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:

Lego Fever!

There seems to be some kind of weird LEGO craze going around at the moment... A couple weeks ago The LEGO Movie opened in the States to consistently positive reviews (Metacritic: 82; Rotten Tomatoes: 96%), and The Hollywood Reporter's just reported that the film, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (21 Jump Street, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), has sailed past the $200 million mark in global box office receipts.

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The Simpsons are jumping on board the bandwagon too, with an episode that will be completely animated in LEGO...

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And here's a freelance designer who's gone and redesigned the posters for this year's Oscars Best Picture nominees in LEGO...

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And if you ever wanted to see the trailer for Liam Neeson's forthcoming thriller Non-Stop redone in LEGO, now you can too:

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Not enough LEGO for you? We do have a bunch of LEGO toons available to rent...

LEGO - Friends: Dolphin Cruise
LEGO - Friends: Stephanie's Surprise Party
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu
LEGO - Legends of Chima: Vol 1
LEGO - Legends of Chima: Vol 2
LEGO - Legends of Chima: Vol 3
LEGO - Hero Factory: Savage Planet
LEGO - Friends: New Girl in Town
LEGO - Star Wars: The Padawan Menace
LEGO - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out
LEGO - Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles
LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers
LEGO Batman - The Movie: DC Super Heroes Unite
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 1
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 2
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 3
LEGO - Ninjago: Masters Of Spinjitsu - Series 2: Vol 4

OK I think that should be enough LEGO talk for now.

Ridley Scott's The Counselor: "worst ever made"?

Ridley Scott's new film The Counselor has opened in the States to some of the most negative reviews of the director's career. The drug trafficking thriller, penned by renowned author Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road), baffled and bored critics, even prompting one -- Salon's Andrew O'Hehir -- to deem it the "worst movie ever made". Despite a star-studded cast that includes Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt, audiences didn't go for it either, leaving the film with a miserable box office opening that's also one of Scott's worst. The Counselor opens in NZ on November 7.

In Space No One Can Hear You Nitpick

Firstly if you haven't seen Alfonso Cuaron's spectacular Gravity yet, just set aside 90 minutes this week and buy a ticket to a 3-D screening at your nearest IMAX pronto. Reviews have been largely, universally positive (it's currently boasting an impressive 96 rating on Metacritic), and having seen the film, I can attest that it IS a big screen experience worth savouring. And not just any normal screen, but the biggest screen possible, hence the IMAX recommendation. I rarely go back for seconds at the movies these days -- heck I barely make it out to the theatres anymore -- but Gravity is one film that could justify another viewing. It's just that kind of film. 
Plenty have been written about Cuaron's gob-smacking technical achievements already so I won't go into detail, but for those who've seen the film and need some post-viewing reading, Vulture has a great interview with director Cuaron and former US astronaut Scott Parazynski, who fact-checks the film's space experience. Meanwhile, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson unleashed a barrage of tweets nitpicking the film's "realism". Trust me though, none of this will matter when you're watching it -- Gravity is one of the most beautifully immersive blockbusters ever created, and definitely the best of its kind released this year.

Quick Thoughts: World War Z, Only God Forgives, Monsters University

I surprised myself last week by dragging my lazy ass to a staggering THREE preview screenings last week, none of which I had to review... But thought I'd share a few quick words here if anyone cares to read.

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World War Z - It's not as bad as the negative pre-release press (ballooning budget, last minute rewrites) would have you believe, but meh, it's nowhere near as good as you want it to be either. I haven't read Max Brooks' zombie apocalypse novel which it's based on, but word is that Marc Forster's adaptation removes everything remotely interesting in favour of making a dumb, blockbuster action-centric thriller.

The decision to keep carnage off the screen where possible to get a PG-13 rating is crippling and laughable: there's a scene where a character whose hand has just been chopped off is bandaged up with not a drop of blood in sight. You really expect us -- adults -- to buy this? There are a few suspenseful moments, and I was moderately entertained in the moment, but as the film limped to its disappointingly scaled-down climax, I started to care less and less until walking out of the film feeling unsatisfied. World War Z opens on Thursday, and if you hate 3D, I recommend that you do not see it in its worthless 3D state.

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Only God Forgives - I was surprised at how quick this got a screening here.. within a couple weeks of its booing at Cannes! It's not getting boos from me though, but nearly a week since seeing it I'm still yet to be able to formulate a coherent thought about it. Any Ryan Gosling fans casually heading along to see their favourite hunky Drive star act tough and cool will probably be in for a deeply unpleasant time at the movies: Nicolas Winding Refn's ultra-stylized neon-splashed noir, set in the sordid underbelly of Thailand, unfolds with the blood-curdling, unsettling tenor of a horror movie rather than your traditional crime drama.

Gosling's performance, all smoldering glances, is even more pared-down than in Drive; how many pages of dialogue did he have to remember, like two? Maybe less. If you don't mind pure style, visuals and atmosphere over plot and everything else, Refn's film might seduce you. Dig that Alejandro Jodorowsky dedication in the credits. Only God Forgives opens August 1st.

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Monsters University - I for one would prefer if Pixar stuck to new stories instead of cashing on their existing franchises, but when it's as expertly conceived as this Monsters Inc. prequel, it's hard to complain. University definitely has a Pixar-by-numbers feel, as opposed to say, Toy Story 3 - but it's also another a smart, funny and visually dazzling demonstration of what they do best. Monsters University is out in theatres July 11.

M. Night Can't Catch a Break

Poor M. Night Shyamalan. The dude just can't catch a break. His new Will Smith-starring sci-fi pic After Earth adventure is currently scoring 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. Variety has called it "listless", a "non-happening", "a leaden affair". Twitch says it's "apocalyptically bad". Film Freak Central gave it ZERO STARS, describing it as "a thinly-sketched, unbearably haughty survival story that cites Moby-Dick as it steals from Suzanne Collins". And so it goes. None of this is surprising of course, given the steady, consistent decline of the Shyamalan brand over the last six films he's made since his breakthrough hit The Sixth Sense. The marketing team at Sony were well-aware of this too, pre-empting any damage wrought by audience expectations ("It's that twist guy again!") by scrubbing his name clean from promo materials to focus on Will Smith. So what happened to M. Night Shyamalan? Have a read of Nick Schager's piece at Village Voice. After Earth comes out in NZ on June 20. Oh yeah, M.'s still talking about doing Unbreakable 2...

Django Unchained Reviews Are In! + Tarantino stuff

There's only one thing causing more noise in film news than The Hobbit this month and it's The New Film by Quentin Tarantino. Django Unchained, the 49-year-old director's 7th feature, has been screened for critics stateside and the reviews are now starting to pop up on the web. Anne Thompson over at Indiewire has this mostly positive round-up, although she isn't as crazy about the film as some of other critics. Also: reviews from The Guardian, Badass Digest, Slant Magazine.

Recently the Hollywood Reporter held a Director Roundtable featuring Tarantino, Ben Affleck, Tom Hooper, Ang Lee, David O. Russell and Gus Van Sant. I didn't get around to posting it last week but here are a couple of Tarantino highlights from that session:
And last but not least, the following is a great interview Tarantino did with Howard Stern. The interview is very frank, revealing (he doesn't like Owen Wilson!) and often hilarious. Listen to its 75-minute entirety here:

Scream 4 as Reviewed by a Blind Film Critic

This is kinda funny/interesting/amazing. Possibly the last thing you'd ever consider in the world of film criticism is a critic who is blind. Yet here's Tommy Edison offering a witty, uniquely focused perspective on film, giving some insight into things us vision-abled people might sometimes take for granted, in particular, the use of sound...

Lights, Camera... 11-Year-Old Critic!

This guy just came to my attention. He's only 11 and a celebrity Emmy-winning film "critic" in America. He publishes his reviews on his own website, which boasts the claim that he began his career at age 7 1/2. This is a clip of him reviewing Inception and Salt. Not quite the next Ebert yet, but kid's got (somewhat annoying) charisma, I'll give him that.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is 91% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes!

Yes, the rating is based on only 11 reviews, and will no doubt drop when the film opens this weekend, but right now, it's an interesting look at Paramount's marketing strategy where they've chosen not to screen the film to the majority of mainstream US critics and instead selected a handful who they assume would "get" the movie (incidentally, I watched one episode of the original '80s cartoon for the first time since I was a kid last night, and it's pretty damn goofy stuff).

Starring Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the movie is touted as the final big-budget blockbuster "summer event" action pic of the year, and also marks the second Paramount-Hasbro collaboration this year after Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The trailer looks like it could be fun, and I'm slightly excited, though I've placed my expectations pretty, pretty low. I'm hoping it'll deliver at the very least, the kind of brainless escapist entertainment that Transformers 2 failed to do. Read more here.

The Mighty Bay

Michael Bay cannot be stopped. And he knows this. Industry watchers are now observing that his box office-demolishing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen maybe the worst-reviewed $400 million hit ever. ROTF is packing theatres like nobody's business, and while box office results and critical consensus have rarely been on the same page, the disconnect in this case is larger than ever before. I love this L.A. Times interview with Bay where he addresses the negative reception his film's been getting. Favourite quote: "I am convinced that they are born with the anti-fun gene." Yes, Michael, that's the one...