Breaking Down "Bayhem"

Is there currently a more widely lambasted director on this planet than Michael Bay? Though critics softened slightly for his last film, the dark true-crime comedy Pain and Gain, the knives are out once again -- perhaps even sharper than before -- with the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction, the fourth entry in the blockbuster franchise that has continued to stuff Bay's pockets with ridiculous amounts of moolah. So is there anything more to Bay than what we already know, i.e. fast cuts, sexy chicks and explosions? In this video essay, Tony Zhou incisively analyses what makes Bay, essentially Bay, and love or hate him, there's no question that the man's a step above the the blander, hack-ier likes of McG or Brett Ratner, at least on an aesthetic level:
Meanwhile, the critical mauling of Age of Extinction has been so bad that talk show host Jimmy Kimmel decided to get a few critics together to say something nice about Bay:

The Nominees are...

Best Motion Picture of the Year 
(Don't know anything about these films? Vulture's primer is worth reading!)
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Christian Bale for American Hustle
Bruce Dern for Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street 
Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave
Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Amy Adams for American Hustle
Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock for Gravity
Judi Dench for Philomena
Meryl Streep for August: Osage County

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role 
Barkhad Abdi for Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper for American Hustle
Jonah Hill for The Wolf of Wall Street
Michael Fassbender for 12 Years a Slave
Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Sally Hawkins for Blue Jasmine
Julia Roberts for August: Osage County
Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave
Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle
June Squibb for Nebraska

Best Achievement in Directing 
Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity 
Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave
David O. Russell for American Hustle
Martin Scorsese for The Wolf of Wall Street
Alexander Payne for Nebraska

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year 
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Ernest and Celestine
Frozen
The Wind Rises

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year 
The Broken Circle Breakdown: Felix Van Groeningen (Belgium)
The Missing Picture: Rithy Panh (Cambodia)
Jagten: Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)
The Great Beauty: Paolo Sorrentin (Italy)
Omar: Hany Abu-Assad (Palestine)

For all the nominations, head over to IMDB.

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Or if you'd prefer watching Thor announce the nominees, watch this:

The 2014 Golden Globes... in GIFs

The great thing about Tumblr and awards shows: if you don't have the attention span to sit through three hours of cringey Hollywood back-patting, the gif-making wizards of Tumblr will capture the best, most essential moments for you. Here's a selection from the 2014 Golden Globes:

Check out the full list of winners here (our Awards section is slightly bung at the mo, it's on the list of things to fix soon).

What Happened to Movie Posters?

Ever wonder why today's movie posters all seem so samey and uninspired? It's because they ARE. Here's a great little video breaking down the design trends and elements (floating giant heads!) that pop up time and time again, and compares them to the more visually exciting and imaginative posters of yesteryear:

2013 Oscars Wrap-Up...in GIFS

In case you missed the ceremony...

More here at MTV Movies Blog.

Roasting the Nominees

With the Oscars a few days away and media and industry buzz going off the charts, sometimes a fresh perspective is necessary to balance out all the noise. Especially if it's coming from the inside, like this voter - an anonymous veteran director - who's shared his views on the nominees with The Hollywood Reporter. I really enjoyed his no-holds-barred cutting-through-the-bullshit tone; he isn't afraid to get nasty (Django Unchained is described as "Quentin Tarantino almost masturbating for three hours"), but mostly I found his thoughts fairly on the nose - he clearly knows what he's talking about. Or maybe like him, I just really want Zero Dark Thirty to win big...

Spoof Trailer: Movie: The Movie

The idea for this sounds good - or at least, a little amusing - on paper, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired, like a stinky Oscar skit. I guess it's a bit churlish to knock something that was obviously scraped together quickly and is admittedly impressive for the number of stars it managed to cram in 10 minutes spoofy trailering for the Jimmy Kimmel show.. but meh. Your mileage might vary.

Martin Scorsese: Genre-Hopper

I've never really thought of Martin Scorsese as a genre-hopper before, even though it's pretty clear he's had a fairly varied career, working in different genres. Here's a neat infographic from Fast Company that visually summarises his body of work by genre and gives credence to the notion that he's often attempted other things beyond the crime/gangster movies that he's more well-known for:

Also be sure to check out the full interview with Scorsese - it's an excellent read which goes into his relationship with Hollywood and how he's manage to stay afloat in the "system" after all these years.  His new 3D kids film Hugo, out here on Jan 12, is currently garnering really good press, probably some of his best in recent years.