Out of Focus

I’ve been meaning to mention this since Monday, but I thought I’d give the channel a second viewing before tearing into it. I’m talking about Current TV, of course, the Al Gore backed new cable channel created for a new generation of media watchers. You know, those of us with low attention spans, who want to see stories that reflect what we’re going through — like what it’s like to be a hot model, for example — and who want to actually have a say in what we’re watching. Those of us in our 20s and early-30s, making our way in the world today. You know, it takes everything we’ve got.

But I digress. I spent about 90 minutes watching Current (Channel 103 on Time Warner cable in NYC) on Monday, it’s first day on the air. In case you haven’t taken a moment to see for yourself, let me say this first: don’t go checking that onscreen cable guide for what’s on. Current doesn’t work that way. There’s no set programming grid. Rather, the channel is a continuous flow of “pods,” roughly 10 minute or shorter pieces of … well … anything. Most of the pods seem to be short lifestyle pieces, although there also seem to be some short-film-like programming. I saw one about young married couples trying to buy their first home. Another was about the lives, and especially sexuality, of young adults in Iran. There were two “Current Hotties” segments, introducing us to the daily grind of models — one man, one woman. All these “pods” have something that will remind you of your iPod: a progress bar that continuously moves from “start” to “end” so you know exactly how much time is left in the piece.

I’ll say this much for Current: Gore definitely put the stamp of his personality on the channel. I thought it was boring as hell.

Actually, that’s unfair. I think many of the individual pieces I saw were fine … not amazing, but OK. But the transitions between pods are just awful, and enough to make me want to change the channel. It seems like they’ve set-it-up to model after the early days of MTV with each pod being a music video. But dammit if I wouldn’t kill for Martha Quinn or JJ Jackson and just some semblance of personality. Whoever was in charge of casting the “hosts” for these segments should be fired and never allowed to deal with talent placement in any form of media. These people are awful. They’re not helped by the sets or the background music or the way it’s shot. Every intro and outro to each pod feels like a really poorly written infomercial. And they obviously cast for looks more than presentation/speaking ability. The hosts may not be helped by the incredibly trite language, but someone good can still make it sound like they’re not reading off of cue cards. It’s as if all the people writing for the host segments on Current are the rejects from the Academy Awards banter-writing staff who then also couldn’t get a gig on any other poorly written, unfunny awards show.

You want an example? This won’t do it justice, but it’s a taste. Here is what Shauntay Hinton says coming out of the piece on young adults in Iran:

OK, seriously though, watching that pod makes me realize that we’re not that much different from the young adults in Iran. Hmmm. We all want the same things, and it makes me realize how lucky I am to be free to do what the hell I want to do.

Yeah!

I’m not making that up. And I can’t adeuqately represent that “Yeah!” at the end. It’s more of a “ye,” if you know what I mean. Whatever it is, it’s awful.

And I actually can’t get off the ridiculous set. It looks like the interior of the round, elevated house in Body Double. They also used an outside set, like on the porch of a house or something. That one was in daylight. The Body Double one is at night. Of course, these run interchangably as I saw both during the hours of roughly 2:30-4 PM when I was watching. You also have interchangable hosts as opposed to any sort of DJ-like scheduled presentation.

Another problem is that their attempt to create something like the internet on TV is flawed. The only way to actually know what might be coming on is to watch the channel while checking on the web site for what the upcoming pods are. Of course, unlike the internet, you can’t yet stop a pod that’s boring you to go on to the next one. You still have to wait for the next one; wait for the little progress bar to reach the end. (I actually do kind of like the status bar though.)

But I can’t get off these host segments because they just riled me so. I almost wasn’t sure what was Current programming and what was a cheap commercial. This confusion was enhanced by the pledge drives calls for material. See one of the things Current offers is an opportunity for any of us to shoot something and submit it to the channel. There are all these on air pleas for the audience to get involved, and while it’s more interesting than a Channel 13 interestitial, it might as well be the same thing.

I know that Current is new, and it probably will take them some time to find their footing, but maybe they premiered too soon because if my second attempt to watch the channel is any indication, they have way too little material. Last night at around 6:30, I turned it back on to find myself back in the middle of the pod concerning young adults in Iran. I mean come on! How often do these pods repeat? I watch for 90 minutes on Monday, and when I come back more than 48 hours later I land on the exact same pod? Does that mean that basically you just need to watch about two hours one day per week and you’ll see the whole channel?

Even though I’m sure Gore isn’t making all the hands-on programming decisions or overseeing production, the channel does, in fact, feel like a 55 year old’s idea of what a 25 year old would want to watch. I’m going to take a break from Current until next week when I’ll give it another shot, and I’m sure that over time they’ll work out more of the kinks and have more pods. In the short term — please fire your hosts and burn down the set; dig a little deeper into the stock music library and maybe you should actually try to model yourself after radio or the early MTV. Then, let’s talk again.

Updated: Do yourself a favor and read Dana Stevens’ dead on and, as usual, more coherent and researched take in her Surfergirl column on Slate.

I woke up this morning just in time to catch the cast of the pending film version of Rent perform two numbers on Today. Unintentionally, I should say. A friend had IMed me to let me know they’d be on, I’m sure because I’ve already expressed my certain love for this adaptation and the film’s director Chris Columbus.

Many of you have probably caught the trailer, and I’ll admit, it looks damn good. Of course, it’s just a three minute music video for one of the more rousing songs in the score, “Seasons of Love.” And I am happy to see that the film looks sufficiently “New York.” The actors also look sufficiently in their 30s (with the exception of new-to-the-cast Rosario Dawson), but whatever. It’s nice to know the songs will be sung well by such a talented group.

But I’m still not letting the trailer fool me. I’m pretty sure I wrote a rant some months ago about how untrustworthy trailers are (but I can’t find it and that’s not new news to anyone). In fact, last year, there was a great trailer for The Phantom of the Opera that, like this Rent one was basically just a music video without any real scenes or moments and not one line of dialogue, and we know how that turned out. So the Rent trailer hasn’t done anything to make me believe that Columbus has a shot at making this a good film, even if the comparison isn’t completely fair — just stop all you Rent freaks before you comment how much better the musical you live for is than anything Andrew Lloyd Weber has ever done.

Anyway, this morning the cast was on Today giving two of the more boring performances I think I could ever imagine coming from the show. Thank goodness that Katie Couric was there to play the sycophant after “Seasons of Love.” “You guys sound amazing,” Couric fawned (or something close to that) after the group performed the song standing stock still in front of eight microphones. Uhm, they didn’t sound amazing, actually. There were at least two moments in the song where at least a couple people were really flat and they sounded, for lack of a better word, awkward. Plus, it was just really dull. For one thing, where was a live band to provide the music? The canned backing track sounded very distant. Then to have no movement on the stage just led to something like … zzzzz. You know, much of the success of the stage show comes directly from the audience feeling the strength and energy of the performers — it’s something that is relatively unique to theater and certainly the biggest challenge for Columbus in adapting the show to the screen. “Seasons of Love” is a perfect example of the song that emotionally succeeds if you’re sitting there, feeling the vibrations of the music. On TV, in your living room, not so much. And with vocal mistakes? Blech.

Then they did a second number. But “they” didn’t do a second number — just Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal performed singing “What You Own.” Why have the entire major cast there to do one of the more generic numbers, again with the two performaers barely moving, barely interacting. OK, so maybe other than in the movie, Pascal and Rapp haven’t performed this together so much, but it looked like they barely knew the other one was there. Why not do a number involving the whole cast? Why not sing the title song or “La Vie Boheme.” Plus, the mix with the backing music on this song was even worse.

Really, it was just dull. Hopefully the movie won’t be. I guess we’ll see on Nov. 11. Sorry Chris, I’m still not holding my breath.

Oops, my bad. It’s August, and that means TCM brings us “Summer Under the Stars” — their 31 day tribute to many of the greatest movie stars in history. Every 24 hours features films from a different great actor or actress, and just as I did last year, I thought I’d highlight some of the not-to-miss films on the schedule. I’m going to try really hard to limit myself to just one film per actor, though, so be sure to check-out the TCM web site’s “This Month” section yourself.

Of course, since it’s already Aug. 2, that means I missed a day. I know, I’m sorry. I failed you. And it was a good one too: Lauren Bacall. They showed the classic To Have or Have Not — her first movie with Bogey — and also featured a new episode of “Private Screenings”, TCM’s periodic series of conversations with classic movie stars featuring host Robert Osborne as the interviewer. Uhm … yeah, so that was last night. But, you know, they’ll show it again. Next month. Or the one after.

As always, the schedule the rest of the month is pretty incredible. Hell, the schedule for the rest of this week is something (today is James Cagney), so get those DiVos/TiVos/Recordable DVDs/VCRs/whatever ready, and get ready to thank TCM once again for being the best channel on the cable dial.

Continue reading “TCM’S SUMMER UNDER THE STARS 2005 EDITION: 31 DAYS, 31 STARS — 30 SUGGESTIONS (SORT OF)”

Somehow, I actually forgot to mention something about Last Days in my post below, namely having to do with the film title. There are no credits to the movie until the very end, and when the title card shows up it reads “Gus Van Sant’s Last Days.”

I haven’t seen this really mentioned anywhere, and I guess I just hadn’t noticed that some of the ads read that way as well. Having that kind of credit on a title card so that the director’s name as a possessive becomes part of the title is extremely rare, certainly more so than the ubiquitous “A film by …” credit on a separate card. But obviously seeing those white letters pop-up on a black background after spending more than an-hour-and-a-half watching those particular images makes them read not just as “Gus Van Sant’s [film] … Last Days,” but also as “Gus Van Sant’s Last Days.”

I’m not trying to read a death-wish into Van Sant’s film, but it was just eerie. I sincerely doubt this was a credit imposed on the film by HBO Films. Credits — placement or non-standard styles — are negotiated as part of a contract, so Van Sant must have specifically requested it. Fellini’s name was regularly attached to many of his films as part of the title — Fellini Satyricon, Fellini’s Roma, Fellini’s Casanova — but I don’t actually know if that was his auteurist choice to put his stamp even more specifically on the film or primarily a marketing ploy for his films’ releases, especially here. Either way, I wonder if in some way Van Sant was actually inspired specifically by Fellini, who grew out of the Italian Neorealism movement to create something that certainly bridged the gap to what I might call the hyperrealism of Van Sant’s trilogy.

Yet after walking out of the theater, I simply couldn’t get that out of my mind. We had just watched Gus Van Sant’s Last Days. A movie? A statement? Hmmm.

You see what’s happening here? I’m trying to force myself into structure. Now in case you’re wondering, this never works. It’s all about habits, right, and sometimes I stick to them and they become hard to break; other times I stick to them but before to long, they become easy to break and then it’s like square one. But the new “habit” for me with this blog is to bring my addled thoughts into a bit more focus. So there’s the weekend preview, and the weekend (really the whole week) review. Ah, I’m so clever. Or something.

Now, for those of you who have been here for a while and are not visiting the site simply because I happened to post a picture of younger Christopher Reeve after he died, which seems to be a popular Google search; or you didn’t arrive here because shockingly enough, plenty of people still come here after searching for something like “chloe sevigny blow job” … well, those two, three, maybe even four of you who actually read my ramblings from time-to-time might remember my “unattainable goal” (the term I prefer to “resolution”) from the beginning of the year: the attempt to average watching one movie a day, whether in a theatre, on DVD, cable, etc. Someone asked me if I had any criteria making a viewing eligible, and in fact I do, quite simple ones. The movie has to be shown in a commercial free, unedited version. That makes IFC and TCM OK. It makes AMC, Comedy Central and TBS, not so much. Simple no?

Well now that we’re well-past the midway point, seven months into the year, here’s my report. July 31was day 230 of 2005. As of July 31, I had watched 120 films. That’s actually well-ahead of my pace at this point last year, so I’m not totally unhappy. Considering that I basically didn’t have time to watch anything in March or April, it’s really not too bad. And this past week I actually did average one movie per day. (For some reason, people always miss the word “average.” They say to me, “Wow! A movie every day. That’s something.” It really isn’t. And neither is two movies one day and none another. Hell, if someone was paying me for this, chances are I’d be easily seeing a lot more, as do many “professional” critics.)

Anyway, this past week I saw The Constant Gardner, Must Love Dogs, Batman Begins (again, but this time on the IMAX screen), The Aristocrats, Wedding Crashers and Last Days. I also watched Operation Petticoat on TCM on Sunday which I had somehow never managed to see and is quite fun for a late ’50s Blake Edwards silly comedy.

The Constant Gardner is the new film from Brazilian City of God director Fernando Meirelles. It doesn’t open until later this month, and I’m not going to talk about it now because I need to see it again. For some reason, the DGA Theater always puts me to sleep — not the movies I see there, but the actual theatre. And somehow, I managed to get in to another early screening of it next Sunday. So more on that later. (What I did see, though, while maybe not as genius as City of God was pretty damn amazing still.)

As far as the other films, clicking on the links that follow will take you to some comments/reviews after the jump. Suffice it to say that Batman Begins is not only still possibly the best movie I’ve seen this year, but I’m in even more awe of director Christopher Nolan than I was the first time I saw it.

Batman Begins
The Aristocrats
Wedding Crashers
Last Days
Must Love Dogs

Tomorrow or Wednesday, in a separate post, I will finally get back around to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which has been bubbling around my brain for nearly two weeks now. Sadly, the further I get away from it, the less of a fan I find myself to be. But that’s for later. On we go for now….

Continue reading “THE WEEK(END) IN REVIEW AND MY MID-YEAR UPDATE: STILL IN AWE OF MR. NOLAN; LAUGHING AT WEDDINGS AND ARISTOCRATS; VAN SANT COMES INTO FOCUS?”

When I originally started this blog all those many moons ago (geez — it’s only like 16 moons; it feels so much longer, and I’m sure even longer still for you), I really intended to regularly do two things: first, have some semblance of regular reviews of the movies I see — long, short, whatever; and second, do a weekly preview of all the new releases — big and small — as much for you my loyal reader as for myself to make sure I at least have taken the time to know when stuff is coming out. Well, I’ve performed horribly at both goals, and for that reason, I am quitting blogging.

HEY! Stop cheering. I’m kidding. You can’t get rid of me that easily.

I’m still working on the reviews, but how’s this for a really short one:

Must Love Dogs must hate me, because I do love dogs, but that movie irritated the hell out of me.

How’s that? A little more than a headline; a lot less than I’m used to. OK, I’ll get into more detail later, maybe even in an IMreview with my screening companion from the other night. However, I have so many other things I feel are more interesting to discuss, we’ll see if I actually get around to it. Broken promises: it’s what we’re all used to, no?

But Must Love Dogs is just one of a whole slew of notable new releases this weekend, and wouldn’t you know it? I still haven’t seen anything from last weekend, when I actually did manage to carve out a weekend preview post.

None of the releases this weekend are so huge that they will really challenge the box office rankings. Chances are good that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wedding Crashers can hold on to their top spots, but if certain people who I said I wasn’t going to talk about again until I seen a certain movie was upset last week, he’ll be crying far more hysterically come Monday after being bumped out of the top five. Each of this weekend’s wide releases however do have sleeper potential, especially Must Love Dogs which really should have been a cute romantic comedy with two incredibly engaging leads, both of whom are crushes to the vast majority of movie-going America. But enough about this dog.

The movie I’m most excited for as it receives a limited release this weekend is The Aristocrats, a documentary from comedians Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette which features over 100 of their comic colleagues telling the same (sort of) famous filthy joke over-and-over again. The film was a big hit earlier this year at Sundance. More recently it’s been the center of a minor controversy: due to it’s graphic language, distributor THiNKFilm has decided to release the movie with no rating, and gigantic theater chain AMC has declared they won’t exhibit it. Of course, it’s hard enough to get a small picture into parts of the country that don’t have initials like NY or LA; take away the major multiplexes, and you’re potentially done for. Regardless, I’ve heard from some that the gimmick gets tiresome, but I’m still fascinated to take a look at this films main purpose: to expose just a little bit about the inner workings of the comedic profession. If you want a preview, take a peak at the contribution to the film from Eric Cartman and his South Park friends. It’s genius. (It’s also sort of NSFW; at least the sound and language is.)

Continue reading “MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR ME: THE WEEKEND IN PREVIEW”

Here I go thinking I’m all back into the swing of things, multiple posts on a day even, and then suddenly I miss one. I know, it’s certainly no capital crime, but I do have several items I do keep intending to put up here. However, the big thing that has happened this week is that after continual major frustration with the lack of finding a job and the lack of finding anything on my desk, I’m trying to systematically go through every piece of paper and every pile (and if you know me or, especially, have ever seen my apartment, you know there are a lot of piles) and do something with it. This, shockingly enough, takes a lot of time, and instead of allowing myself to productively procrastinate, or, as I usually do, simply procrastinate, I’m trying to take hold of the adverb in that two-word phrase.

I did, however, get an email today that simply cried out to me, “Take a moment and post something.” In my little TV Guide diatribe on Tuesday, I mentioned how awfully behind the magazine always seemed to be. Well, now I want to yell at whomever Entertainment Weekly has put in charge of actually compiling their realtively new weekly “Must List,” now accompanied, for people who at any time registered on their web site, by a weekly email providing a little preview for the list. My email telling me, “The things we lover for your weekend …” (featuring items from the upcoming Aug. 5 issue “Must List”) was comprised of the following (I’ve excised the descriptions):

1. Book: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” by J.K. Rowling
2. Movie: Billy Bob Thornton in Bad News Bears
3. DVD: The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Is this how the magazine that wants to be your sole arbiter of all things entertainment tells you what’s cool and hip and interesting to check-out? A book that doesn’t really need any more publicity, but more importantly came out two weeks ago? A movie that was a major release last weekend? And as shown by its #5 ranking on the box office chart, it could have used EW‘s letting people know they “must” see it before now. At least Season 2 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show actually didn’t come out until this past Tuesday so that’s current.

I don’t mean to indicate that the only items that should appear on the “Must List” need to be brand new, but come on: “Harry Potter” now? Give me a break. I think it’s great if EW is able to use this list to actually highlight quality films/TV/music/books that may have slipped under the radar whether they’re new or not. They do successfully do that at times, and I’m not saying the major releases like “Harry Potter” or Bad News Bears shouldn’t be included, but let’s try to make them timely, OK, because too often (like now) it’s just lame.

The blogosphere is ablaze today with the release of Forbes’ favorite blogs. Gothamist got mentioned as a “Forbes Favorite,” as did the great Galleycat for when you need your literary/publishing fix. Other personal favs receiving “Best of the Web” Top-100 notice include Maud Newton and Stereogum, but while browsing the “Forbes Directory of blogs where they actually review all their favorites, I noticed something very disturbing.

All the blogs are separated into categories: Art Blogs, Automobile Blogs, Blog tools, Career Blogs, Economic Blogs, Health and Fitness Blogs, Literary Blogs, Marketing Blogs, Media Blogs, Medical Blogs, Meta Blogs, Political Blogs, Shopping Blogs, Small Business Blogs, Sports Blogs, Technology Blogs, Video Blogs, Video Games. Hmmm … what’s missing. It’s on the tip of my tongue, or at least my fingers. Just out of reach. What is it? What! Is! It?!?

Ah yes … where the hell are Film Blogs? Or even Entertainment Blogs? Why is our little corner of the web constantly forgotten in any media mentions of blogging? I mean seriously. (For that matter, there should also be “Pop Culture Blogs” which is probably where Stereogum really belongs and which should obvs be led by Whatevs.org.)

Believe me, I’m not shilling for any personal notoriety here. This blog certainly doesn’t deserve a “Best of the Web” notice in any category compared to so many of my compatriots, especially in the film blog world. There are people out there (many listed in that column on the right, yelling at the screen right along with me, although possibly with less blatant venom) who deserve the same notortiety and are as clever and expert in this field as any of the writers in theirs. Is it because the film industry is considered a bit of joke? Or is it because there is the impression that there is a divide between mainstream “Hollywood” pop-culture-influenced film and academic consideration? Can’t we all exist in the same world?

Come on cinephiles — I think an uprising is in order. It’s time for GreenCine Daily and Cinetrix to get the widespread publicity they deserve. And hell, I keep finding new film blogs every day; there’s not even time to read a fraction of them.

So why the hate, yo?

Big news rocks the entertainment magazine world today!!

OK, maybe not. But “TV Guide relaunching as Larger Magazine” actually is a pretty major development in the history of a pretty venerable institution. What’s Frank Costanza going to do when he has to add a larger physical magazine to his collection?

But seriously (or something) … TV Guide has decided to go from being a little digest focusing on listings to a big entertainment magazine focusing on sucking. Does anyone read TV Guide? Actually, yes. I do. Or I used to. I had a subscription to TV Guide for years. Technically I still do, although I am very proud of my ability to resist all those renewal notices as I wait for it to simply expire.

If you follow TV, TV Guide used to actually be interesting even as it was simple. But the writing has progressively declined, and the stories get dumber and dumber. I guess I also have to admit that I hold a semi-personal grudge against them. A friend of mine was once contracted to write a story for them. Nothing long or too in-depth — just a few hundred words. My friend asked me to proof the story for her because she wasn’t sure if it was good, interesting, etc. Since my friend is a very good writer, the piece was all those things, and I saw the very last version before it was submitted to the magazine. I also then saw the printed version in the magazine. There was my friend’s byline, but what followed was not my friend’s story. The editors had actually rewritten large sections (as much as there can be “large sections” in a piece this small) and primarily left the quotes. The subject was essentially the same, but what the story actually said went from being interesting and even thought-provoking to meaningless and plain-ol’-crap. Fluff is too generous a word. Oh yeah, they never checked with my friend about changing it so drastically. They just published.

I guess I shouldn’t have been completely surprised. I mean, this is a magazine that publishes Michael Ausiello as if he’s an “insider” who knows what he’s talking about. Now I don’t know the man personally, but he’s got to be one of the worst “experts” on anything I’ve ever read, and a bad writer to boot. I suppose his columns are supposed to be sarcastic and funny, yet they never are. He often gets information flat out wrong, and many of his big scoops are things that have been out in some form of media or another for at least a week.

Of course, I shouldn’t be too surprised that his “scoops” run so late. TV Guide must have a ridiculously early closing for a weekly magazine because their content is often out of date. They published a review of ABC’s pulled series Welcome to the Neighborhood I believe more than a week after it was announced the show would never air. They often print items in their “Cheers & Jeers” section that happened three weeks to a month before, certainly far enough in the past that today’s audience might not give a shit. In fact, many of their stories seem like they’re just guessing.

The story indicates that the magazine plans to reduce the listings to simply major national coverage with one version for the east coast and one for the west rather than all the local editions now in publication. It also says the magazine will make the revamped magazine “will contain just 25 percent listings and 75 percent stories.” Why bother with the listing at all then? The fact is, this is the second or third (at least) revamp of TV Guide in the last few years. The last one already redesigned and slimmed down the listings section, turning everything into a grid and eliminating much of the daily coverage. It became much more of a pain-in-the-ass to read. Of course, the one thing they’ve never done is become totally comprehensive with all the cable channels floating around out there. Some of them would eventually be included in the prime-time grids, but nothing more.

I’d say it’s a shame that what was once a (do I dare call it) iconic magazine hasn’t been able to keep up and is now on its way to becoming a poor, more niche imitation of all the other lifestyle and entertainment mags out there. When I was little, I used to love going to my grandparents’ for dinner every Friday night and seeing the new TV Guide sitting on the little table next to my grandfather’s chair. I don’t think I even read the thing back then, but for some reason I always got a kick out of flipping through the listings. I remember at one point thinking that it must have been a cool job to write all the show descriptions. (I don’t think so anymore, but uhm … I’m still unemployed, so TV Guide, if you’re hiring? Oh wait … you probably won’t have much of those anymore!)

I guess I let my subscription run out just in time.

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!