about illustrating.

Breezily paced, MMU features first-person interviews with Corman and scores of his American and Filipino colleagues, unabashedly gleeful in the naughtiness and profitability of their masterworks. While the commentary is not as laugh out loud funny as NHQ’s, it still has its moments, often courtesy of Corman vet John Landis. A good clean night at the movies (but best to leave the kiddies at home), MMU is a perfect example why NYAFF is pound for pound the most entertaining fest of the year. It screens with the straight-up legit Filipino exploitationer Raw Force this Saturday (7/2) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Posted on July 29th, 2011 at 7:30pm.

New Transformers: Dark of the Moon “Freedom” Ad; Film Debuts Tonight in Select Theaters

At the UK premiere.

By Jason Apuzzo. The wait is nearly over. Transformers: Dark of the Moon arrives in theaters as early as this evening, depending on location. I will admit that I haven’t looked forward this much to seeing a film in quite a while. Check out the ad above to get a sense of why I’m so excited.

I’m also excited because all indications are that Bay & Co. are pushing the technological boundaries of native 3D filmmaking out to a new level. Plus the UN appears to be among the villains. Plus Buzz Aldrin appears in the film, along with Bill O’Reilly.

And most importantly, we get Victoria’s Secret super model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. In 3D.

So if you’re not interested in seeing this film, especially as the 4th of July weekend approaches, please have yourself checked for anemia.

Incidentally, on the day/eve of Dark of the Moon‘s release, somebody dug up Michael Bay’s early music video work with Meat Loaf. It’s absolutely epic stuff – the key video here clearly being Meat Loaf’s cover of “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through,” featuring an 18 year-old Angelina Jolie and exploding jukeboxes …

Posted on June 28th, 2011 at 9:34am.

Bravo’s Billion-Dollar Housewife?

By Govindini Murty. Housewife shows are apparently bigger business than ever before, with one ‘housewife’ formerly of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York City even recently signing a major merchandising deal for $100 million. I commented on this trend a year ago and said that it represented a move toward traditionalism  – posing a wry counterpoint to the apparent ‘progressiveness’ of modern popular culture. After all, the ‘housewife’ shows glamorize women who seem to do nothing but shop, gossip, have lunch, dress up and attend parties – and who have only acquired their lifestyles by marrying wealthy men. These tendencies reached their zenith in the deliciously campy and over-the-top recent episodes of The Real Housewives of NYC‘s lavish trip to Morocco (read hilarious recaps here, here and here), an obvious homage to the notorious trip to the Middle East from last year’s Sex and the City 2 – a film that earned over $288 million at the worldwide box office.

When these housewives have careers, they often appear to be pursued for vanity reasons, rather than for serious purposes of building long-term professional achievements or for supporting their families.  And yet, in the very fact that these housewife shows are highly popular on TV (and seem to be the major money-makers for the cable network Bravo, which has launched six of the Real Housewives shows), they appear to be one of the few ways in which shows featuring a majority of women characters can even get on the airwaves.

I’ve written previously about the highly un-progressive nature of Hollywood casting. Despite the fact that women make up over 50% of the population (and according to the MPAA’s 2010 box office report, purchase 50% of the movie tickets), according to SAG statistics they’re only cast in one out of three lead roles in film and TV, and only earn two-thirds of the pay of male actors. Watch most network TV shows, TV ads, or movies in theaters and you will see two or three men cast for every woman. It’s completely deplorable.

From TV housewife to ambitious businesswoman.

This disparity poses a telling contrast to the era of classic Hollywood, when it seemed that leading women got as many roles as the leading men -and were often the most highly-paid performers at their studios. When Greta Garbo made films with Clark Gable at MGM, she got top billing. When Marlene Dietrich was at the height of her fame in the ’30s at Paramount, she was the highest-paid performer at the studio. Mary Pickford was so powerful in the 1910s and ’20s that she co-founded and ran her own movie studio, United Artists, after being the top-paid performer at Paramount. Even Shirley Temple was the top money-earner at Twentieth-Century Fox in the depths of the Depression, single-handedly keeping the studio afloat and earning the paychecks to match. Is there any female actress today with the clout to co-found a movie studio? No. Is there any female actress today who earns more than the top male stars at any studio? No. Is there any top female actress who will get top billing over a top male star? No. And yet in reality TV – which may more accurately reflect the tastes of average Americans, due to the fluid, highly-adaptable nature  of the programming – women get the majority of the roles and significantly out-earn male reality TV stars. Continue reading Bravo’s Billion-Dollar Housewife?

LFM Review: Midnight in Paris

By Patricia Ducey. Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s latest film, is a frothy romantic comedy topped with a healthy soupcon of wisdom, a welcome turn from the now 75-year-old filmmaker.

Screenwriter Gil (Owen Wilson) and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) accompany her well-heeled parents to Paris for a little pre-wedding vacation/shopping trip. Gil adores Paris and longs to leave L.A. behind to write novels there, a la Hemingway and Fitzgerald, in the heady Paris of his imagination; Inez, however, is quite content with the good life in a Malibu manse, financed by Gil’s steady income from what he derides as his B-movie success. (Mon dieu, what present day scribe would complain of steady sales of any scripts?!)

But Gil is an incurable romantic, and his longings create a pebble in the shoe of their relationship. He stalks off one night after a squabble to ponder his future, both literary and romantic. As the bell tower chimes midnight, an antique auto pulls up and the revelers inside drag him inside. As the night and the champagne flow, Gil comes to believe his hosts really are Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, as they insist, and that he has landed somewhere inside his most cherished dream. And so his adventure ensues, with Gil concocting ever greater ruses to escape Inez to return to the ‘20s, where all his literary and artistic idols—and one particularly lovely woman—await him. But I will not spoil the fun by explaining; the story is very clever and surprising.

Some of Allen’s arch improv-style patter falls flat, but more of it produces smiles or laughter. And Paris is a character here, too; Allen and his cinematographer, Darius Khondji, weave a Paris of amber glowing streetlamps, sumptuous five-star restaurants and earthy flea markets for our delight. The city (at least the part in frame) looks perfectly lovely. He sets the action against a soundtrack of lively Cole Porter and many of his other jazz favorites perfect for the time. If you can’t afford a plane ticket, Midnight in Paris will do. Continue reading LFM Review: Midnight in Paris

Photos from the Moscow Transformers: Dark of the Moon Premiere

Director Michael Bay with star Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in Moscow.
Rocking out in Red Square.

By Jason Apuzzo. This really looks like fun. (Check out the gawking Russian dude on the right above, getting his first good look at a supermodel from the decadent West.) Apparently Linkin Park played in Red Square for the premiere. I would’ve preferred Daft Punk, but that’s just me.

It seems so much cooler to premiere a film in Moscow instead of West LA, doesn’t it? Especially since the politics are roughly the same.

Anyway, for more images of the Transformers: Dark of the Moon Moscow premiere, head over to Michael Bay’s site. Can’t wait to see this film …

UPDATE: More good photos and a recap video from the Moscow premiere are now available here.

Posted on June 23rd, 2011 at 4:57pm.