This is not going to become a Michael Bay hate site (any more than it already is one), but just yesterday I revelled in the poor opening of Bay’s latest film The Island, and, to quote myself, called him an “arrogant prick.” For anyone who inexplicably felt bad for Bay because some barely-read schmuck (read: Me!) in a little corner of the worldinterwidewebnet said some mean things about him, it only took a day for him to reinforce my point with his quotes to the media. As usual, Defamer offers the best summary. And here’s the full LA Times article.
Here’s the thing: I don’t care if he ultimately pretends to take the blame saying, “It’s always the director’s fault.” He’s not actually doing that; he’s just speaking to the perception out there especially within the business. He’s just saying, “Woe is me.” He’s already spent the entire time talking about how it’s everyone else’s fault or how nobody else will be blamed. “‘Everyone from [Steven] Spielberg to [Robert] Zemeckis to [Stanley] Kubrick — they’ve all had big flops,’ he said. ‘I was five for five. You know it’s going to happen.'” They’ve also all made great movies, and you Mr. Bay, haven’t done anything close yet.
Please don’t blame the marketers. Personally, I felt this movie was shoved-up my ass. They started rolling out trailers in movie theaters months ago, and you almost couldn’t go to something recently without seeing one. More importantly, if you’re such a smarter marketer (which you may be), do us all a favor and go back to directing commercials. I’m sure Audi would love to have you.
And don’t worry — until I see the film (probably not until later this week) I have now instituted a self-imposed moratorium on Michael Bay rants. But on a quick side-note and to reinforce the larger point I was making yesterday, the LA Times piece also makes note that aside from The Island, “This summer’s box-office doldrums has claimed numerous victims: Rebound, Lords of Dogtown, and the bigger budget films Cinderella Man and Kingdom of Heaven.” Now I haven’t seen Rebound, but of those four films, that’s the one I had the least hopes for anyway, and the reviews and word-of-mouth on it have been terrible. Cinderella Man was fine, but it was definitely too long and at times a bit too sappy. The other two were simply really bad movies. Lords of Dogtown had promise, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, Catherine Hardwicke simply doesn’t know how to tell a story, and after a decent beginning, the film falls apart. And Kingdom of Heaven? It was a big bore? How you make a huge film with big mideival action sequences a big bore is beyond me, and Ridley Scott is a fantatstic filmmaker, but this time out, he made a snoozer. So basically the common link to the vast majority, if not all, of this summer’s big “flops” is that they sucked. SHOCKER!
Out of Focus 