list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Transformers_Revenge_of_the_Fallen/351518/default.aspx Title: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Year: 2009
Director: Michael Bay
Plot: Michael Bay returns to helm the sequel to the highly successful big-screen adaptation of the Transformers toy line for DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures. Much of the original cast returns for the second installment, including Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, and John Turturro, with Rainn Wilson joining in the fun as a college professor. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 9
Number of Lists: 8
Number of blog posts: 11
Number of discussion threads: 1
SpoutRating: 2
]]>Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:10:42 GMTTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen2009Michael Bay<a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___203853/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Michael Bay</a> returns to helm the sequel to the highly successful big-screen adaptation of the Transformers toy line for DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures. Much of the original cast returns for the second installment, including <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___350236/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Shia LaBeouf</a>, <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___371513/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Megan Fox</a>, <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___362749/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Josh Duhamel</a>, <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___290116/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Tyrese Gibson</a>, and <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___114771/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>John Turturro</a>, with <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___300032/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Rainn Wilson</a> joining in the fun as a college professor. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide9Taggedy Taggged (6-10)81112http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s351518.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Transformers_Revenge_of_the_Fallen/351518/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/ushimu/archive/2009/10/2/44101.aspx Post By: UshiMu
Post To: UshiMu Blog
Post Date: 10/2/2009 7:47:22 PM
Body: There isn't a whole lot to say about this movie... seeing as it is a sequal, I would be lying to say my expectations weren't high. Dispite the fact that about fifteen minutes into the movie I was pleading for the credits to roll, the plot was bearable and the acting wasn't the worst. AND dispite the fact that a major selling point for the movie was banked on Megan Fox's unfortunately gorgeous bod- I was hoping that the Transformers would be a main part of a movie that holds the title "TRANSFORMERS"... What I got was a washed up storyline revolving around the Military & a college student named Sam... The transformer Bumble-Bee (a main character in the previous film,) barely held a part in this movie. I was dissapointed to find myself losing intrest so quickly, and had to force myself to pay attention to the rest of the film... all in all, I wish it would have been better!
]]>Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:47:22 GMTUshiMuUshiMu Blog10/2/2009 7:47:22 PMThere isn't a whole lot to say about this movie... seeing as it is a sequal, I would be lying to say my expectations weren't high. Dispite the fact that about fifteen minutes into the movie I was pleading for the credits to roll, the plot was bearable and the acting wasn't the worst. AND dispite the fact that a major selling point for the movie was banked on Megan Fox's unfortunately gorgeous bod- I was hoping that the Transformers would be a main part of a movie that holds the title "TRANSFORMERS"... What I got was a washed up storyline revolving around the Military &amp; a college student named Sam... The transformer Bumble-Bee (a main character in the previous film,) barely held a part in this movie. I was dissapointed to find myself losing intrest so quickly, and had to force myself to pay attention to the rest of the film... all in all, I wish it would have been better! http://www.spout.com/blogs/hautecritique/archive/2009/7/6/42928.aspx Post By: hautecritique
Post To: The Haute Critique on Spout
Post Date: 7/6/2009 2:01:11 PM
Body: I remember seeing the first trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (T2:ROTFL?) in the theater. It was loud, and that was the best I could say. Everything that followed that first impression accelerated expectations in a death spiral. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one, Reviewers around the world sharpened their pencils and got jiggy with it, sometimes with magnificence. ”’Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times “Few elements of Fallen are completely odious unto themselves, but rolled together it becomes a wave of inescapable proportions – a literal tsunami of shit.” – Rob Humanick, The Projection Booth “It’s a wad of chaos puked onto the big screen, an arbitrary collection of explosions and machismo posturing and frat boy assholery.” – David Cornelius, eFilmCritic “If it sounds as though the script was written in serial-novel form during an all-night mescaline bender, well, I have no evidence that it was not.” – Chrostopher Orr, The New Republic “I know there are still 17 months to go, but I’m thinking Transformers 2 has a shot at the title Worst Movie of the Decade.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone All of this piling on, however, pales in comparison with the masterpiece spawned on io9. Charlie Jane Anders drops the mother lode of a review, defending Transformers as a subtle work of post modern art. The truth is, it is her review that is art. If you haven’t read it, you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing. For now, let me quote a few choice moments. Imagine that you went back in time to the late 1960s and found Terry Gilliam, fresh from doing his weird low-fi collage/animations for Monty Python. You proceeded to inject Gilliam with so many steroids his penis shrank to the size of a hair follicle, and you smushed a dozen tabs of LSD under his tongue. And then you gave him the GDP of a few sub-Saharan countries. Gilliam might have made a movie not unlike this one. LaBoeuf projects a pathetic, wall-eyed dorkhood, when he’s not babbling like a tumor removed from Woody Allen’s prostate that somehow achieved sentience. And he has the hottest girlfriend in the universe, Megan Fox, for whom banality is a huge aphrodisiac. The more pathetic Sam gets, the more Fox’s lips pout and her nipples point, like little Irish setters. …part of your brain that thinks it would be awesome to see robots with giant dangling testicles, or hot chicks turning into robot tentacle monsters, or “ghetto” robots that talk in inept hip-hop slang and smash each other playfully, or funny Jewish men who talk about their “schmear” and randomly strip to their G-strings. Is that going too far? Then let’s go 100 times farther than that and see what happens! Transformers: ROTF is so long, you’ll need to wear adult diapers to it. But the movie’s pure celebration of the primal urge, and unfiltered living, will make you rejoice in your adult diapers. You’ll relieve yourself in your seat with a savage joy, your barbaric yawp blending in with the crowd’s screams of excitement. …after you fall into a brazen despair that the walls of reality have become toxic ice cream of a million flavors, you will gasp with a greater realization: that once the world is reduced, forever, to a kaleidoscope of whirling shapes, you are totally free. Nothing matters, effect precedes cause, fish spawn in mid-air, and you can do whatever you want. Let yourself go in your adult diaper, Michael Bay invites you. Then there is Megan Fox’s own contribution. She’s dropping quotes to Entertainment Weekly like: People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. Once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can go, ‘All right, I know that when he calls action I’m either going to be running or screaming, or both. Then speaking of her stardom as a result of her attitude: I think if I had been a typical Hollywood actress and I said all the right things and I had been a publicity android, it wouldn’t have escalated to this level. And then ludicrous stuff: I don’t understand why people don’t have a f—ing sense of humor. Always assume that I’m being sarcastic. Like when I said those things about High School Musical. I didn’t really mean that it’s about pedophilia. But if you get high and you watch it, that is what that f—ing movie is about! Q: Did you watch that high? A: Yes, and it blew my mind. With the stage set between a phalanx of reviews and this faint glimmer of self awareness from Fox, I strapped on that adult diaper and dove headlong into Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen. Ambition is certainly not lacking from this picture. We start, just like Kubrick’s 2001, with pre-sapien hominids. This grandiose wankery permeates what is otherwise a pretty straight forward Saturday morning caliber story line. Spoiler Warning (like you really care.) Many reviewers claim the plot is impenetrable, but it is really quite simple. There is some bad motherfucker Decepticon buried on Earth. He is going to destroy the sun, but there are two things in his way. First is that he can be killed by a ‘Prime’. Second, he needs a widget to do the dirty deed. Of course, Optimus Prime is the last of the Primes, so they whack him. Then poor little Sam (La Boeuf), goes Beautiful Mind and is the only one in the universe that can find the widget. Oh yeah, and the widget can bring Optimus Prime back to life. A race ensues to decode Sam’s brain. The good guys get the stuff and bring Optimus Prime back to life and… That’s right. Dot, dot, f’ing dot. Roll credits. The ever escalating boom and gloom, all heading for an anthropomorphic death battle of epic proportions, fizzles. Two and a half hours and they couldn’t even fit it in. Sure, OPrime gives you the hollow platitude at the end, but that’s it. Maybe the baroque CGI mayhem (and there is enough that this might qualify as an animated feature) isn’t the point. In fact, not a single flickering frame catches the best performance and only reason to see the film, and that is the performance Megan Fox has been giving on the press tour. The one thing that is mentioned in every review, no matter how snarky or scathing, is the fact that Megan Fox is quite the woodland nymph fairy. After being buried under a pile of men’s magazines rushing to crown her ‘Hottie #1’, she started doing interviews. The attention pointed at her has given her a chance to say some silly things, but also, to craft a persona out of her puttified male interviewers. She hasn’t quite got it all together, but it was enough, combined with my own private reasons, to try and summarize it in this set of clips. Click here to view the embedded video. Alone, these comments are fairly banal, but paired with this steaming heap of a movie and the drool drenched pages of every male targeted magazine, it starts to make sense. In some cases, is down right genius. So, the final verdict is pretty straight forward. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be subjected to this movie sober. Terrible idea. Also, don’t see this movie unless you have a borderline obsession for Megan Fox. Blazing through this fiasco, one thing becomes evident. Her screaming and running, mixed in with her otherwise slutting it up fused her wicked, if sometimes annoying, off screen presence spins a seductive intrigue. I don’t think this formula is unknown to the studio either. I’m pretty sure their accountants added it up. How many stoners are there? And how many people are obsessed with Megan Fox right now? Shit. This is going to be the biggest movie of all time. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique
]]>Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:01:11 GMThautecritiqueThe Haute Critique on Spout7/6/2009 2:01:11 PMI remember seeing the first trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (T2:ROTFL?) in the theater. It was loud, and that was the best I could say. Everything that followed that first impression accelerated expectations in a death spiral. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one, Reviewers around the world sharpened their pencils and got jiggy with it, sometimes with magnificence. ”’Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times “Few elements of Fallen are completely odious unto themselves, but rolled together it becomes a wave of inescapable proportions – a literal tsunami of shit.” – Rob Humanick, The Projection Booth “It’s a wad of chaos puked onto the big screen, an arbitrary collection of explosions and machismo posturing and frat boy assholery.” – David Cornelius, eFilmCritic “If it sounds as though the script was written in serial-novel form during an all-night mescaline bender, well, I have no evidence that it was not.” – Chrostopher Orr, The New Republic “I know there are still 17 months to go, but I’m thinking Transformers 2 has a shot at the title Worst Movie of the Decade.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone All of this piling on, however, pales in comparison with the masterpiece spawned on io9. Charlie Jane Anders drops the mother lode of a review, defending Transformers as a subtle work of post modern art. The truth is, it is her review that is art. If you haven’t read it, you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing. For now, let me quote a few choice moments. Imagine that you went back in time to the late 1960s and found Terry Gilliam, fresh from doing his weird low-fi collage/animations for Monty Python. You proceeded to inject Gilliam with so many steroids his penis shrank to the size of a hair follicle, and you smushed a dozen tabs of LSD under his tongue. And then you gave him the GDP of a few sub-Saharan countries. Gilliam might have made a movie not unlike this one. LaBoeuf projects a pathetic, wall-eyed dorkhood, when he’s not babbling like a tumor removed from Woody Allen’s prostate that somehow achieved sentience. And he has the hottest girlfriend in the universe, Megan Fox, for whom banality is a huge aphrodisiac. The more pathetic Sam gets, the more Fox’s lips pout and her nipples point, like little Irish setters. …part of your brain that thinks it would be awesome to see robots with giant dangling testicles, or hot chicks turning into robot tentacle monsters, or “ghetto” robots that talk in inept hip-hop slang and smash each other playfully, or funny Jewish men who talk about their “schmear” and randomly strip to their G-strings. Is that going too far? Then let’s go 100 times farther than that and see what happens! Transformers: ROTF is so long, you’ll need to wear adult diapers to it. But the movie’s pure celebration of the primal urge, and unfiltered living, will make you rejoice in your adult diapers. You’ll relieve yourself in your seat with a savage joy, your barbaric yawp blending in with the crowd’s screams of excitement. …after you fall into a brazen despair that the walls of reality have become toxic ice cream of a million flavors, you will gasp with a greater realization: that once the world is reduced, forever, to a kaleidoscope of whirling shapes, you are totally free. Nothing matters, effect precedes cause, fish spawn in mid-air, and you can do whatever you want. Let yourself go in your adult diaper, Michael Bay invites you. Then there is Megan Fox’s own contribution. She’s dropping quotes to Entertainment Weekly like: People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. Once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can go, ‘All right, I know that when he calls action I’m either going to be running or screaming, or both. Then speaking of her stardom as a result of her attitude: I think if I had been a typical Hollywood actress and I said all the right things and I had been a publicity android, it wouldn’t have escalated to this level. And then ludicrous stuff: I don’t understand why people don’t have a f—ing sense of humor. Always assume that I’m being sarcastic. Like when I said those things about High School Musical. I didn’t really mean that it’s about pedophilia. But if you get high and you watch it, that is what that f—ing movie is about! Q: Did you watch that high? A: Yes, and it blew my mind. With the stage set between a phalanx of reviews and this faint glimmer of self awareness from Fox, I strapped on that adult diaper and dove headlong into Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen. Ambition is certainly not lacking from this picture. We start, just like Kubrick’s 2001, with pre-sapien hominids. This grandiose wankery permeates what is otherwise a pretty straight forward Saturday morning caliber story line. Spoiler Warning (like you really care.) Many reviewers claim the plot is impenetrable, but it is really quite simple. There is some bad motherfucker Decepticon buried on Earth. He is going to destroy the sun, but there are two things in his way. First is that he can be killed by a ‘Prime’. Second, he needs a widget to do the dirty deed. Of course, Optimus Prime is the last of the Primes, so they whack him. Then poor little Sam (La Boeuf), goes Beautiful Mind and is the only one in the universe that can find the widget. Oh yeah, and the widget can bring Optimus Prime back to life. A race ensues to decode Sam’s brain. The good guys get the stuff and bring Optimus Prime back to life and… That’s right. Dot, dot, f’ing dot. Roll credits. The ever escalating boom and gloom, all heading for an anthropomorphic death battle of epic proportions, fizzles. Two and a half hours and they couldn’t even fit it in. Sure, OPrime gives you the hollow platitude at the end, but that’s it. Maybe the baroque CGI mayhem (and there is enough that this might qualify as an animated feature) isn’t the point. In fact, not a single flickering frame catches the best performance and only reason to see the film, and that is the performance Megan Fox has been giving on the press tour. The one thing that is mentioned in every review, no matter how snarky or scathing, is the fact that Megan Fox is quite the woodland nymph fairy. After being buried under a pile of men’s magazines rushing to crown her ‘Hottie #1’, she started doing interviews. The attention pointed at her has given her a chance to say some silly things, but also, to craft a persona out of her puttified male interviewers. She hasn’t quite got it all together, but it was enough, combined with my own private reasons, to try and summarize it in this set of clips. Click here to view the embedded video. Alone, these comments are fairly banal, but paired with this steaming heap of a movie and the drool drenched pages of every male targeted magazine, it starts to make sense. In some cases, is down right genius. So, the final verdict is pretty straight forward. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be subjected to this movie sober. Terrible idea. Also, don’t see this movie unless you have a borderline obsession for Megan Fox. Blazing through this fiasco, one thing becomes evident. Her screaming and running, mixed in with her otherwise slutting it up fused her wicked, if sometimes annoying, off screen presence spins a seductive intrigue. I don’t think this formula is unknown to the studio either. I’m pretty sure their accountants added it up. How many stoners are there? And how many people are obsessed with Megan Fox right now? Shit. This is going to be the biggest movie of all time. No related posts. Originally posted on:The Haute Critique http://www.spout.com/blogs/laylor/archive/2009/6/29/42844.aspx Post By: laylor
Post To: laylor Blog
Post Date: 6/29/2009 1:38:39 AM
Body: This movie has to be the most mind boggling, horrifyingly appalling movie I have ever had the misfortune of sitting through. This is cinematic brain murder and the only credit I can give it is that it is not easily forgotten. Like a McDonald's Double Big Mac it stays with you, making you nauseous, even after it has been consumed and should have gotten out of your system. There are so many useless/embarrassing scenes/characters in the movie (e.g: Julie White vs Pot Brownies, Humanoid hot chick, Rainn Wilson cameo (why?!), Jetfire, the hyperactive, illiterate, jive talking negrobots (zzzzz...), Autobot Heaven (!!!?!), every scene involving John Turturro, etc) and an endless display of agonizing, loud action scenes that are really very difficult to keep track off. This movie reminds me of 1997's Batman and Robin in that it eclipses what little story there is (although one could argue that in this particular film there is just waaaaaay too much story), foregoes any attempt at the slightest bit of intelligence in favor of flash, gadgets, ridiculous sub plots and corroded attempts at humor. At the end of the most blistering 150 (!!!) minutes I have ever spent in a theater I felt as though I had just sat through the world's longest toy commercial and one of Hollywood's worst ideas. Note: If you can, stay during the start of the end credits for a scene that means absolutely nothing at all to anyone with a shred of sense. Including a goofy scene that runs like an outtake is perhaps an attempt at crowd control: those who have been taken in by this drivel can stay, mouth still hanging open wide, to find out whatever became of Shia post-attempted robo apocalypse, and those who know what's good for them can file out, thinking of better things they could have spent their money on.
]]>Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:38:39 GMTlaylorlaylor Blog6/29/2009 1:38:39 AMThis movie has to be the most mind boggling, horrifyingly appalling movie I have ever had the misfortune of sitting through. This is cinematic brain murder and the only credit I can give it is that it is not easily forgotten. Like a McDonald's Double Big Mac it stays with you, making you nauseous, even after it has been consumed and should have gotten out of your system. There are so many useless/embarrassing scenes/characters in the movie (e.g: Julie White vs Pot Brownies, Humanoid hot chick, Rainn Wilson cameo (why?!), Jetfire, the hyperactive, illiterate, jive talking negrobots (zzzzz...), Autobot Heaven (!!!?!), every scene involving John Turturro, etc) and an endless display of agonizing, loud action scenes that are really very difficult to keep track off. This movie reminds me of 1997's Batman and Robin in that it eclipses what little story there is (although one could argue that in this particular film there is just waaaaaay too much story), foregoes any attempt at the slightest bit of intelligence in favor of flash, gadgets, ridiculous sub plots and corroded attempts at humor. At the end of the most blistering 150 (!!!) minutes I have ever spent in a theater I felt as though I had just sat through the world's longest toy commercial and one of Hollywood's worst ideas. Note: If you can, stay during the start of the end credits for a scene that means absolutely nothing at all to anyone with a shred of sense. Including a goofy scene that runs like an outtake is perhaps an attempt at crowd control: those who have been taken in by this drivel can stay, mouth still hanging open wide, to find out whatever became of Shia post-attempted robo apocalypse, and those who know what's good for them can file out, thinking of better things they could have spent their money on. http://www.spout.com/blogs/giraffeversusunicorn/archive/2009/6/25/42801.aspx Post By: giraffeversusunicorn
Post To: giraffeversusunicorn Blog
Post Date: 6/25/2009 9:31:03 AM
Body: Unbearably long, barely acted and filled with more sweeping camera shots than any other Michael Bay-directed movie before it, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is a terrible, lumbering behemoth of a film. When it's not an explosions-filled action movie, it's an awful teen comedy, teetering on the brink of being farcical. Beginning with overlong backstory that nobody really understands or cares about, it's a while before we're reunited with the film's protagonist, Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf), as he prepares to set off for a normal life at college, fully intending to leave his transforming car, Bumblebee, behind. Unfortunately, along with Sam we're also reunited with his parents, Ron (Kevin Dunn) and Judy (Julie White) who resemble a Laurel & Hardy-esque slapstick double act throughout the entire film. Laughs are played for witlessly in every scene they're in, which is far too many, including humping dogs (Twice! And in stupidly quick succession!) and the accidental ingestion of drugs. The enormous length of the film could have been trimmed drastically by leaving the majority of this stuff on the cutting room floor. Following these two clods is the reintroduction of Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), conveniently sat astride a motorcycle. "Hey guys, remember in Transformers when she was leaning over that car? Well this time, she's sitting on a bike. And she's wearing denim shorts!" If Shia's performance here is one-note then Megan Fox doesn't even manage that. With a permanent pout throughout the entire two hour thirty minute run-time, she might be the film's chief irritant, an award that could very well have gone to just about anyone or anything featured here. Revenge Of The Fallen was never going to be built on anything resembling logic, but it's cast aside completely in a scene where characters enter the front doors of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC and step out of the back door straight into a dusty field in Arizona. Add to all of this another cringe-worthy aspect - Bay's own revolting self-service. A Bad Boys 2 poster on a dorm room wall commands more screen time than some of the characters themselves (I'm looking at you, Tyrese Gibson) and a sweeping (Really?) shot of Megatron and Starscream atop a skyscraper harkens back to Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, from that very same film. And the problems never stop mounting up, like Michael Bay is rolling a festering Katamari through a field filled with bad movie tropes and cliches, making sure not to miss a single thing along the way. One of the many things it picks up is Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script, which completely fails to deliver on any front. The plot is devoid of any kind of comprehension with characters and robots alike being brought in solely to further the excuse for a story along before being shunted aside, or in one case, ejected from the back of an aeroplane. And why try to cram in so much story and exposition in a film that should be ninety minutes of CGI robots kicking chunks off one another? The set pieces involving robots that we do get can at times be completely jarring as metal limbs flail across the entire screen. Outside of CGI the action is paint-by-numbers Bay, military porn and massive explosions all filmed by cameras that swoop from left to right across the battlefield and then back again. Explosions and gunfire fail to perforate the paper-thin story and cheap laughs that Revenge Of The Fallen is built upon. Is this the future of summer blockbusters - leaving your brain at the door? 1
]]>Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:31:03 GMTgiraffeversusunicorngiraffeversusunicorn Blog6/25/2009 9:31:03 AM Unbearably long, barely acted and filled with more sweeping camera shots than any other Michael Bay-directed movie before it, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is a terrible, lumbering behemoth of a film. When it's not an explosions-filled action movie, it's an awful teen comedy, teetering on the brink of being farcical. Beginning with overlong backstory that nobody really understands or cares about, it's a while before we're reunited with the film's protagonist, Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf), as he prepares to set off for a normal life at college, fully intending to leave his transforming car, Bumblebee, behind. Unfortunately, along with Sam we're also reunited with his parents, Ron (Kevin Dunn) and Judy (Julie White) who resemble a Laurel &amp; Hardy-esque slapstick double act throughout the entire film. Laughs are played for witlessly in every scene they're in, which is far too many, including humping dogs (Twice! And in stupidly quick succession!) and the accidental ingestion of drugs. The enormous length of the film could have been trimmed drastically by leaving the majority of this stuff on the cutting room floor. Following these two clods is the reintroduction of Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), conveniently sat astride a motorcycle. "Hey guys, remember in Transformers when she was leaning over that car? Well this time, she's sitting on a bike. And she's wearing denim shorts!" If Shia's performance here is one-note then Megan Fox doesn't even manage that. With a permanent pout throughout the entire two hour thirty minute run-time, she might be the film's chief irritant, an award that could very well have gone to just about anyone or anything featured here. Revenge Of The Fallen was never going to be built on anything resembling logic, but it's cast aside completely in a scene where characters enter the front doors of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC and step out of the back door straight into a dusty field in Arizona. Add to all of this another cringe-worthy aspect - Bay's own revolting self-service. A Bad Boys 2 poster on a dorm room wall commands more screen time than some of the characters themselves (I'm looking at you, Tyrese Gibson) and a sweeping (Really?) shot of Megatron and Starscream atop a skyscraper harkens back to Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, from that very same film. And the problems never stop mounting up, like Michael Bay is rolling a festering Katamari through a field filled with bad movie tropes and cliches, making sure not to miss a single thing along the way. One of the many things it picks up is Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script, which completely fails to deliver on any front. The plot is devoid of any kind of comprehension with characters and robots alike being brought in solely to further the excuse for a story along before being shunted aside, or in one case, ejected from the back of an aeroplane. And why try to cram in so much story and exposition in a film that should be ninety minutes of CGI robots kicking chunks off one another? The set pieces involving robots that we do get can at times be completely jarring as metal limbs flail across the entire screen. Outside of CGI the action is paint-by-numbers Bay, military porn and massive explosions all filmed by cameras that swoop from left to right across the battlefield and then back again. Explosions and gunfire fail to perforate the paper-thin story and cheap laughs that Revenge Of The Fallen is built upon. Is this the future of summer blockbusters - leaving your brain at the door? 1 http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/3/9/40917.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/9/2009 6:00:40 PM
Body: One thing you have to love about the fanboys, they’re always a glass-half-full kind of people. Whenever one of their beloved movies gets ripped apart by critics, they point to the box office results with pride. Critics are meaningless, they remind us, because Transformers and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and the Star Wars prequels made so much money. And now, with their Watchmen having received both mixed reviews and a relatively disappointing opening weekend, they’re still defending its success to the end. Drew McWeeny of HitFix said it best in a Tweet this morning: “Box-office talk is absolute death to me. I just don’t care. It got made. I liked it. I win.” McWeeny may not exactly be the king of the geeks, but he does inadvertently represent them today. Because whether or not Watchmen has technically underperformed (or “failed” in any way) should not be their concern any more than the negative reviews (or our list of reasons claiming the comic adaptation is unnecessary). But if they are going to use the defense that the box office doesn’t matter, they aren’t allowed to celebrate grosses this summer when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen receives bad reviews yet still has a strong opening. More on the debate on the topic of Watchmen’s success or failure after the jump. Glass Half-Full: Eugene Novikov of Cinematical lays out the good (and the bad, see below): I think comic book geeks and other well-read folks who revere the graphic novel — and rightfully so — forget that Watchmen is not a brand name in the world at large. And it’s 163 minutes long. And it’s rated R (and I’ve heard some anecdotal evidence that some theaters were going out of their way to exclude the underage and unaccompanied). So we’re not exactly talking about Spider-Man 3, here. “It did fare pretty well,” argues Alex Billington of FirstShowing.net, “and has caused quite a bit of commotion.” “A certified success — despite clocking in with lower-than-desired numbers,” claims Casey Seijas at Splash Page. Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere as usual claims no dog in the race, but he does seem more on the optimistic, half-good side: “I really do think $57 million isn’t half bad.” Radar’s headline: “Watchmen Wins Weekend By Landslide. In addition, they point to all the sold out IMAX shows. “For the die hard fans,” writes Rodney at The Movie Blog, “it isn’t about the numbers this movie rings in on the registers, but a momentous moment that the movie is finally released.” Scott Mendelson at The Huffington Post puts the gross into a positive perspective: Watchmen, based on a comic book that only the hardcore had even heard of, had a bigger three-day weekend than Superman Returns. It had a bigger three-day weekend than Batman Begins. Heck, Watchmen has the second biggest DC Comics three-day opening weekend of all time, behind (obviously) The Dark Knight. Mark Graham at Vulture thinks the leaked video of Watchmen’s opening credits sequence could be good for the film’s second weekend: We’re pretty sure that this visually striking sequence is the best marketing tool that’s available to Warner Bros. at this point; if they decided to officially release and heavily promote this video over the course of this week, you can bet that it would pique the interest of droves of non-fanboy types who avoided the film on its opening weekend. Brian Jacks at MTV Movies Blog points out that if the movie doesn’t get a sequel, it’s at least not because of how the movie opened. Gold Derby’s Tom O’Neil spins positively with mention of the tech achievements from the Watchmen crew that could get the film kudos from the Oscars, MTV Movie Awards, People’s Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards, Saturn Awards and respective guild honors. Glass Half-Empty: Cinematical’s Eugene Novikov with the other side of the coin: Watchmen did take a fairly massive Friday-to-Saturday-to-Sunday tumble, which is admittedly worrisome. And having seen the film I’m pretty confident that word of mouth will not carry it along. Not because it’s bad, necessarily, but because it’s not particularly “crowd-pleasing,” and rather inaccessible to the uninitiated. “The film certainly didn’t ‘bomb’ in the conventional sense, but given the hype, it did fall somewhat short,” writes G4’s Joseph Baxter, who gives his theory for why it underperformed. Vulture’s Lane Brown isn’t sure if it’s a hit or not, but he does wonder, “While Watchmen’s gross is pretty huge considering its bleak worldview, geeky source material, and three-hour running time, if a movie like The Dark Knight can do $160 million in a weekend, then why couldn’t this one have made a little bit more?” John Cairns at Film School Rejects has a perspective to combat Mendelson’s positive spin: “For all the hype and buzz, the opening weekend haul was really no better than what The Incredible Hulk pulled in last year. More negative perspective from Leremy Legel at RopeofSilicon.com: It opened below Twilight and Fantastic Four. No bueno. It’s going to have to scramble to hit $200m domestically and the darker fare doesn’t usually attract international audiences as well. Take Dark Knight for instance. It only made $15m in Japan, where Spider-Man cleared $50m. Steven Zeitchik at Risky Biz Blog weighs in on “the day after”: When is a solid opening still a disappointment? When it comes attached to “Watchmen.” After the legal battles, the fanboy hype and the boxoffice hopes, the pic came in with a $55 million opening — pretty decent for an R-rated March movie … but not that decent when you consider nothing opened against it and it was on 3,600 bloody screens. “It was supposed to be the biggest movie ever,” notes Richard at Gawker. “Surely Watchmen’s lower-than-hoped first dance is a big disappointment for Warner Brothers, which spent a hell of a lot of money and squawking time on the grim, turgid superhero alternate history. Mark at I Watch Stuff addresses the film’s marketing error: The non-stop barrage viral marketing wasn’t enough to push Zack Snyder’s latest past his previous March opener, 300, which had no viral marketing except the promise of some dudes fucking some other dudes up and someone getting foot-pushed into a hole. Now we know what brings in the crowds. David Poland at The Hot Blog speculates on whether or not the film will at least break even for Warner Bros.: “On the low end, the movie will still be looking to be about $20 million in the red in marketing costs, not close to putting money towards the production costs. And on the high end, marketing costs will be covered and about $0 will go towards the cost of production.” “If the thing can’t top next weekend’s ‘Race To Witch Mountain,’” worries Gabe Toro at The Playlist, “WB has a financial sinkhole on their hands and can only hope to score on its ‘Bigger Blue Dick Director’s Cut’.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:00:40 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/9/2009 6:00:40 PMOne thing you have to love about the fanboys, they’re always a glass-half-full kind of people. Whenever one of their beloved movies gets ripped apart by critics, they point to the box office results with pride. Critics are meaningless, they remind us, because Transformers and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and the Star Wars prequels made so much money. And now, with their Watchmen having received both mixed reviews and a relatively disappointing opening weekend, they’re still defending its success to the end. Drew McWeeny of HitFix said it best in a Tweet this morning: “Box-office talk is absolute death to me. I just don’t care. It got made. I liked it. I win.” McWeeny may not exactly be the king of the geeks, but he does inadvertently represent them today. Because whether or not Watchmen has technically underperformed (or “failed” in any way) should not be their concern any more than the negative reviews (or our list of reasons claiming the comic adaptation is unnecessary). But if they are going to use the defense that the box office doesn’t matter, they aren’t allowed to celebrate grosses this summer when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen receives bad reviews yet still has a strong opening. More on the debate on the topic of Watchmen’s success or failure after the jump. Glass Half-Full: Eugene Novikov of Cinematical lays out the good (and the bad, see below): I think comic book geeks and other well-read folks who revere the graphic novel — and rightfully so — forget that Watchmen is not a brand name in the world at large. And it’s 163 minutes long. And it’s rated R (and I’ve heard some anecdotal evidence that some theaters were going out of their way to exclude the underage and unaccompanied). So we’re not exactly talking about Spider-Man 3, here. “It did fare pretty well,” argues Alex Billington of FirstShowing.net, “and has caused quite a bit of commotion.” “A certified success — despite clocking in with lower-than-desired numbers,” claims Casey Seijas at Splash Page. Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere as usual claims no dog in the race, but he does seem more on the optimistic, half-good side: “I really do think $57 million isn’t half bad.” Radar’s headline: “Watchmen Wins Weekend By Landslide. In addition, they point to all the sold out IMAX shows. “For the die hard fans,” writes Rodney at The Movie Blog, “it isn’t about the numbers this movie rings in on the registers, but a momentous moment that the movie is finally released.” Scott Mendelson at The Huffington Post puts the gross into a positive perspective: Watchmen, based on a comic book that only the hardcore had even heard of, had a bigger three-day weekend than Superman Returns. It had a bigger three-day weekend than Batman Begins. Heck, Watchmen has the second biggest DC Comics three-day opening weekend of all time, behind (obviously) The Dark Knight. Mark Graham at Vulture thinks the leaked video of Watchmen’s opening credits sequence could be good for the film’s second weekend: We’re pretty sure that this visually striking sequence is the best marketing tool that’s available to Warner Bros. at this point; if they decided to officially release and heavily promote this video over the course of this week, you can bet that it would pique the interest of droves of non-fanboy types who avoided the film on its opening weekend. Brian Jacks at MTV Movies Blog points out that if the movie doesn’t get a sequel, it’s at least not because of how the movie opened. Gold Derby’s Tom O’Neil spins positively with mention of the tech achievements from the Watchmen crew that could get the film kudos from the Oscars, MTV Movie Awards, People’s Choice Awards, Teen Choice Awards, Saturn Awards and respective guild honors. Glass Half-Empty: Cinematical’s Eugene Novikov with the other side of the coin: Watchmen did take a fairly massive Friday-to-Saturday-to-Sunday tumble, which is admittedly worrisome. And having seen the film I’m pretty confident that word of mouth will not carry it along. Not because it’s bad, necessarily, but because it’s not particularly “crowd-pleasing,” and rather inaccessible to the uninitiated. “The film certainly didn’t ‘bomb’ in the conventional sense, but given the hype, it did fall somewhat short,” writes G4’s Joseph Baxter, who gives his theory for why it underperformed. Vulture’s Lane Brown isn’t sure if it’s a hit or not, but he does wonder, “While Watchmen’s gross is pretty huge considering its bleak worldview, geeky source material, and three-hour running time, if a movie like The Dark Knight can do $160 million in a weekend, then why couldn’t this one have made a little bit more?” John Cairns at Film School Rejects has a perspective to combat Mendelson’s positive spin: “For all the hype and buzz, the opening weekend haul was really no better than what The Incredible Hulk pulled in last year. More negative perspective from Leremy Legel at RopeofSilicon.com: It opened below Twilight and Fantastic Four. No bueno. It’s going to have to scramble to hit $200m domestically and the darker fare doesn’t usually attract international audiences as well. Take Dark Knight for instance. It only made $15m in Japan, where Spider-Man cleared $50m. Steven Zeitchik at Risky Biz Blog weighs in on “the day after”: When is a solid opening still a disappointment? When it comes attached to “Watchmen.” After the legal battles, the fanboy hype and the boxoffice hopes, the pic came in with a $55 million opening — pretty decent for an R-rated March movie … but not that decent when you consider nothing opened against it and it was on 3,600 bloody screens. “It was supposed to be the biggest movie ever,” notes Richard at Gawker. “Surely Watchmen’s lower-than-hoped first dance is a big disappointment for Warner Brothers, which spent a hell of a lot of money and squawking time on the grim, turgid superhero alternate history. Mark at I Watch Stuff addresses the film’s marketing error: The non-stop barrage viral marketing wasn’t enough to push Zack Snyder’s latest past his previous March opener, 300, which had no viral marketing except the promise of some dudes fucking some other dudes up and someone getting foot-pushed into a hole. Now we know what brings in the crowds. David Poland at The Hot Blog speculates on whether or not the film will at least break even for Warner Bros.: “On the low end, the movie will still be looking to be about $20 million in the red in marketing costs, not close to putting money towards the production costs. And on the high end, marketing costs will be covered and about $0 will go towards the cost of production.” “If the thing can’t top next weekend’s ‘Race To Witch Mountain,’” worries Gabe Toro at The Playlist, “WB has a financial sinkhole on their hands and can only hope to score on its ‘Bigger Blue Dick Director’s Cut’.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/3/3/40806.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/3/2009 8:01:06 PM
Body: I have always tried to maintain low expectations for Hollywood product in general. But when it comes to highly anticipated movies, particularly blockbuster sequels to popular sci-fi action franchises, my excitement can get the best of me. Whenever I need to calm down my expectations, though, I simply recall all the disappointments of 1997 (Alien Resurrection, The Lost World, the Star Wars Special Edition), and I can get through the hype pretty safely. Considering I’m one of the few who actually loved both Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and (yes, even) McG’s Charlie’s Angels movies, it’s hard for me to believe that I’m also one of the few who isn’t now expecting Terminator Salvation to be the second coming of Christ The Terminator after watching the new trailer (embedded below). Sure, Christian Bale could very well be a lucky charm to franchise reboots (though does anyone believe this will be even a tenth as good as Batman Begins?) and T4 could easily be better than rival summer blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (though “easily” is an understatement, because Transformer 2 will suck just as bad as Transformers 1). But with two and a half months left until the movie opens, it’s just too early for us to be going so ga-ga over one piece of marketing. The only thing left to happen now is a backlash, which I guess I’m sort of starting right now? Here’s a sample of the most extreme gushing to hit the blogosphere since the trailer’s premiere last night: Vulture gets credit for both the Batman Begins and the Transformers comparisons: From the looks of this trailer [McG] seems as if he’s on the cusp of delivering one of the best franchise reboots since Chris Nolan decided to take on Bruce Wayne…guaranteed to make Michael Bay seethe with jealousy: huge robots, even huger explosions, and, gasp, realistic-seeming human emotion! Sean at FilmJunk adds to the better-than-Transformers discussion: “Not only does Terminator Salvation have giant robots, explosions and impressive special effects, but it also has acting talent, an interesting story, and a sense of style.” While I’m sure (and hoping) she’s at least half-joking, Best Week Ever’s Michelle Collins nicknames the director “McGenius” and believes the trailer is great enough to now ensure people will be lining up days in advance. Note to Warner Bros.: you apparently needn’t spend money on further marketing materials. You’re good. Neil Miller at FIlmSchoolRejects is overly dramatic and overly excited: Even Christian Bale, master of all things badass — a man who has saved Gotham City twice from disaster — cannot stop the elimination in McG’s soon to be awesome Terminator Salvation. Am I being dramatic? Yes. Is this movie going to rock you to your core? Absolutely, yes. Alex Billington at FirstShowing.net, on the other hand, still prefers to hate on the director in spite of all his excitement: “Watching this makes me forget that McG is even directing this and makes me believe that we may actually see an awesome Terminator movie. This year’s summer movie season is looking better and better with every new day!” Rob at Topless Robot at least seems to understand the relativity that’s affecting his fanboy salivation: “Am I the only one excirted because my expectations for a McG-directed Terminator were so abyssmally low?” Todd Brown at Twitch nominates the spot as the “Best Trailer of The Year” and claims it’s better than any of the trailers for either of the James Cameron installments: To him, it “comes as near to perfection as I’ve seen in a long, long time.” Meredith Woerner at io9 pumps up the fanboys with screenshots, including some resembling parts of Star Wars and Firefly. Empire (and also Topless Robot) also sees some Battlestar Galactica resemblance. Oh, TMZ, you’re still on the Bale tirade story? Don’t you know today’s a day for positive T4 news? Okay, there is at least one blogger with lower expectations than I have: Rod at ThePlaylist. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:01:06 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/3/2009 8:01:06 PMI have always tried to maintain low expectations for Hollywood product in general. But when it comes to highly anticipated movies, particularly blockbuster sequels to popular sci-fi action franchises, my excitement can get the best of me. Whenever I need to calm down my expectations, though, I simply recall all the disappointments of 1997 (Alien Resurrection, The Lost World, the Star Wars Special Edition), and I can get through the hype pretty safely. Considering I’m one of the few who actually loved both Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and (yes, even) McG’s Charlie’s Angels movies, it’s hard for me to believe that I’m also one of the few who isn’t now expecting Terminator Salvation to be the second coming of Christ The Terminator after watching the new trailer (embedded below). Sure, Christian Bale could very well be a lucky charm to franchise reboots (though does anyone believe this will be even a tenth as good as Batman Begins?) and T4 could easily be better than rival summer blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (though “easily” is an understatement, because Transformer 2 will suck just as bad as Transformers 1). But with two and a half months left until the movie opens, it’s just too early for us to be going so ga-ga over one piece of marketing. The only thing left to happen now is a backlash, which I guess I’m sort of starting right now? Here’s a sample of the most extreme gushing to hit the blogosphere since the trailer’s premiere last night: Vulture gets credit for both the Batman Begins and the Transformers comparisons: From the looks of this trailer [McG] seems as if he’s on the cusp of delivering one of the best franchise reboots since Chris Nolan decided to take on Bruce Wayne…guaranteed to make Michael Bay seethe with jealousy: huge robots, even huger explosions, and, gasp, realistic-seeming human emotion! Sean at FilmJunk adds to the better-than-Transformers discussion: “Not only does Terminator Salvation have giant robots, explosions and impressive special effects, but it also has acting talent, an interesting story, and a sense of style.” While I’m sure (and hoping) she’s at least half-joking, Best Week Ever’s Michelle Collins nicknames the director “McGenius” and believes the trailer is great enough to now ensure people will be lining up days in advance. Note to Warner Bros.: you apparently needn’t spend money on further marketing materials. You’re good. Neil Miller at FIlmSchoolRejects is overly dramatic and overly excited: Even Christian Bale, master of all things badass — a man who has saved Gotham City twice from disaster — cannot stop the elimination in McG’s soon to be awesome Terminator Salvation. Am I being dramatic? Yes. Is this movie going to rock you to your core? Absolutely, yes. Alex Billington at FirstShowing.net, on the other hand, still prefers to hate on the director in spite of all his excitement: “Watching this makes me forget that McG is even directing this and makes me believe that we may actually see an awesome Terminator movie. This year’s summer movie season is looking better and better with every new day!” Rob at Topless Robot at least seems to understand the relativity that’s affecting his fanboy salivation: “Am I the only one excirted because my expectations for a McG-directed Terminator were so abyssmally low?” Todd Brown at Twitch nominates the spot as the “Best Trailer of The Year” and claims it’s better than any of the trailers for either of the James Cameron installments: To him, it “comes as near to perfection as I’ve seen in a long, long time.” Meredith Woerner at io9 pumps up the fanboys with screenshots, including some resembling parts of Star Wars and Firefly. Empire (and also Topless Robot) also sees some Battlestar Galactica resemblance. Oh, TMZ, you’re still on the Bale tirade story? Don’t you know today’s a day for positive T4 news? Okay, there is at least one blogger with lower expectations than I have: Rod at ThePlaylist. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/christhilk/archive/2009/2/9/40362.aspx Post By: ChrisThilk
Post To: ChrisThilk Blog
Post Date: 2/9/2009 6:01:37 PM
Body: Quick game: Take a look at this leaked image of the toy version for The Fallen, the main villian in the Transformers sequel and see if you can guess which component is going to come under fire from concerned parents organizations across the country. Some quick thoughts about this: Did anyone at any point in the toy’s development use the phrase “Big f***ing robot schwanz?” What does that transform *from*. Is he naturally bow-legged or is that just a side effect from his…condition? Am I the only one who looks at this and thinks “He’s going to very popular” in the same voice Marty Feldman uses in Young Frankenstein?        Originally posted on:Chris Thilk
]]>Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:01:37 GMTChrisThilkChrisThilk Blog2/9/2009 6:01:37 PMQuick game: Take a look at this leaked image of the toy version for The Fallen, the main villian in the Transformers sequel and see if you can guess which component is going to come under fire from concerned parents organizations across the country. Some quick thoughts about this: Did anyone at any point in the toy’s development use the phrase “Big f***ing robot schwanz?” What does that transform *from*. Is he naturally bow-legged or is that just a side effect from his…condition? Am I the only one who looks at this and thinks “He’s going to very popular” in the same voice Marty Feldman uses in Young Frankenstein?        Originally posted on:Chris Thilk http://www.spout.com/groups/FRESH/Were_these_Superbowl_2009_movie_trailers_worth_3/75/40154/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: rjsprague
Post To: FRESH
Post Date: 2/2/2009 2:45:43 PM
Body: Each of these films' trailers aired during Superbowl XLIII (that's 43). Was the $3 million price tag worth it? Tell us what you think! (Click "Add to discussion" to post in this thread without quoting a post.) &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href ="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1335631/" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Of the films whose trailers had an ad spot during the 2009 Superbowl, which trailer was actually worth the $3 Million fee? (Select all that apply)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span style="font-size:9px;" mce_style="font-size:9px;"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; (&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; polls&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; Angels & Demons Angels and Demons Trailer on Spout Duplicity Duplicity Trailer on Spout Fast and Furious G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra Land of the Lost Monsters vs. Aliens Monsters vs. Aliens Trailer on Spout Race to Witch Mountain Race to Witch Mountain Trailer on Spout Star Trek XI Star Trek XI Trailer on Spout Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Trailer on Spout Disney Pixar's Up Up Trailer on Spout Year One
]]>Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:45:43 GMTrjspragueFRESH2/2/2009 2:45:43 PMEach of these films' trailers aired during Superbowl XLIII (that's 43). Was the $3 million price tag worth it? Tell us what you think! (Click "Add to discussion" to post in this thread without quoting a post.) &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href ="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1335631/" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Of the films whose trailers had an ad spot during the 2009 Superbowl, which trailer was actually worth the $3 Million fee? (Select all that apply)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span style="font-size:9px;" mce_style="font-size:9px;"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; (&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; polls&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;)&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; Angels &amp; Demons Angels and Demons Trailer on Spout Duplicity Duplicity Trailer on Spout Fast and Furious G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra Land of the Lost Monsters vs. Aliens Monsters vs. Aliens Trailer on Spout Race to Witch Mountain Race to Witch Mountain Trailer on Spout Star Trek XI Star Trek XI Trailer on Spout Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Trailer on Spout Disney Pixar's Up Up Trailer on Spout Year One http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/20/34147.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/20/2008 9:00:59 AM
Body: Warner Bros.’ surprise decision last week to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from November to next July caused quite a stir. Fans were upset. Entertainment Weekly was embarrassed. The only people not bothered seemed to be the Twilight crowd, who benefited in the release date jumble when their anticipated adaptation moved up its opening to fill the vacancy. But why did the studio suddenly push back its major fall tent pole? Especially after receiving such favorable buzz surrounding its recently unveiled teaser trailer? Warner’s official statement seemed little more than a “just because” stance. So, ever the skeptic and speculator, I’ve compiled this list of more likely excuses: 10. Equus - My first thought after hearing the news was that Harry Potter’s penis was the cause. And I guess I think like Roger Friedman, who is claiming it’s the truth. Of course, unlike Friedman, I don’t really believe there’s any relation between the date change and the fact that Radcliffe will still be appearing nude on Broadway through the fall movie season (Equus runs from September 25 to February 8). If anything, I think it’d help the release of Half-Blood — what vacationing family in NYC wouldn’t want to make it a double feature over Thanksgiving weekend? First watch your kid march in the Macy’s parade, then head over to the Broadhurst Theatre to see Potter’s wand, and finish up the day with a movie screening at the Ziegfeld. OK, so families are apparently more interested in the Billy Elliot musical. And according to a quote in the new EW, Potter fans might be able to hold out for a nude Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2. 9. Less of a wait for Deathly Hallows - With Half-Blood Prince now opening in 2009, there’s less time between that film and the next installment, the first part of Deathly Hallows, which bows in 2010 (specifically November 19, 2010) Of course, the push has still left fans with a two-year Potter drought, as there has been no new book or movie since July 2007. Will those two years make fans anticipate the film more, or will it lead them to forget about the boy wizard and move on to boy vampires? 8. Twilight madness - One rumor floating around is that Warner Bros. was scared of Twilight, particularly after the Comic-Con panel, which was met with an overwhelming volume of screaming fans. Originally, the vampire movie was slated to open three weeks after Harry Potter, and fantasy favoring teens would have likely moved onto Twilight rather than seeing Half-Blood Prince again. However, it’s just as likely that Warner saw bigger competition from: 7. Disney’s Bolt - Personally, I think Twilight is going to bomb, or at least perform unsatisfactorily. I’d be willing to bet the animated film Bolt, which was originally to open 5 days after Half-Blood, is more successful. And now that both Twilight and Bolt have jointly taken Harry Potter’s spot, I get to actually watch as kids choose the latter, with its Miley Cyrus-voiced character, over the cheesy, mushy vampire movie. I don’t think Bolt could have bettered Harry Potter, though, so Warner likely wasn’t scared away by the little animated dog. 6. Midnight shows - Some kids have pointed out that with a summer release they’re more likely to be able to attend a midnight screening on the eve of Half-Blood’s opening. Other kids have pointed out that their parents are cool enough to allow them to stay up late on a school night for Harry Potter mania. Meanwhile, I’d like to point out that my dad could beat up all those kids’ dads. 5. Re-shooting for Darker content - As its Dark Knight keeps on reeling in the dough, Warner Bros. may be interested in making other tent poles as dark as the highly acclaimed and highly successful Batman sequel. So, rather than appeasing the kiddies with more accessible midnight shows, the studio might want to appease more of the older folk by adding in some harder content (in one new scene, Potter shows us how to make his wand disappear). It would make sense, since most of the original Potter fans are now adults. And like Anne Thompson, I’d be much more interested in seeing an R-rated Potter installment (though she means because Billy Elliot was rated R). Then again, from what I hear, the last two books are plenty dark without need for rewrites and re-shoots. Maybe not enough to get an R-rating, but I doubt any WB execs would honestly think that’s a good idea anyway. 4. After effects of the Writer’s Strike - Although the WGA strike now seems like it happened ages ago, its effects will still be felt next summer, when the blockbuster season is expected to be lacking in big movies that could have been scripted were it not for the writing hiatus. But if you actually look at next summer’s crop of releases, you’ll notice there’s actually some major tent poles, even in July, when Harry Potter will be rounding out the peak of the season against such worthy competitors as Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi flick 2012, which opens the weekend before, and Jerry Bruckheimer’s family film G-Force, which opens the weekend after. Plus, the little kids will still be excited for Ice Age 3 (in 3-D), out two weeks earlier, and the big kids will still be into Transformers 2, arriving three weeks earlier. Warner Bros. head Alan Horn was correct that Half-Blood Prince “perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer,” but that’s not a good enough motive to suddenly hold a highly anticipated movie for another eight months, especially when it leaves a similar gap in the holiday season. 3. In-house finances - Then again, Warner Bros. may have seen a tent pole lack in-house rather than in general. Now, in the event that R-rated blockbusters Watchmen and Terminator Salvation aren’t huge moneymakers, the studio has Harry to fall back on. And with The Dark Knight making the company enough dough for 2008, it makes sense for the WB to balance out its expectant profit-makers. I’ve also seen it explained as having to do with not paying as much in taxes for this fiscal year, but whatever the specific reason, it seems probable that it’s an in-house financial strategy. 2. The last Potter was huge in the summer - 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had the worst opening weekend of the franchise, yet it went on to earn the second highest gross of the series, with only the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, performing better domestically and worldwide. Plenty of people have noted that the three fall-opening installments average out better than the two summer openers, but that’s only because of the monumental success of part one. Logically, though, to open the movie in mid July, as Warner Bros. did with Order of the Phoenix, means it will easily have longer legs, able to perform well on weekdays for another 5-6 weeks of vacation before school starts. Opening around Thanksgiving is good for a strong debut, but then within a month the box office drops due to school, a crowded movie season and other holiday-minded priorities. 1. Warner Bros. hates the fans - Obviously the true reason for the delay is to piss off Harry Potter fans. But fortunately, the fans are striking back … with three online petitions (one at iPetitions; two at PetitionSpot). And so far, more than 34,000 outraged Potterheads have signed in protest of the release date change (I’m counting the largest one of the two at PetitionSpot as the only noteworthy). Unfortunately, most of the signers are probably like #34,196, Catherine Blencowe, who adds to the basic “I support this petition” these words: “If I actually thought I could, I would say that I will boycott the movie, but alas I’m too hooked.” Warner Bros. may hate the fans, but the fans will never hate Warner Bros. more than they love Harry. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:00:59 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/20/2008 9:00:59 AMWarner Bros.’ surprise decision last week to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from November to next July caused quite a stir. Fans were upset. Entertainment Weekly was embarrassed. The only people not bothered seemed to be the Twilight crowd, who benefited in the release date jumble when their anticipated adaptation moved up its opening to fill the vacancy. But why did the studio suddenly push back its major fall tent pole? Especially after receiving such favorable buzz surrounding its recently unveiled teaser trailer? Warner’s official statement seemed little more than a “just because” stance. So, ever the skeptic and speculator, I’ve compiled this list of more likely excuses: 10. Equus - My first thought after hearing the news was that Harry Potter’s penis was the cause. And I guess I think like Roger Friedman, who is claiming it’s the truth. Of course, unlike Friedman, I don’t really believe there’s any relation between the date change and the fact that Radcliffe will still be appearing nude on Broadway through the fall movie season (Equus runs from September 25 to February 8). If anything, I think it’d help the release of Half-Blood — what vacationing family in NYC wouldn’t want to make it a double feature over Thanksgiving weekend? First watch your kid march in the Macy’s parade, then head over to the Broadhurst Theatre to see Potter’s wand, and finish up the day with a movie screening at the Ziegfeld. OK, so families are apparently more interested in the Billy Elliot musical. And according to a quote in the new EW, Potter fans might be able to hold out for a nude Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2. 9. Less of a wait for Deathly Hallows - With Half-Blood Prince now opening in 2009, there’s less time between that film and the next installment, the first part of Deathly Hallows, which bows in 2010 (specifically November 19, 2010) Of course, the push has still left fans with a two-year Potter drought, as there has been no new book or movie since July 2007. Will those two years make fans anticipate the film more, or will it lead them to forget about the boy wizard and move on to boy vampires? 8. Twilight madness - One rumor floating around is that Warner Bros. was scared of Twilight, particularly after the Comic-Con panel, which was met with an overwhelming volume of screaming fans. Originally, the vampire movie was slated to open three weeks after Harry Potter, and fantasy favoring teens would have likely moved onto Twilight rather than seeing Half-Blood Prince again. However, it’s just as likely that Warner saw bigger competition from: 7. Disney’s Bolt - Personally, I think Twilight is going to bomb, or at least perform unsatisfactorily. I’d be willing to bet the animated film Bolt, which was originally to open 5 days after Half-Blood, is more successful. And now that both Twilight and Bolt have jointly taken Harry Potter’s spot, I get to actually watch as kids choose the latter, with its Miley Cyrus-voiced character, over the cheesy, mushy vampire movie. I don’t think Bolt could have bettered Harry Potter, though, so Warner likely wasn’t scared away by the little animated dog. 6. Midnight shows - Some kids have pointed out that with a summer release they’re more likely to be able to attend a midnight screening on the eve of Half-Blood’s opening. Other kids have pointed out that their parents are cool enough to allow them to stay up late on a school night for Harry Potter mania. Meanwhile, I’d like to point out that my dad could beat up all those kids’ dads. 5. Re-shooting for Darker content - As its Dark Knight keeps on reeling in the dough, Warner Bros. may be interested in making other tent poles as dark as the highly acclaimed and highly successful Batman sequel. So, rather than appeasing the kiddies with more accessible midnight shows, the studio might want to appease more of the older folk by adding in some harder content (in one new scene, Potter shows us how to make his wand disappear). It would make sense, since most of the original Potter fans are now adults. And like Anne Thompson, I’d be much more interested in seeing an R-rated Potter installment (though she means because Billy Elliot was rated R). Then again, from what I hear, the last two books are plenty dark without need for rewrites and re-shoots. Maybe not enough to get an R-rating, but I doubt any WB execs would honestly think that’s a good idea anyway. 4. After effects of the Writer’s Strike - Although the WGA strike now seems like it happened ages ago, its effects will still be felt next summer, when the blockbuster season is expected to be lacking in big movies that could have been scripted were it not for the writing hiatus. But if you actually look at next summer’s crop of releases, you’ll notice there’s actually some major tent poles, even in July, when Harry Potter will be rounding out the peak of the season against such worthy competitors as Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi flick 2012, which opens the weekend before, and Jerry Bruckheimer’s family film G-Force, which opens the weekend after. Plus, the little kids will still be excited for Ice Age 3 (in 3-D), out two weeks earlier, and the big kids will still be into Transformers 2, arriving three weeks earlier. Warner Bros. head Alan Horn was correct that Half-Blood Prince “perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer,” but that’s not a good enough motive to suddenly hold a highly anticipated movie for another eight months, especially when it leaves a similar gap in the holiday season. 3. In-house finances - Then again, Warner Bros. may have seen a tent pole lack in-house rather than in general. Now, in the event that R-rated blockbusters Watchmen and Terminator Salvation aren’t huge moneymakers, the studio has Harry to fall back on. And with The Dark Knight making the company enough dough for 2008, it makes sense for the WB to balance out its expectant profit-makers. I’ve also seen it explained as having to do with not paying as much in taxes for this fiscal year, but whatever the specific reason, it seems probable that it’s an in-house financial strategy. 2. The last Potter was huge in the summer - 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had the worst opening weekend of the franchise, yet it went on to earn the second highest gross of the series, with only the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, performing better domestically and worldwide. Plenty of people have noted that the three fall-opening installments average out better than the two summer openers, but that’s only because of the monumental success of part one. Logically, though, to open the movie in mid July, as Warner Bros. did with Order of the Phoenix, means it will easily have longer legs, able to perform well on weekdays for another 5-6 weeks of vacation before school starts. Opening around Thanksgiving is good for a strong debut, but then within a month the box office drops due to school, a crowded movie season and other holiday-minded priorities. 1. Warner Bros. hates the fans - Obviously the true reason for the delay is to piss off Harry Potter fans. But fortunately, the fans are striking back … with three online petitions (one at iPetitions; two at PetitionSpot). And so far, more than 34,000 outraged Potterheads have signed in protest of the release date change (I’m counting the largest one of the two at PetitionSpot as the only noteworthy). Unfortunately, most of the signers are probably like #34,196, Catherine Blencowe, who adds to the basic “I support this petition” these words: “If I actually thought I could, I would say that I will boycott the movie, but alas I’m too hooked.” Warner Bros. may hate the fans, but the fans will never hate Warner Bros. more than they love Harry. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/lopezdash/archive/2008/6/25/31658.aspx Post By: lopezdash
Post To: The Movie Blog
Post Date: 6/25/2008 10:51:59 AM
Body: More pictures from the set of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Featuring Director Michael Bay, aand stars Shia LaBeouf, Isabel Lucas and BUMBLEBEE! Lucas with Michael Bay. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) Clear picture of Bumblebee from above. Shows off the lines well. At this point, they had turned the car around and were getting ready to put it away. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) There's a lot of standing around between takes. Lucas would fidget with her hair and her dress. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) At this point, the crew had changed the lighting around for a different shot, so they had to recalibrate everything. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) A member of the film crew take a snap of Isabel Lucas sporting the green goo on her left shoulder. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) Wiping off green goo. Photo credit: zaclur
]]>Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:51:59 GMTlopezdashThe Movie Blog6/25/2008 10:51:59 AMMore pictures from the set of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Featuring Director Michael Bay, aand stars Shia LaBeouf, Isabel Lucas and BUMBLEBEE! Lucas with Michael Bay. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) Clear picture of Bumblebee from above. Shows off the lines well. At this point, they had turned the car around and were getting ready to put it away. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) There's a lot of standing around between takes. Lucas would fidget with her hair and her dress. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) At this point, the crew had changed the lighting around for a different shot, so they had to recalibrate everything. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) A member of the film crew take a snap of Isabel Lucas sporting the green goo on her left shoulder. View zacklur's map Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here) Wiping off green goo. Photo credit: zaclur http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/sequel/MemberTagFilms.aspxsequel
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