Every now and again the messy business of reality intrudes its way into my writing schedule and knocks it right the heck off track. I have an extremely …life-intensive weekend upcoming that will may see sparse posting until Monday. Can’t be avoided. Well, in this case, I actually HAVE avoided it successfully for quite a long time, but my intentionally vague…thing does not dovetail well with breezy, witty cinema banter.
And, no, it is not my annual depression following the release of yet another Transformers film that makes me launch into my “LET’S SHOOT MICHAEL BAY INTO THE SUN!” speech. Though….imagine the YouTube traffic for that video. Given that the current fifth installment in slowly curb-stomping my childhood involves Transformers interacting with King Arthur, and that they’ve STUCK MY LAST NAME ON THE MAIN HUMAN CHARACTER IN THIS FARCE, I could easily go into my annual apoplexy….but, no, we’re breathing, we’re breathing, aaaand there. Transformers: The Last Knight will win the weekend, but its take looks like the record-low reviews (even for Transformers sequels) are catching up with it, but-have no fear-as China seems to love our crappiest films, there will be more than enough overseas gross to continue my annual torment. Cars 3 had an underwhelming opening for Pixar, and I am wondering how much of a drop it will see in week 2. I’m expecting Wonder Woman to keep holding strong with repeat business. Sequel insanity continues next week with Despicable Me 3, which will get an actual column, not a rant (well the rant may be INSIDE the column). Stab the minutes, time killers, stab the minutes.
I don’t know what life has pitched your way right now, but it sounds sufficiently serious for me to say Hang in there, and wish you the best. There are several clouds hanging over my life too, and I wish there were something better at the movies this weekend, because I do not just want to be distracted for a few hours, I want to be distracted by a film, many times larger than life, with a sound system blaring.
You know I enjoyed the last TF, but I am pretty sure that was a fluke, and I am actually livid that Bay is now brining down Winston Churchill and the legend of Camelot along with a property that helped define the pop cultture universe of so many childhoods. Oh how I wish these films were being made by Lord and Miller.
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Hangin in brother. Just a choppy bit of water coming
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TF5 looking at a measly 60 million weekend. Dare I hope this makes them reconsider that shared universe?
Nah.
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I once went into my psychic place and saw a future where all media bled together, where they released spectacle-centric theatrical cuts in those 4D theaters that are coming, while doling out the more intelligent and character based cuts as weekly television series. The films themselves (actually, many different facets of the films) will be playable as photorealistic games. The ad campaigns themselves will be positioned as entertainment.
I am really hoping that what I am describing will include different cuts for different major markets, because pleasing everyone all the time is going to ruin the art of film completely, and while the studios are no doubt happy that China is there to make up for misfires at home, don’t the suits want more?
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I read some synopses of the film. Sounds like Bay screwed up the quintessons. As a kid I loved those guys, lamented that Hasbro never produced a quintesson figure. The only thing that could ever have persuaded me to see another one of these movies is gone.
It’s a shame, because it’s so fascinating to watch Bay’s Transformers transform and move. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the CGI work on these films really is on the shortlist for best of all time.
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I honestly am over the whole thing, and it seems like the US is from the response to T5. Unfortunately, the world seems to love our crappiest blockbusters, so it’s not going to stop, even if, like the FF series, it makes 80% of its cash overseas. That’s the new paradigm.
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It’s going to kill the art of film, unless forces like Netflix quickly get their acts together and find that there is significant money in catering to people who realize that Unicron is not the biggest threat to the Earth. It’s Michael Bay. He only put Unicron in the movie as a form of misdirection.
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Ugh just ugh
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