Art vs draftsmanship

Interesting discussion here.

Say it ain't so, Jon

As the prospect of a longer director's cut of Watchmen looms, bloggers are again talking about this awful film.

A quick note to those who say it's faithful to the graphic novel: Learn to read.

Recession? Depression? Hyperbole?

I don't really believe we are in a recession, much less a depression. In neighbourhoods across Toronto, restaurants appear to be as busy as they usually are this time of year.

The late 80s early 90s recession made Toronto look like a ghost town. This one, apart from a few brokers bitching to each other on the Rosedale bus, feels like it either isn't going to hit, or hasn't really hit yet.

What a crock!

Today, beside an overflowing public garbage bin in my neighourhood (Rosedale), I saw a good-sized pile of discarded crockery. Think about that: crockery! Is this really what you need to be throwing out during a garbage strike?! "Well, Mavis, this crockery's gone right off. Starting to smell. We'd best chuck it now, garbage strike or no."

People are fucked. And selfish. And did I mention fucked?

Transformers... LESS than meets the eye

The movie I'd wanted to see wasn't playing when I'd got to the theatre last night. I must have misread the listings. So we decided to see something--anything!--since we were there and in the mood for a film. So in to Transformers 2 we went, thinking "fun summer blockbuster".

Well, the phrase "absolute shit" does not begin to describe this thing. I mean, I know it's a kiddie-flick so I didn't expect high art, but nor did I expect such a homophobic, borderline racist, ugly piece of cinema. Imagine if Jar-Jar Binks had been split into two characters that were transforming cars. Shades of Step 'n' Fetch!

The pacing is dreadful. This thing is on par with Nightwatch. I couldn't tell where one act ended and another began, and I think there were four acts. There was no build towards climax. It was all climax. The effects were overwrought and over-designed. How the Transformers transform is never simply shown... it's all closeups and fast edits to hide that fact that the modelers never figured out how Car A could plausibly turn into Robot A. Um... they did it for the toys. It actually was physically done.

Also, when the robots are robots or vehicles makes just as little sense. Case in point... Optimus Prime needs to talk to Sam on the hush-hush. So he shows up near Sam's college as... gigantic robot, Optimus Prime! WTF?! Why not drive up as the truck, have Sam get in, have a conversation with him? Robots in disguise, anyone? Throughout this film, fast and loud trumps plausible. Robots transform to vehicles mid-battle and back again microseconds later. In fact, every damn thing is constantly transforming. Toasters, blenders, R/C cars, motorcycles, dumptrucks, planes... it's too much. Even hundreds of ball bearings transform into needlessly complicated little machines, for gawdssake. It's too much of everything, and it ends up just being a long, noisy mess.

Oh, there are humans in this film but you wouldn't know it. Megan Fox dresses slutty for the boys. Shia LeBeouf does his best "it's my destiny" gaze, reminding us he's now ruining two franchises (not that you could really ruin Transformers). John Turturro looks like he's regretting his trip to the Pyramids, but does contribute the only decent voice-acting for one of the Robots, sounding sort of like an octegenarian Alan Moore. Ramon Rodriguez plays a tough talking college boy who turns into a shrieking coward everytime something blows up near him. Which is often. Think Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element and you're getting close to how annoying this gets.

Two final thoughts. (1) This is a film about robots for kids. I challenge any kid to draw the robots. (2) this is a film to sell toys. Why then do the robots in the film not resemble the toys? Talk about a poor marketing plan.

If this is what popular entertainment has become, the robots can have the planet.