Most Impressive!

I went to a matinee of The Clone Wars on this opening day as per the family tradition. What kind of fan would I be if I didn't write about the experience? I was a little surprised to see how few people were in the theater (less than 100 out of several hundred seats?), and that I was one of the few people donning at least a Star Wars t-shirt (that I could see), never mind a full costume. I held off on going to a midnight release, even though one was available in my local, suburban multiplex. For every single Star Wars movie, I've gone the afternoon of the opening day, ever since 1977. I wondered if I had missed the commotion from the midnight show. I was both disappointed and relieved to hear that there were only "like three" people there, apparently mostly bar stragglers, according to one attendee's account.

I didn't really know what to expect, although in general I didn't expect much judging from the lukewarm (or worse) reviews from the advanced screenings. Having low expectations was probably a good thing, because I was actually thoroughly impressed. I was almost as thrilled with the experience as I had been with other Star Wars movies. This was just different, and that I expected, but I just didn't know how it would be different nor how I would feel about it (being all Star Wars emo and all). From this point on, this review contains spoilers...

Of course, there was some choking up right from the get-go. You can flash the Lucasfilm logo and the "A long time ago..." opener at me anytime and I get misty-eyed. This is certainly a fan bias factor, but what is anything Star Wars if not a personal connection for most fans. However, this is where the major familiarity to the saga films ends. No 20th Century Fox fanfare. No opening crawl. No John Williams. No tilt from space to a ship or planet, although the "Clone Wars" logo did jettison into a space abyss, like the Star Wars logo usually does in the films. Instead, space cut to a voice like a news announcer from the WWII news reels they used to show in theaters before a movie. Alternately the voice, which overlayed "footage" of scenes relevant to the build up of the actual Clone Wars (yes, I know this is fiction), was similar in style to that of those action hero serials from the 40's and 50's Saturday matinees where the narrator would bring the audience up to speed by saying something like "Last time, our heroes narrowly escaped...". My immediate impression with this unexpected opening scene was that this really is a personal touch from George Lucas, who was raised on and inspired by those Saturday matinees, and who also can't get enough of WWII style dogfighting. Being a fan and follower of George's career, I was touched by this. It felt personal to me too, especially since I was raised on George.

One thing that did keep The Clone Wars similar in tone to the rest of the saga was the cinematography. I know that sounds strange when comparing an animation to live-action, but in Clones, the camera framing, angle, and composition were very similar to the films, and I think it gave it some of the same epic, bigger-than-life appeal.

The opening sequence subsided into a scene with some fighters over Coruscant, which was reminiscent of the opening battle sequence from Revenge of the Sith in both the look and the way the camera moved. It seemed like some sort of intermediate evolution of the space tilt we usually see right after the opening crawl. It's the first real taste we get of the whole style, look, and depth of The Clone Wars. The animation truly is unique and frankly gorgeous. It's also a little confusing at first. Some of the close-ups reveal details that are photorealistic, yet you know it's animated, especially because of the way the characters look. It looks as if they are real models made out of clay, wood, or metal - yet stylized. Maybe the digital projection helped this effect along a bit. I noticed the same thing with Wall.E, except in that case the animated human characters were cartoonish and less defined.

When I saw footage on the web, and later on TV, I had a real distaste for the look of the human characters. Their big eyes, little necks, stringy bodies, and angular faces just looked creepy (I couldn't help picturing the Bratz franchise). All the other species looked cool to me, especially Ahsoka. This all changed when I finally saw it all together on the big screen. All the characters fit into their environment (although I have to say that everyone in The Clone Wars 'verse needs some major moisturizer).

I also felt unsure about many of the voice actors for familiar characters being different from those from the movies, but they also all fit really well when watching it on the big screen. I grew into the way James Arnold Taylor captured the wit of Obi-Wan, but there were a few times the character went a little overboard, particularly when he called the Ventress "darling". That actually creeped me out. Some of the other semi-creepout moments were the hints of what seemed to me like sexual tension between Anakin and his new and very young padawan. I think the intentions behind the prolonged gazes into each others eyes, the quarreling, and other bonding experiences were geared toward invoking emotions about what we know Anakin does to the padawans and younglings later on. Maybe my mind is just in the gutter, but I could help thinking Anakin was about to cheat on Padme with intergalactic prison-bait. I wouldn't put it past him!

Also, maybe I just missed this with everything that was happening at once, but why did Anakin all of a sudden start calling Ahsoka "Snips"? For the life of me, I couldn't remember what that could possibly reference, and I was paying attention, I swear!

The bonding issue with Anakin, and what Yoda explained about wanting it to teach him to let go, is one of the most interesting themes for me, and I think this is what hurls us into the larger journey of the TV series, along with that whole war thing and the Clones and all that. I'm already starting to predict several different ways this will be portrayed. Will it redeem the Jedi for how Anakin turned out, or will it simply make us hate Anakin even more and make him impossible to redeem for slaying younglings? No matter what, I'm sure there will be as many different fan reactions, theories, and opinions as there are stars in the galaxy far, far away.

So overall I was extremely pleased, and even though it wasn't without faults in the story and dialogue department (even though it was easy enough to follow the main story points), it was filled with so much visual awesomeness and action that the faults didn't distract me, even with the all the kids chattering in the theater. And action galore there was. A lot of reviewers seem to feel there was too much action, but for me, as soon as it started to seem like it was going to be too long, something came in to move the story forward. It definitely calls me back for return theater viewings, for both the visual experience and to catch the things I couldn't absorb the first time.

IGN's Soul Calibur IV video review

Ewan and Charley's 'Long Way Down'

There are just way too many inappropriate comebacks I could use with that title... Anyhew! I just got to see a special theater viewing event of Long Way Down; Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor's 2007 motorcycle tour from John O'Groats, the northern-most tip of Scotland, all the way down to Cape Town, South Africa.

Aside from the shoddy theater treatment (the theater pretty much ignored us in the cramped, tiniest theater in the corner of the mega-plex) where the house lights stayed on more than 10 minutes into the show, then stayed off well after the credits finished, and the also shoddy satellite feed that kept breaking up the footage - to follow the journey with the two-wheeling dynamic duo was inspiring and just plain exciting to watch. Seeing as we had the highlights of the 88 day trip edited down to just under 2 hours, one would not expect a dull moment, and there wasn't.

Some of the highlights include one of the first stops in Africa at the Lars homestead site in Tunisia. It didn't even occur to me that this stop might be a possibility until I started watching them progress down Italy, and knew they would be crossing to Tunisia before Libya. Duh! I got a little overly excited at the prospect and was pleasantly surprised to see them make the stop. Ewan admittedly wasn't so pleasantly surprised to find himself not hoarded by fans, even as they visited the "Star Wars Bar" at the site with several images of himself as Obi-Wan pinned to the walls. There were even a good amount of visitors there, and nobody seemed to recognize him! I had intermittently followed the live blog they kept through the BBC while on this trip, and totally missed the Tunisia section.

Otherwise, watching the tour through wild country was just as spectacular as it was with the first trip "Long Way Round". There's a certain quality about the way they documented both expeditions through helmet cams and from support crew riding along with them, as well as witty commentary from the boys, that captures the feeling of being on the trip with them (or at least really, really wanting to be there with them) better than any National Geographic special.

"Down" was a somewhat shorter trip than "Round" which circumnavigated the northern hemisphere (save for the trip across the Atlantic back home). This trip was aired as 6 episodes as opposed to the 10 episodes of "Round", and the general feel was that it was much more condensed as a trip and in it's media release as well. Granted, we saw them get all the research done and the preparation process kinked out for the first trip. Ewan had been shown more than once saying that he and the rest of the crew didn't want to spend that much time away from home and family again (after the first trip), so it's no big surprise they would have trimmed it down this time. Also, they were certainly more efficient this time 'round given the experience they had with the first trip. Ewan's wife Evelyn came down to south-central Africa for a leg of the trip lasting several days. She certainly seemed the timid rider for the most part, and even though she dumped every 20 kilometers or so, she toughed it out and survived. I'm a little jealous (okay, a lot). Somehow I always get distracted from those little disappointments by seeing Ewan covered with road dirt.

Both trips are now available on DVD and book form which are largely collections of journal entries from Charley and Ewan. Fun stuff if you like motorcycles, adventure, world travel, four (and two) wheeling, and Ewan and Charley. Hey, I do!

Also avaialble on DVD, which I have yet to see, is Charley Boorman's "Race to Dakar" in which Charley participates in the African endurance motorcycle race (with a bike much better equipped for that kind of terrain I might add!).

Long Way Down offficial site

Blast from the past. The OT reviews!

Every once in a while I like to browse Metacritic. Not because I give a hoot about what the critics say, but because as much as I hate statistics, I live for collective feedback and averages. Or something like that. There's just something about Metacritic that gives me hope, or perhaps an excuse. Can't quite put my finger on it.

I recently checked out how Wall.E was averaging, and was surprised (well, not really) at the amazingly high ratings it has received so far. I think we would be hard pressed to find too many more major theatrical releases that made it into the 90 percentile in the past decade, and Wall.E hit a whopping 93.

Of course, one thing led to another and I couldn't help but see how our beloved saga fared... and I couldn't believe I hadn't done this before. What I found most interesting was digging up reviews for the original trilogy. The original 1977 Star Wars received a 91, which puts it in an elite class of percentages in the 90s, but amazingly is lower than Wall.E. Perhaps more critics had more to say about Star Wars than Wall. E.



The only 100% I happened upon was for The Godfather, which also had a small amount of submissions to average out.

In the case of the Star Wars films, particularly the original trilogy, Metacritic has an average of mostly reviews from the original release dates, but there are a few mixed in that discuss the Special Editions. Namely, those by the pimp-daddy-tastic love monster that is Chris Gore. *ahem* *gathers self together*

While I'm not sure how variables like that factor in, and don't really care, what was most interesting to me was the progression of ratings, or lack thereof, that each consecutive film received. I have an unsettled arguement with a screenwriting mentor of mine who declared that The Empire Strikes Back is unanimously considered the worst of the Star Wars original trilogy. That being my all time favorite movie of the saga, of course I had bones to pick. While he mainly meant considered the worst of the OT at the time, I had no idea what a critic even was at the time TESB entered my life. All I knew then was that when winter hit, I was well prepared for any Wampa attacks.

I digress. While the ratings for The Empire Strike Back take a step down from Star Wars to a still respectible 78%, it's worth noting the declining mood of one particular NYT critic from the late 70s and 80s. Look for the reviews by Vincent Canby in each of the OT sections. Here's his 1980 review of TESB.

Excerpt:

"Ordinarily when one reviews a movie one attempts to tell a little something about the story. It's a measure of my mixed feelings about "The Empire Strikes Back" that I'm not at all sure that I understand the plot. That was actually one of the more charming conceits of "Star Wars," which began with a long, intensely complicated message about who was doing what to whom in the galactic confrontations we were about to witness and which, when we did see them, looked sort of like a game of neighborhood hide-and-seek at the Hayden Planetarium. One didn't worry about its politics. One only had to distinguish the good persons from the bad. This is pretty much the way one is supposed to feel about "The Empire Strikes Back," but one's impulse to know, to understand, cannot be arrested indefinitely without doing psychic damage or, worse, without risking boredom. "

- It's hard to believe how someone can be so totally 180 degrees off the mark you are on about something. I think Mr. Canby was 50 years old when he was born? It's obvious I disagree here but I still have to say... Everything happens in TESB!

I won't even get into what the above critic had to say about the final chapter in the saga Return of the Jedi, and my squeamishness may have something to do with the fact that something deep down inside never really clicked with me and the Ewoks. So therefore, do I agree with the 52% that Jedi earned? Heck no! To me, it's still one of the better movies ever made. I can easily look past fake fur and zippers to embrace the glory of a pack of rabid mutant bears taking down the high-tech Empire. Speeder bikes trump everything anyway.

This is the lightsaber game you're looking for

*waves hand*

Remember last year when mean old Jim Ward taunted us with press releases saying they were developing a lightsaber game for the Wii, and he's played it? Well, after I did a little post-art school math, it seems that game is in fact the Clone Wars inspired game for the Wii. The lightsaber-centric game is tentatively titled simply Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels. IGN talks with game producer Ken Fox all about it. Now let's all grovel to the Star Wars gaming gods so they'll really come out with the fabled Wii-saber, even though Nintendo refuses to endorse such a dangerous add-on. Um, hello? It may be the only thing that makes this game really worthwhile peeps! Don't make me operate on my Force FX lightsabers :(

The DS Clone Wars exclusive will be a vastly different game than that for the Wii apparently (Kotaku), since the mobile platform doesn't have the same motion capabilities as Nintendo's Wii console and instead uses the touch pad and stylus. Read more about Star Wars The Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance for DS at IGN here.

The Indy Code

Steve Rose has cracked the Indy code over at his Cinematical blog, giving fans the ultimate comeback to Crystal Skull naysayers. It's hard to choose a favorite aspect out of this analysis, but I love the overall theme of the Indiana Jones movies as anti-neo-Hollywood, yet pro-early 20th century serial B-movie.

Thank you Steven and George

Reposted from Seven Pieces:

So far I've got two Indy 4 viewings down within 14 hours, and I can't wait for the next one. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is everything that I hoped for and more. If you haven't seen it yet, this entry will be full of spoilers, so stop here and come back after you've seen it

On May 21, 2008 at 11:59pm EST I settled into a 3/4 or more full theater (gone are the days of sold out seatings me thinks) primarily occupied by teenagers obviously looking for an excuse to stay out late from parents who understand the magnitude of a new Indiana Jones chapter. I did spot about 10 Indy costumers (but no Marions or other characters). The crowd was abuzz with excitement nonetheless, and cheers all around for the opening Lucasfilm logo followed by the famous Paramount logo transition to... a molehill this time around! Actually, I'm pretty sure those were groundhogs, but either way a hilarious contrast from the previous Indy opening mountains.

Fast forward to May 22, 2008, 1:50pm - The official opening day of KOTCS. After sleeping off the previous evening's viewing which was fogged by noisy and distracting audiences along with my own tiredness, I was very pleasantly surprised to enter the very same theater I was in 14 hours before with only about 15 or 20 well mannered fellow audience members. This time around, I would be able to catch most of the story details that evaded me the first time.

And that I did. Here are some observations and impressions:

1. How awesome is the opening drag race scene? A direct nod to American Graffiti. I love the 50s. I think George does too.

2. Shia LaBeouf is just the most awesome, charismatic, fun to watch, young new talent out there right now. It's as if he were made for Indy movies, or perhaps the Indy movies were made for him...

3. Mutt seems to have chosen his name just like Indiana did, but it still remains to be seen if Henry III also had an actual dog (named Mutt?) or if he just considers himself to be a mutt. Either way, it's an awesome name for a 50s greaser type. He really nailed that part!

4. Love the glimpse of the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it was great to revisit that immense military warehouse. At the end of Raiders it seemed like we would see that place again, or at least I had hopes to.

5. Indy has a hat and a whip. Will Mutt's signature be a knife and his hair (I can't help noting that Mutt's character must be developed after George himself)? If Indy is afraid of snakes, and Henry the first is afraid of rats, what is Mutt's mortal fear? I'm asking a lot of this with the presumption that the story will continue in some form. If it's Shia taking the reigns for two more movies, I'll take it. I'm just trying to wrap my head around possible titles like "Mutt Williams and the Ancient Pigeon Roost of Death and Destruction" - ?

6. Speaking of snakes, the scene where Mutt uses a rat snake (is that a reference to Henry I's fear of rats?) to pull Indy out of the sand pit is hilarious. Before they got to the sand pit however, during the escape from the camp which Mutt instigated, Indy starts assuming the role of his father by saying "This is intolerable" in reference to Mutt's plan of action. Later we see Indy act like his father again, but he seems to catch himself doing it..

7. I didn't find any 1138 references, and didn't really expect to, but if I remember correctly, the Wilhelm scream, which has been in all 3 previous Indy movies, is found from a Russian soldier during the jungle car chases. If I don't remember correctly, it has to be in the Area 51 warehouse somewhere. I definitely heard it in one of the two scenes.

8. The capoeira moves during the burial grounds scene were totally awesome.

9. Near the end in the throne room, Indy says "I have a bad feeling about this" just like in all the Star Wars films. I haven't noticed this phrase being used before in any of the other Indy films.

10. Mutt "hangs out" with monkeys who have the same hairstyle as him, and they teach him how to swing. This was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

- Thanks to The Dark Moose who notes that in Raiders Marion and Indy stroll through Cairo with a similar monkey. Marion tells Indy "He has your looks" and Indy retorts "He has your brains", as if they were talking about Mutt already!

11. The view of Indy standing before an atomic mushroom cloud is absolutely fabulous, and terrifying. I love the framing and photography used in all the Indy flicks. They stick to their stylistic traditions and it never gets old.

Also of note: During my second viewing this afternoon I was treated to my first big screen showing of the WALL-E trailer and I have to say that I haven't been so excited about a movie just from a trailer in a really long time. I've been anticipating this endearing Pixar flick for a long time. They didn't show the trailer during the previous midnight Indy 4 viewing!

Overall, Indy 4 was just perfect to me. A wonderfully over-the-top (as per the Indy tradition) mix of action, adventure, early history, lore.. and this time around a little bit of sci-fi mixed in. I love how on one level, the Indiana Jones legacy looks at early history through archeology, but on yet another level and from the audience perspective, it is a commentary on 20th century world history.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and the entire cast and crew from KOTCS and all the Indy films for enriching our lives and respectfully continuing the legacy. Great job everyone!

1-18-08 aka Cheese aka Slusho! aka Cloverfield

Let's start with a spoiler free overall reaction to the movie that finally settled on the title Cloverfield (also the name of a street near J.J. Abrams' LA offices). Woah. I'm very pleased that I only finished half of that hummus wrap before going to see this, and no theater nachos for me this time round since I was running a little late at meeting a friend for the show. Not to mention that my stomach has been a little off lately after having recently returned from a trip and a little pre-move life-transition kind of anxiousness. But I'm tough. I grew up sailing, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, skiing, slam dancing, gore movie watching, and other equilibrium churning activities. Granted I'm not the adrenaline junkie I used to be...

The severe hand-held filming method used throughout this film will jar even the toughest stomachs. To my great chagrin I admit I stepped out twice just to gain my footing. Several people left the theater mid-show, never to return, and my friend took a step out as well. The thing about it is that there is just so much shaky movement and the audience is cooped up in a dormant state in their seats. If there were a little bit of physical stimulation, like in a flight simulator or those rumble seats some theaters have, it might have been much more bearable. Strangely, I found that when the action within the movie became elevated and frantic (the bulk of the middle to end) the camera movement was easier to stomach. This is definitely a horror-thriller flick, but the gore was at a minimum, or at least the realistic trauma was flashed so quickly it didn't even have time to register before you were jarred by a subsequent explosion or other distraction.

Update - After reading some reviews around the web, it looks like the motion sickness issues are widespread. Some theaters even posted disclaimers about it as shown in this blogger's review (Just click the picture in the entry if you don't want movie spoilers).

Let the spoilers begin (but scroll down to end for more spoiler free commentary)...

One of those distractions were a very well done build to the unveiling of the "monster", which is undeniably comparable to Godzilla. The first two films that come to mind that executed the monster reveal as successfully were of course the original version of The Thing and Signs. All of these films gave you very brief glimpses of the monster somewhere after the first act, leaving you glued to the screen for a better view. It's such a simple but effective trick, and Cloverfield follows this method perfectly. I really appreciated how well crafted the monster reveal was, and it was certainly the main factor that kept me coming back in from my "breaks". The pacing helped too, but I think they stretched the stomach churning moments out just a little too long for most movie-goers. Once the camera movement started to match the action happening within the frame, there was another moment of relief.

Certainly anyone who was more directly affected by the events of 9/11 should not be referred to see this movie, unless they are such huge Godzilla and horror/thriller fans that the latter overrides the former.

The casting was a good ensemble of twenty-somethings who all played out the natural home video style convincingly. The story was glued together by the "transitional relationships" and actions of a core group of about 6 characters who dwindled as the story (or should I say simply "action") progressed. It was all amazingly simple but well balanced.

The effects are really one of the best components to Cloverfield. It's a prime example of the culmination of FX techniques we've built up to over the years to this era of unbridled creative cinematic glory. Everything looked completely real. The camera movement certainly covers up any flaws there might have been in the compositing and CG, but presenting it that way just makes the movie all the more realistic, as preposterous as it all is. If you haven't seen the movie but are still reading this spoiler zone, the movie is filmed entirely from the POV of a home video camera that was being used by the group of friends to capture a going away party, and followed a small group as they carried it during their attempted escape - very much in the style of The Blair Witch Project.

It's been many decades since the original Godzilla showed eastern and western audiences of the nuclear age what civilization may have to face, but even so - there ain't no giant sea monster attacks listed on the US government's checklist for disaster readiness. I think that might change if Will Smith gets elected this November, since the Fresh Prince is prolly the only one who could save us from such an event ;)

End of spoiler zone

The trailers were a definite bonus - Iron Man, Hellboy, Jumper (I've been waiting for this one, and it looks better and better every new trailer I see. Hayden and Sam fans alike should rejoice!), and a HUGE chill for the all too brief Star Trek XI trailer which flashed Abrams' name leaving me thinking this was the beginning of our feature for a split second. I'm not even a Trekkie!

This shouldn't be much of a spoiler (I hope) - If you've seen Cloverfield, you might remember a flash on one of the party attendee's Slusho! t-shirt, a fictional product some might recognize from other Abrams projects. Gotta love those Easter eggs, and the general production nods to people who pay attention to this stuff. If you haven't seen the movie yet, look for it, and if you want to play at a pretty cool Flash site and maybe even enter the contest - check out the Slusho! site and/or view the Slusho! commercial below.


*Removed video due to annoying inability to stop autostart function. Check it out at the site linked to above*

In summary, I usually make the bank-busting trip to the theaters for things that I expect to be worth the big screen experience, whether it be for cinematography, FX, or engrossing in the action. If you really think you can take it, this is certainly worth a theater visit - although I might contradict myself by saying that the shaky home video style in which it's filmed might be even more effective if viewed on the small screen - just as if you found the footage yourself. Having access to the DVD remote, the bathroom, and the ability to get up and move around will be some pretty handy resources. They are of course developing a game for this, and I think it should prove to be a huge hit for Wii users if they make it interactive with a treadmill and an obstacle course. If you do make it to the theater - Good luck, and be prepared.

Blade Runner Marathon: 1st and 2nd Rounds

I picked up Blade Runner: The Final Cut on Blu-Ray the day after it released. That's Wednesday, December 19 for anyone who has been counting minutes and days (dangerous days that is) around this release. Opted out of the "Ultimate" version with the briefcase, origami unicorn, mini-spinner and other flashy trinkets. The hi-def versions without the collector's case have all 5 versions of the film, and all the bonus materials - i.e. everything the Ultimate version has on the discs, so that was good enough for me, especially at less than half the price of the briefcase version.

On Wednesday night I watched the actual 'Final Cut' version, then on Thursday I watched the enormously long documentary Dangerous Days, which in of itself rivals in length and content the materials LFL has been putting out with various Star Wars DVD releases, and there's still more documentary material in the Blade Runner set. I'll be staggering the documentaries with watching different versions of the film in the coming days, of which I can't wait to see the "Enhancement Archives", which includes a little blooper by Edward James Olmos who refers to replicants as Cylons. I heard an interview with Ridley Scott on NPR's Fresh Air, which I also found available on their website. If you scroll down the page, you'll see a link to a video clip from the Enhancement Archives discussing whether or not Deckard is a replicant, and you'll be able to see EJO's blooper:

'Blade Runner' Director Ridley Scott on Fresh Air

Blade Runner: The Final Cut
It's still sinking in for me. I saw the original theatrical release when I was pretty young, and the Blade Runner I've always known and loved included the voice-overs and an ending with a drive to the country. Thinking back, I don't think I ever payed a whole lot of attention to the plot. Again, I was pretty young and was much more enamored by the visual quality of the film than anything else (and of course Harrison Ford). To me, the story was about a loner cop who lived in a grim and semi-apocalyptic future, who fell in love with a replicant of whom he was supposed to destroy. Deckard was always unquestionably human to me. In fact, the question never crossed my mind until very recently where I had read discussions on the matter as Blade Runner began to get chocked up again in anticipation of the 2007 DVD release.

It's been well over a year or so since I've watched my old 'Director's Cut' on VHS. I think my parents also have the original theatrical on VHS, which is what I had been rewatching over the years for the most part. When I sat down to watch the 'Final Cut' I was watching the film with much more attention to detail and the story than ever before. I was trying to see where the differences were from how I remembered the film. As a result, I saw more and more flaws in the story, and really picked up on the continuity and technical errors - like when Leon threw Deckard onto a ground-mobile and the windshield was already smashed before Deckard hit it. It's kind of funny, since I thought they were aiming to fix a lot of these mistakes in the new cut.

In general, Final Cut seemed very stripped down, almost empty. The dialogue just didn't seem to flow, even though speaking parts were very sparse in the first place. I think the voice-overs helped mask that, or perhaps the audio track needs to be recovered a little more without the VO. I'm learning to appreciate the lack of voice-over, I really am. They gave the film a graphic novel feel for me when I was younger, and generally just kept me in the story. There are certainly some voice-over parts I could live without, but as visually stunning as Blade Runner always has been, I don't think it was ever visually efficient enough to keep the story coherent. Not that I ever cared about that before... before now.

Even though I didn't get to see the Final Cut on the big screen, getting to see this remastered and cleaned up version on Blu-Ray almost made up for that. It's just gorgeous, continuity-warts and all. So what if I saw all the flaws? I wasn't really watching it like I would normally watch a movie. It's so visually powerful, I still cared less about the technical stuff. I'll still jump at any chance to see this in a theater if it comes my way, since they have been extending theater showings (see listings at the official site).

My one and only big qualm is the ending. Maybe I'll feel differently about it at some point, as it seems any version of Blade Runner takes some getting used to. I'm well aware of how Scott felt about what he was made to do with both the sugar-coated ending, and the voice-overs - which was basically very unhappy. Still, the way the Final Cut ends is almost as though he just lopped off the parts he didn't like and left it at that. It could have been just slightly more polished and worked, but to me, the end looks like a mistake as it stands. Again, maybe I was looking too closely, and I'll certainly stand back and compare the end of all the cuts.

Cool factoid - The Millenium Falcon is a stand in as a building in one of the city-scapes!



If anyone happens by one of those prop house yard sales they've been having to keep from going bankrupt during the writer's strike, pick me up a spinner. I'll send you a check... I swear.

I am Legend

This post is divided between a spoiler free review and a more in-depth look with some spoilers.

First spoiler free...

Ah, Will Smith. Recently marked 5th out of the "50 Smartest People in Hollywood" by Entertainment Weekly, and justifiably so if I count as a judge. I've enjoyed Smith ever since the Fresh Prince days *blushes* and he's managed to grow into a self-made franchise. I am Legend is certainly in part testimony to his smartness and success. Not that I think Legend is particularly remarkable itself, but the way Smith pulled it off is, but you'd expect as much from the man.

I've never read the 1954 novel by Richard Matheson (but now it's on my list), nor have I seen the other movie adaptations; The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971), and the 2007 straight to video horror release I am Omega. The first two are on my 'to watch' list, the latter - maybe someday. I kept relatively spoiler free too, only following the pretty trailers for Legend as they released. Coming from that perspective probably helped me enjoy the movie a bit more than many of the critics who gave it lukewarm reviews. Still, I can see where the shortcomings are. I have the opportunity to judge this purely on it's own cinematic merit, but even if you've never read the book or seen the other movies, this is certainly a story you've seen or heard before.

The talents of Will Smith along with a few other aspects, like the visual imagery experience and a splendid performance by the canine sidekick, kept the film interesting enough to sit through. There were a few visual gags in the first act that helped keep your attention on point, which was probably a smart pacing move.

Don't get me wrong - I really enjoyed I am Legend, and not purely by the merits of Will Smith. In fact, a lot of the things I thought were wrong with the movie were the things I actually liked, but then again didn't like. For one, it had an almost but not quite blockbuster style publicity campaign that didn't quite deliver what you'd expect. True, maybe it's just that I associate certain things with a Smith flick now, but what Legend actually is, is a bit more ambiguous. What was bad could be good, perhaps depending on how you look at it and try to tie it all together. I expected MIB and Independence Day style swashbuckling action, which I did partially get.

I certainly never want a movie to fall cookie-cutter neatly into place within a genre, and the fact that Legend is not well defined and therefore awash with subject matter and concept in part kept me interested, but also left me looking for the focus and directive of the plot. The "last man on earth" is certainly an interesting start, but there lacked a really big punch (like an exploding military space station the size of a small moon or the most evil villain being revealed as the hero's father perhaps?) to drive the story into true epic status. But really, that's part of the story. No one would have ever known the story of the last man on earth if it weren't for... well, that would just be a spoiler.

It's a drama, thriller, sci-fi and action movie, but it's also horror. It doesn't seem to want to choose, and that's a little distracting. The horror facet isn't straight up gore, but it's enough to make people who really dislike the horror genre be somewhat disturbed. I can't help but make the association of I, Robot meeting 28 Days Later, but with a heck of a lot less actors and extras, save for the few flashback scenes which were few enough that it almost seemed a film budgeting issue.

Overall I think sci-fi, action, and Will Smith fans will really enjoy this, but if you can't stomach some shock and horror spoused with psychological and emotional elements in a film, this one might be a pass for you. Not a bad second "real movie" (first was Constantine) for up and coming director Francis Lawrence. The Cloverfield and Dark Knight trailers are a bonus too!

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Spoilers below!

But only a few. I have some continuity issues to address concerning the zombie-vampires (for lack of a better designating term - maybe "quasi-rabies patients" would be better?) and how they function within the story and plot. Maybe this is made more clear in the novel, but all I have is this movie to work with. It seems that Dr. Neville (wait, wasn't he a lieutenant in the police force or something?) had at some point concluded that the patients/ victims/ whatever-they-ares have lost all human traits. This wasn't hard to believe since the monsters as we began to see them exhibited only the most primal survival reactions relative to their disease, which was limited to droning in the dark as hives until the smell of fresh meat sparked a savage attack.

What was harder (for me) to believe was that the head honcho zombie-vamp guy... which in of itself was hard to believe that there was a leader at all, had enough strategic intelligence to set a sophisticated trap - a trap that he had to have had the patience and foresight to have learned from by the same contraption built by Neville. Not only that, but the head honcho was a dog handler! Yet still, all he could manage to utter were groans and shrieks of pure zombie agitation. It just seems too unlikely that even an "elegant" disease would effect everyone in the same way by wiping away all civilized characteristics, yet this one individual managed to grunt and groan his way to zombie presidency. Hmmmm. It seemed like they tried to give the zombie-vamps some sort of face or character, which I thought was entirely unnecessary. I would have liked to see more of a follow through. Perhaps if the zombie-vamp president actually had some sort of "moment" with Neville.

I thought the first reveal of the zombie-vamps was superb, with the dim light brushing by and showing a chilling glimpse. I wish they had sustained that tension by showing much less from there on. It pretty quickly switched over to obvious CG zombie-vamps. Movies like the original The Thing, and Signs gave cinema a valuable lesson in building more tension by showing less monster.

Other notes:

Gotta love the Batman plus Superman billboard and the gas prices! I wonder if there were more visual gags in there I didn't catch. Anyone?

Another continuity thing, but maybe I'm just picky... Sam the German Shepherd was noticeably either not the same dog all the time, or her coat quality and size slightly changed which I would attribute to changing seasons during principle photography and/or pick up shots. I have a dog, so I can't help but notice, but it's hard not to since she was also the co-star and one of the few actors! Her part certainly added one of the most affecting dramatic elements to the film.

The driving and hunting scenes, along with the abandoned streets of Manhattan were the major highlights for me, after the performance of Will Smith with his canine companion. I can't help but relate to that having a similar solo living situation with a very similar dog. Another funny coincidence is that the "safe haven" is in the same state that I live (for now). I kind of had to laugh at that, considering the isolationist attitude of Vermonters where the state motto between locals is "Welcome to Vermont. Now, Leave" and there are still movements working to segregate from the Union. When 9/11 hit, which Legend has a lot of connotation to, Vermonters were almost as horrified at the prospect of people migrating there from urban areas as they were at the event itself.

My favorite shot from Legend

Bionic Woman

Speaking of TV show remakes... I just watched the Bionic Woman pilot again (they reran it on SciFi this evening). The following are my first and second impressions, and spoilers for the pilot... so if you haven't seen it yet, you may want to refrain from reading further.



The Bionic Woman pilot episode is available to view in full at it's NBC hosted website. Pretty good web video quality too!

So, I was just as grumbly and skeptical about the whole prospect of yet another remake, and especially of the Jamie Sommers story, as pretty much anybody else I heard who had an opinion about it. I was quite young when the original series aired, but thanks to my parents who were relatively sci-fi saavy, I was exposed to that and the $6000k Man. Frankly I didn't really care for either. Both freaked me out, especially whenever someone would remove a human face to reveal a cyborg skull. I guess I was too young.

But aside from all the traumatic memories, the idea of a Bionic Woman remake just seemed ridiculous. I was prepared to hate it, but I knew I had to watch since my new favorite actress/girl crush/uber idol - Katee Sackhoff of BSG, was to play the new incarnation of a fem-bot villainess.

In a sense I was torn, feeling like I just had to watch something I knew I wouldn't like.

I was very pleasantly surprised, and it wasn't just by Katee's performance. In fact, my own jury is still out on how I feel about Sarah Corvus (Sackhoff). On the one hand, I would almost say that performance was a little wooden and overconfident. But that's exactly what Sarah Corvus seems to be; a regenerated bionic with a grudge who doesn't even remember what it is to be human. When I remember that, Katee Sackhoff's performance fits to a tee, and she kicks some major ass too.

Sure it all gets a little cliche and predictable, but the story moves at a good pace and the drama is good. To me, sci-fi is working when even though you're conscious of the unbelievable, you still continue to watch with interest. Bionic Woman did that for me, although I'll admit I'm not counting the minutes of each day and week until the next episode as I do for Battlestar Galactica, or secondarily Heroes.

Kara... I mean Katee certainly turned out some memorable one-liners. Yep. Still love seeing Katee in action. It's kind of funny though... she's really starting to remind me of BSG's Number 6!


And then there was Jamie Sommers. I had never heard of Michelle Ryan before. At first glance she seemed a little Plain Jane, but now that I've seen it, she seems tailor made for the part. This is where I was very pleasantly surprised. I don't remember any story specifics from the original series, so perhaps starting with a relatively clean slate was to my advantage, save for my bias.

As for the rest of the characters, I'll wait on forming opinions until further episodes.

In general, the pilot formed all the necessary questions yet to be answered and certainly to be replaced with new questions - enough to get me coming back to follow the story. Well, of course one of the other laws of attraction in effect for me are the appearances of four-and-counting Battlestar actors: Aaron Douglas, Mark Sheppard, Katee Sackhoff, and one very brief cameo by Jammer (RIP) as a heli-vac EMT, who we probably won't ever see again.

Having David Eick producing must have something to do with it too (I had to wonder if Eick pulled some of his BSG cast right off the set for last minute Bionic fill-ins). Eick has added his modern TV drama touch, which not unlike BSG is dark and gritty, almost bordering on black and white film noir (it's certainly a stark opposite of the 80's version's blazing techno-color brightness) . The less than cheerful human element is similar too, and you can bet that in following the series you will be forced to continually evaluate your feelings on who is really "evil". Sarah Corvut has obviously been done wrong, and is even a helping hand in Jamie's coming to terms with her bionic-ness. Jamie's mad scientist boyfriend only wanted her to live, and now perhaps he has paid the ultimate price, for taking advantage of his powers as well as for his involvement in Sarah's assassination. Then there's Romo... or Will's father. He was obviously involved with the lab, but somehow ended up in uber-maximum security, only to be set free after holding Chief's wife hostage. Did he have a hand in bringing Sarah back? Does he want his own son dead?

I guess we'll see next week, and I usually have Wednesday nights free, so this show is a go for me... until I potentially get totally bored with it :)

Dang, I haven't even reviewed the Heroes season 2 premiere yet. That's coming as soon as I watch it one more time. Gotta love NBC shows and the full episodes being posted right after on the website. Sorry for all you folks who live outside the US since you probably won't be able to view the epsodes on the web.

And Kaylee is on Stargate Atlantis season 4 right now!!!!

I survived "On the Lot"

After reading a few other online reviews of the season finale of On the Lot, I'm feeling a little better about the whole ordeal. I really wanted to love this series. I wanted to believe it was rising above all other reality TV, if not primarily because it was a Spielberg project - then at least for the hope that it was a contest like we've never seen on TV before. And it was something near and dear to my heart: film-craft.

So I watched. I never really voted, since I caught most of the episodes posted on the (above linked) website after the voting was closed. But I voted in my mind... sort of. Some of the lingering thoughts I had throughout the duration were how the outcome of this process will translate in the real world - Could the winner of this show really succeed even under the wing of Spielberg?.., and that since Zach Lipovsky was obviously already the winner - how they were going to play out the events leading up to his win convincingly and stretch it out over multiple episodes. The other thought was that I wished the host, Adrianna Costa, could have also been voted off the show.

But Carrie Fisher's involvement is really what kept me coming back week after week. Maybe that's a no-brainer. The critiques from all of the judges and guest judges were invaluable to me. I also wanted to see how Zach's films were continuously miles in caliber above any of the other contestant's best work each week.

As each week went on, the show seemed to become more like what a friend of mine referred to as "American Idol for filmmaking", and I couldn't help but to agree even though I kept watching. It was an almost painful process to see this thing through to the end, especially for two major reasons - Zach was voted off several steps before the finals, and Jason Epperson came in second place. Every single film Jason created either bored me, embarrassed me (by the lack of craft being displayed for the world to see... and even worse - they voted for it!), and mostly offended me. I was also sad to see Adam get booted from the finals first.

Since the real judges of this show were supposedly the viewers, who could vote via the internet, text message, or call it in, one has to wonder how effective this kind of voting process is in determining who is worthy of a meeeellion dollar (Dr. Evil pronunciation) contract with Dream Works. To me, this seems about as random as winning the Pepsi Challenge from a bottle cap. Plus, internet voting wasn't even working for the finals. These thoughts actually comfort me considering the outcome of the contest.

Don't get me wrong. Will Bigham certainly seems a worthy winner. He seems talented, intelligent, and humble enough, and those watery puppy dog eyes certainly pull a song of sympathy from the heart strings. In my perfect world, Zach, Adam, and Will were the final three. Jason was voted off instantly with his disgrace to mentally handicapped people everywhere. Andrew, Phil, and Sam (well, Sam made it pretty far anyway) all made it to the second to last final round. Jess and Claudia got over themselves and actually made good films, since they really seemed to have the potential to do so (but maybe not under the contest conditions) and because it really would have been great to have a couple of females up there. In fact, Jess came in second place to Zach in my perfect world. In reality, she looked really pissed during the finals sitting there in the audience.

So I don't know who really voted for this thing, but I have the feeling Jason has a very large extended family and perhaps everyone in Kentucky (maybe they're all one big family) put in a call in vote for him - not because they liked his movies.

In the very end, the prize for the audience, or at least for me, was the glimpse of Steven Spielberg congratulating the winner (my prize for each episode was hearing primarily what Carrie had to say, but also the other judges) - and even that just didn't seem comfortable or right. Now my imagination is running wild filling in what really happened after the cameras cut while Steven and Will walked into the perfectly white balanced sunset of Spielberg Ranch. I also like to imagine how different the show would have been if the judges were the actual judges of the contest, along with other guest industry professionals.

As it turns out, mostly everyone who had anything to say about this show felt almost exactly the same as I. Some prime examples:

'On the Lot' goes out with a whimper by Daniel Fienberg

The foreign directors, the female directors, the minority directors and the few semi-experimental directors were weeded out by the halfway point. Instead, the contest came down to a group of young white men with unremarkable mainstream sensibilities.

Jason got off to an absolutely atrocious start with Getta Rhoom, possibly the season's worst project

no studio head in their right mind would (or should) hand any of them a million bucks based on this body of work.

in one of the most awkwardly staged moments in the history of television (or at least since Celine Dion did her duet with Zombie Elvis), Will hopped in a car and was taken to the DreamWorks lot, where he got to meet Spielberg, inconveniently on leave from Indiana Jones 4. Spielberg gave Will a big hug, claimed he loved all of his films and presented him with the key to his broom closet.

Somehow, Zach still should have won. Now, though, he won't need to wear the uneasy On the Lot Winner crown on his head for the rest of his career.

I agree with just about everything else Fienberg mentions except the crack at Carrie's cleavage.

On The Lot: Series Finale by JJ Hawkins

It's been painful in every nearly respect and I'm glad to finally be put out of my misery.

The part we didn't see is where Spielberg yanked the key back, called security, and had them forcefully escort Will off of Dreamwork's property.

Spielberg could be heard yelling, "Check out my IMDB page sometime. I've got more talent in my beard than you have in your entire body. America got it wrong."

Zach then pulled up in a second limousine, Spielberg handed him the key to the office, and nudged him toward a treasure chest filled with gold bullion.

That behind the scenes didn't really happen, but it should have!

On the Lot: Finale Recap by Oscar Dahl

... Mr. Dahl is much more forgiving, perhaps because he is a senior writer. I think we can fill in the blanks though ;)

Just read the above the reviews, even if you have been a casual On the Lot follower. You can always speed through the episodes at your leisure at the On the Lot website. (Note: Link brings you to the most recent episode first, so to watch from the beginning, scroll down in the right nav bar)... or not.

The most epic epic in all of epic-dom

I mean aside from the Star Wars saga... and Indiana Jones (speaking of - did you hear Indy IV has 6 titles now? Check out indianajones.com for all the sweet new video they've been adding too). I suppose the Iliad is somewhere up there as well.

No, this most epic of epics that I rant about today is from one of my other fangirl-doms, and that is the world of wuxia (which for the uninformed generally refers to Chinese fantasy/historical martial arts cinema and literature in the context it is discussed here).

In the last year or so, there were rumors followed by quasi-official proclamations that my long time hero and wushu idol, Jet Li, was to retire from "epic martial arts films". The news on this was never very credible or crystal clear, but it still brought great sorrow to my fragile but furious fangirl soul. At one point the misinformation mill churned out something about Li continuing making action films, but for American audiences and in the American style... or something to that effect. This not only brought upon tears of darkness from epic martial arts fans everywhere, but it never really quite sat right. Other stories spoke of Li giving up the violent world of wuxia film to devote his life to the study of Buddhism. I liked that version better. I guess I really wanted to hear an outright political statement from Jet that would confess that he was trying to detach from any ties to the Chinese government and movie industry (of which I still am convinced is hidden between the lines of the recent movie Fearless). I might never know the real story, but I'd love to hear it from Jet Li himself someday... perhaps on neutral soil.

Did I ever tell you about how I was going to stalk screenwriter John Fusco, who is actually local to my neck of the woods (and believe you me, that makes everybody a neighbor in these parts, and therefore fair game), and follow him to China while he researched for his next script? Um, well, something came up... I think they call it work, and I guess school too. In my mind I was going. I was all set to drop everything, find a dog... I mean wookiee sitter, and try to convince my mom that going anywhere not considered "the west" did not equal the third world and therefore the inevitable death of her daughter. I really meant to do that, because I knew what John Fusco was up to, and it was right on the heels of the wuxia underworld chatter of Jet Li's exodus.

And it didn't make sense at all, since John Fusco was developing the script for what was then dubbed the "J and J Project". Then the other news started to seep in. I don't mean news about Tarantino and Rodriguez, since that would have been called the "T and R Project", but that's the kind of movie news most people talked about. The J's of the project were none other than Jet Li and Jackie Chan, who were to join together for the first time ever on film (this is history in the making folks) to make an epic martial arts movie. W00t?

Not too long before this I had rushed to theaters to see the release of Fearless, thinking it was my last chance for Jet in a tunic and a top knot. Not that I'm disappointed in any way. In fact, knowing that Jet was going to give epic-ness another chance left my mind at ease for a bit. So much so that I kind of forgot about it for awhile and moved on to other business, like the plan to stalk my screenwriting teacher and follow him to Vancouver while he visits the set of Battlestar Galactica and the filming of it's final season. That hasn't quite happened... yet (but that rant is for another day, and another blog).

Maybe both Jet and Jackie finally realized what Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon did for their genre in the west. Only since Crouching have we really seen wuxia have an actual solid screening in mainstream theaters across the USA. Before then, and with the exception of Bruce Lee movies which were largely endorsed by western interests anyway, wuxia cinema was pretty much relegated to the likes and tastes of fanboys and girls, comic book enthusiast types, and well... you know what I'm getting at. Don't make me say it!

While wuxia isn't quite a household name in the west like Star Wars or Indy... or Megatron, most people in the west have now seen or at least heard of Crouching Tiger. Most people may not know that films like that have been produced in China for close to a century, but with other films like Hero and House of Flying Daggers making their stand in the west recently, the genre is staking it's claim as an art form rather than a more campy-culty underground geek form. Of course, production values have massively updated for this to happen, and as with anything else successful that makes it's way out of China, it somehow gains national status as part of the Chinese cultural heritage. If Jet Li hangs around just a little longer, I think it will give wuxia that much more of a welcome (by me) boost in the west.. along with more western money, and therefore prettier and prettier martial arts flicks. These are evil thoughts though. We should be trying to make prettier movies cost less money to produce, especially in the west. Right? I think on either side of the globe, extras are still living off a wage of craft services anyway :p

Fast forward then rewind to a few days ago. I often have NPR on in the background during my daily commutes, and I always try to listen to the weather report when it comes on, but my attention span always finds something else that takes precedence... like that dog hair slowly making its way toward the rim of my coffee cup. Oh, and driving. But certain keywords are so deeply embedded in my psyche that they will whip monkey mind right back to the present, and a few days ago that keyword was "Jet Li" screaming out from the monotone chatter of NPR. This was followed by a couple of other words that I was less familiar with, which were "Forbidden Kingdom" and "Hengdian Studios". "Jacki Chan" was in there somewhere too.

I felt like Jason Bourne finally remembering how it all began, but in a good way (another epic and worthy of another entry in itself of course). A title? And even more than that... large-ish scale coverage of the movie and the shooting location in China? I worried for a second that our cheerful NPR reporters might somehow vanish only to have their stories of execution in a remote Chinese prison be told years after the fact. Then I remembered that I'm waaay too American. Where had I been for the last few months since this was known merely as the elusive and not much talked about "J and J Project"? Oh right - obsessing about other stuff.

While my eyes and some part of my mind were driving, my ears eagerly ate up the story and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was the first story of a small series on NPR about the movie and Hengdian Studios with another piece to be aired the following day (which I caught completely by chance, again during my commute). All of it can be read and heard on NPR's website, along with pictures(!):

Martial-Arts Masters Meet in 'Forbidden Kingdom'

Coach Assists Chinese Actress' Hollywood Debut

Ambition and History Meet in China's Hollywood
(Check out the web resources in the right nav bar for links to Hengdian and related sites)

I guess China is now open for business.

As it turns out, Forbidden Kingdom isn't quite the wuxia film you were looking for. Being that it's partially a western endeavor, and will star a modern American teenager with a Time Bandits-esque journey to ancient China, it seems as though Kingdom is going to be a marriage of wuxia's new-found western fame and something akin to the Harry Potter fantasy genre bandwagon, which aside from superheroes and comic book characters seems to be the money making movie theme of the moment.

What else is to come you ask? Maybe you shouldn't.

A complete aside (What? Me? A tangent?)... If you've ever seen clips (Warning - very inappropriate content!) from the Chinese translations of Star Wars, this news quip should surely make you grin.

This article was largely inspired by my mentor yo, yo, yo, yo, Yodaaah (and my uncanny ability to blog at length when there are other things that really need to be attended to)

Transformers!

I finally caught Transformers...

AWESOMENESS!

I recommend this movie to everyone, and I mean even kids. One of the first things that struck me with Transformers was that there is really no realistic gore and death as far as humans are concerned. You'll probably see more shooting, car crashes, giant robots crashing into buildings, and explosions in this movie than anything before it, but no one really dies or gets hurt (a couple of small exceptions, but they are really not graphic in any sense - on the other hand, they are more noticeable perhaps since they are they only instances). The destruction of city buildings is probably a pretty touchy subject in this day and age, but this movie is really like comic book or anime done up live-action style, so the only reality has to do with the fact that it is live action.

I don't know, maybe all the shooting, explosions and destruction is just as bad for kids to see. The fact that no one is visibly hurt or killed by all the ruckus (and there is A LOT of ruckus throughout the movie) might be a bad example that could lead kids to think its okay to shoot and blow stuff up. All I know is that when I saw it, there was a 6 or 7 year old kid with his mother in the seat behind me that was shouting out the events of the entire movie as it happened, so I guess some people think it's fine for young kids... but these are the same people who think it's okay to let their kids be disruptive during a movie people payed good money to see. Seriously, this kid was shouting and the mother wasn't stopping him. She was even encouraging him by engaging in his 6-7 year old commentary of exactly what was happening on screen. Grrrr.

After a quick seating relocation, I enjoyed the rest of the movie in total bliss. I tried to soak in every second, because really every second had something to offer. I have to see it again, maybe a couple of times more. This will be a must have for HD enthusiasts when it hits DVD (and I hope to see it that way too). Finally, a summer blockbuster really worth the price of a ticket.

Shia LaBeouf is one of my new favorites by the way. He was just so relateable, but at the same time he acted in complete accordance to the genre/style of the movie, as if he jumped right off the pages of a comic book. Shia is on this month's Vanity Fair cover, and I might just have to pick that one up for the article. Please though - PLEASE! Let's not compare him or try and make him into "the next Tom Hanks". Just let the kid come into his own already. I can't wait to see him in Indy IV and anything else he might be working on in the future.

Transformers is a must see for anyone who enjoys astounding effects on the big screen (about half of the end credits, which were very long, were allotted for the extensive SFX crews, including that of ILM), and for anyone who loves the franchise, robots, technology, cars, planes (there are some incredible flying scenes), action, good comic book-style fun, and more. I saw it about a week after it opened (which is a sore subject for me, since it ended up having a last-minute opening 2 days earlier than scheduled, which made it impossible for me to go to the midnight premiere on the night I had previously planned), and the theater was probably only about 1/4 full, but the crowd still gave applause at the end of the movie. How often does that happen? Even on an opening night that's pretty rare.

I hadn't really kept up with Transformers since watching it when I was a kid. Even so, I love this movie as a grown-up and without too much memory of any story arcs for any of the bots. Maybe that's a good thing since I've seen a few die-hard fans dissect some of the changes from the series that came before. Bah! I haven't enjoyed being in a theater this much since... Star Wars actually! Steven Spielberg is executive producer, so go figure.
Definitely see it on the Big Screen while you can. It's the only way and it's really worth it. If your kids are gabby types though, please, hire a baby sitter and just get them the DVD when it comes out ;)

Featured article for Transformers from July 13th Entertainment Weekly: When Robots Attack