Pointless Bitching about TIm Burton

I am a movie fan, as I think I have intimated at least once here. And I like all sorts of movies. Action, Comedy, Drama, Epics, Fantasy, Horror… you know the genre I can name at least ten films I liked in that genre.

But you know who I don’t like in movies, at all, to the point of generally boycotting them entirely these days? Tim Burton.

I don’t know what it is about this guy, but he has driven me bat shit ever since the Nightmare Before Christmas. Wait I do know what it is about this guy. And I think I will outline it right now.

First off Tim Burton has some serious Daddy Issues. While this was not REALLY prevalent in Beetlejuice or Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (and I can not comment on Vincent as I have never seen it.) Ever since he directed Batman in 1989, Tim Burton has been really big on daddy issues. In Batman it was I watched my daddy die, in Edward Scissorhands it was Daddy did not finish me, and Nightmare Before Christmas “Daddy controls me to much.” I could go on about other films (Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish for example.) but the point is that the theme of Paternal neglect, abandonment and abuse runs rampant through his films.

Secondly there is the strand of Re-Makes and non original IPs that Burton has a hand in that really piss me off. He famously said during the production of 1989’s Batman that he did not need to be familiar with the comic books to make a good batman film. Fortunately it seemed there were others involved in production that steered it in the right direction, but this blasé attitude continues in other films. Mars Attacks was a crappy redo of the infamous Ed Wood flick Plan Nine From Outer Space, despite having little to do with the originals plot (there is an actual Plan Nine Redux in the works right now though that looks spectacular.)

In Planet of the Apes, the visuals were stunning, and the makeup was as fantastically innovative as the original. But the Stranger in a Strange Land idea that made the initial Planet of the Apes so awe inspiring was not there. People point to many specific things, but for me it was that the humans in Burton’s planet retained a sense of intelligence and culture, however suppressed it may be. Compare that to human beings in the Charlton Hesston film who were one step shy of being wild animals. The juxtaposition of a sapient human in a land where it was apes who were sapient was lost right there.

Finally with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Burton Openly messed with greatness. I can not fathom that film other then “Here is Johnny Depp acting kooky!” The visuals were garish, the music was forgettable, and NONE of that magic from the ’71 was ever rendered. Like the candy Willy Wonka made, it was sugary and hollow.

Oh wait, I mentioned Johnny Depp didn’t I? While the performances rendered in Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood were brilliant, showing both subtlety and passion respectively, it seems that Burton is nothing more then the bottom bitch to Mr Depp whenever his bank account runs dry. Only Helena Bonham Carter has appeared in more Burton films over the past decade and that is because she is fucking Burton.

Through all of this I can not say that Mr. Burton is a talentless hack, but his talent just does not show through. The man is a master at cinematography, but he needs to spend more time directing films rather then micromanaging them to meet his acid trip visions. What’s the point of all of this? I really don’t know I just wanted to bitch about Tim Burton, go in peace my friends.

What we wanted Mace Windu to say...

Today is Star Wars day and I am feeling Irreverent, so here is a list of things that everyone WANTED Samuel L Jackson to say during his tenure in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.

1) BASIC MOTHER-FUCKER DO YOU SPEAK IT!

2) This is your father’s Lightsaber, when you absolutely, positively must kill every mother fucker in the room, accept no substitutes

3) Hold on to your Butts, or tentacles, or whatever you got that you sit on.

4) Say try mother fucker! Say try again! I DARE YOU I DOUBLE DARE YOU SAY TRY AGAIN!

5) Use the force bitch!

6) You have reached the desk of Mace Windu, please leave a message after the beep. HEY I SAID AFTER THE BEEP! *Beep* That’s better!

7) Does he look like a nerf? *IGNITES LIGHTSABER* DOES HE LOOK LIKE A NERF!? THEN WHY YOU TRY TO HERD HIM LIKE ONE?

8) Whether or not what we experienced was an According to Yoda miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of the Force.

9) Not even the Force knows what you're doing!

10) You having a nice day, sir? You feeling all right? Not to get too personal, but a Sith standing in the middle of Courescant wearing a sign that says "I hate Jedi" has either got some serious personal issues, or not all his dogs are barking.

11) Who was the last person to beat Darth Vader? His mother!

12) Mano a mano? My Lightsaber wants to laugh.

13) I got this young nineteen year old Country girl named Sheronda. I found her on a Starport two days outta Hoth, barefoot, country as a Nerf herd. I took her to my place in Taris, told her it was Courescant.

14) Obi-Wan can tell me any story that comes into his pretty little head, just so long as at the end of that story he hands me my motherfucking Credits.

VINDICATION!!!!!!

Remeber my Arbitration a few weeks ago about why Transformers Revenge of the Fallen sucked balls?

well the screen writers pretty much confirmed my hypothesis

More Then Meets My Expectations

So here is something I like talking about that is not TOO politically heavy handed. That Big McLarge Huge sporting event that happened a few weeks back is also known as commercial cental, you remember that? Yeah I did not care much about it either, mostly cause the Kansas City Chiefs, nor the New York Jets were involved. I know how to pick teams don’t I? but one commercial played and I caught it on apple’s movie trailers after the game.



God Damn you Michael Bay! God Damn you!

Now I fit into a very small niche of Transformers fans. I am not in the “if it is transformers it is good” category, but neither am I in the “Purist” line of thought either. Much like my post partisan pragmatists political affiliation, I take each category of this beloved franchise in turn, and I examine it on its own merits.

The First Transformers film released in 2007 actually impressed me. I thought the character designs were a wonderful way to make the idea of robots that could turn into cares functionally work. The plot was thin no doubt, but nowhere NEAR as thin as the cartoon from the 1980s, and the set pieces were enjoyable. My main complaint was the lack of character development with the Decepticon characters.

The 2009 sequel was an unmitigated disaster. May people have their own ideas as to why, and I want to share my own. The writer’s strike of 2008 happened a few months before principle photography was scheduled to start. This meant that a Shooting Script was never developed, and rumor has it that a full final screenplay was sitting unfinished on Orici and Kruzman’s desk. As the strike carried on Michael Bay (director) and Steven Speilberg (Producer) had a tough decision to make, do we wait out the strike, lose a crap ton of funding or get our funding pulled, and delay shooting? Or do we try to work with what we have. Bay Elected to work with what he had, which mean shooting Revenge of the Fallen with what is called a Film Treatment.

For those that don’t know, a Film Treatment is a piece of prose, often in a short story form, that provides a basic outline of a films plot. For a good example of a Film Treatment I recommend picking up the special edition of “The Terminator” which has its full treatment as a special feature. At 44 pages it tells the story of the film, but you can pick apart what was discarded, what was altered, and what was enhanced.

This led to Revenge of the Fallen being CLOSE to the original vision of the film, but every fan could see where things fell apart. There was a “wait what?” moment within the movie where it all broke down. For me it was around the time Optimus prime got killed and the ever infamous twins escorted Bumblebee and Shia Lebouf across the globe. At that point what was actually a pretty decent action flick degenerated into a bad episode of Beavis and Butt-head.

So now we have this third movie, and again it is sold to me. I will be there, in the front of the line, waiting for my seat on opening day. It is the same thing as why G.I.JOE, and the Marvel Pantheon are so close to my heart. Basically people my age, the 30 year olds, are grown up and want their childhood back. Maybe it is some mid life precursor or something. Will we have a better movie? Well I am of the mind it can not get much worse, and at least the 30 second spot at the Daytona 500 looks promising.

Arbiters Movie Reviews: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

This was the SHIT! So it begins with some meaningless prologue of prehistoric humans being trounced by Robots building some great big THING! I am sure if we had a bunch of people build a great big thing the economy would pick up.

So then we go to China! The home of all Transformers! Army guys hop out, and we are introduced to new characters, there is ARCEE! Who has like three lines, and her TWO MOTORCYCLE FRIENDS, who don’t speak at all?

Weak.

And now some giant pickup truck is carrying soldiers and then… WIZCRACKUMPHAHRUMBLEWHEEE! And IRONHIDE IS BACK, and he can smell someone, despite all the pollution in china.

And now this giant earth mover goes WIZCRACKUMPHAHRUMBLEWHEEE. AND A MASSIVE DECEPTICON goes on a rampage through out china, turning buildings and cars, and highways into stir fry! And then an Audi tries to run away, and no one knows why so IT MUST BE DECEPTICON! And they were right. And this Ice Cream truck and Arcee’s trio of awesomeness pursue, and shoot it up, and then a NEW AUTOBOT shows up and ROLLER BLADEs in Shanghais industrial sector, and slices the Decepticon in HALF.

TAKE THAT POTENTIAL FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! I hear the Audi was named Sideways but it doesn’t matter. Hey wasn’t that two wheeled Decepticon destroying half of China!

And NO ONE CAN TAKE IT DOWN! Finally people call in the big guns and here is OPTIMUS PRIME! But he is on a plane, how can we resolve Optimus in a plane, it is not like he can jump…out… of… the… plane.

That introduction was sheer awesomeness. And PLOT COMMENCES!

Okay I will stop with the plot summary by now. Transformers Revenge of the Fallen was a FUN movie. That is not to say that it was a GOOD movie. It was full of Plot holes, and it suffered from a lack of character development like the last movie. I can not completely and competently rate it without breaking it down.

First characterization. I feel way too much time was spent giving the characters Skids and Mud Flap. There has already been well publicized flak about these two being “racist” robots. I do not see a regressive racial stereotype here per say, but the two do portray an annoying image. I saw a pair of Urban (NOT NESSICARILY BLACK) sixteen year old high school dropouts who joined the army. They seemed to have had no combat experience, despite being soldiers of a self described elite team. And they seemed very uneducated, despite being robots being programmed. With so much time and dialogue spent for two comic relief characters devoted to a lowest common denominator, it was such a waste, when compared to such a rich history of Transformers characters, or even things like the Arcee Triplets Sideswipe and Jolt IN THE MOVIE!

Speaking of Jolt, if you do not recall that name being used, he is the Blue Autobot in the background you first see halfway through the movie, and he doesn’t talk EVER! He seemed to exist only to enable a Climatic Deus Ex Machina. Likewise Sideswipe and Arcee both were underdeveloped. If Skids and Mudflap were replaced with two other Autobots, and the Arcee Triplets and Jolt were escorting the Humans around the film would have been better.

Surprisingly the Decepticons characterization was MUCH better. We got to see great interaction between Megatron and Starscream. This harkens back to the classic cartoon where the two were constantly being at odds. I have heard some complaints about the Soundwave character being under used, and under developed. Once again we must harken back to the Original cartoon. Soundwave was an uncharismatic blue block of Tape Deck, described as a spy and communications expert, the fact that he was parked in orbit and orchestrating the entire Decepticon action from afar seems perfectly in character.

The biggest problem is this Fallen character is a failing of characterization. He was completely unnecessary. He completely sidelines Megatron as Transformers primary villain. Throughout the Transformers universe Megatron was IT, he was bad guy numero uno. Now we have some star wars esque Vader and Emperor relationship. Between the time spent to render and make the Fallen and Hugo Weavings unbelievable salary voicing Megatron, we could have gotten three different secondary but quality Decepticons.

In terms of Plot, I hate it when the story stops in favor of exposition. There are points where I find it acceptable, such as the opening Crawl in Star Wars. But to bring a fill to a screeching halt in order to tell people what is happening screams to me that someone was running out of writing time. Given the writers strike of a year or two ago, I am not surprised if that was ACTUALLY the case. Now keeping in mind that the film is based on a 1980s cartoon that served as a 30 minute commercial for toys, I realize that this film fit perfectly in the 80’s cartoon.

What would have made it better? First off, I would have loved it if at one point, ANY POINT, Megatron betrayed his master. Megatron the lacky is counterintuitive to the entire franchise. In earlier incarnations Megatron had said “I BELONG TO NO ONE!” to an being that tried to command him.

Secondly, I would have to say this, and please Paramount listen. Less Exposition, more characterization. A perfect divergence point for this film would have been where Megatron “Killed” Optimus. Wounded to the point of being pulled into “Stasis Lock” (look it up, it is a Transformers term), he is brought back on life support to Diego Garcia, and the Humans turn on the Autobots. At this point the whole film does not become about the “Sun Crusher” or a great big energon source. Instead it is about the human race at war with all Cybertonions, regardless of their faction, and the attempt to get a relative peace between the Autobots and human race going.

Now for my wishes for the third movie.

Characters- I WANT to see Soundwave engaged in ground action. I said before that his function in this movie was brilliant, but I want to see a Robot Mode all the same.

Skids and Mudflap need to be rotated back to Cyberton and forgotten, and replaced with two other Autobots. I nominate the characters Cliffjumper and Brawn for such a task, though actual mileage may vary. I want to see a lot more Autobots in the background, but instead of being like the generic decepticons in this film, I want them to LOOK like they have vehicular forms.

Finally I want that super Robot, Devastator to come back. Mortally wounded, or just “hey we have a few of these guys” I do not care about the explanation. But he got punked in a manner I do not like. Likewise, Take advantage of the Transformers history, and bring in an autobot analogue. I picture 5 Autobot planes flying in formation (an A-10, F-16, F-18, F-15, and either a B1, B2, or C-17) combining in midair and landing as a super robot. At the same time, unlike this recent film, I want to see the components as their own robots functioning independently as a team.

For Decepticon Characters, lets bring in a few of the more amazing ones. The character Shockwave being reintroduced into the universe as Megatrons “enforcer” would be wonderful. I would also like to see Starscream commanding a team of two other jets, like Arcee and her motorcycles. Give those two jets names on screen, and a couple lines of military dialogue, and you got a good thing. Above all make the decepticons effectual, something that was lacked in the last film

Finally for human interaction, after two films, I think we can lower the human side a bit. Give Sam and Mikela like 20 minutes and then ride them into the sunset, Keep other Humans as far away as possible, and have the only humans with any extended screen time be Josh Dumhal and Tyrese Gibson. The idea of a Team of Human Military Liasons is a great plot point, and could be exploited much better.

Final Rating for Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. As a Transformers fan I want to give it a High Rating, but as a film buff, that rathing is Crippled. I will give it 3 out of 5 energon Cubes total. If split I would give 5 of 5 for action and fun, and 2 of 5 for writing.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Trailer Recap....

so it starts out "Bumblebee, you are to dumb for college! And then here mom proves SHE is to dumb for College, and Dad is to CHEAP for college, so only the annoying kid from the first movie goes.

And then you ask yourself “is Meghan Fox wearing Panties ion that shot? I don’t think she is. Can not quite see….. NONONONONONO DON’T GET UP!”

And then it is the annoying kid again and he drops the last chunk of that rubiks cube. And then it becomes a discovery channel special on Egypt, or Cyberton I do not know. HOLY CRAP IS THAT A FACE!

And then same starts writing on the chalk board, and stabbing the ground and then you hear Optimus Prime?

HOLY CRAP IT IS OPTIMUS PIRME! HOW DID THEY GET HIM BACK? His contract after the first movie had to be outrageous!

And he goes “I have not been honest with you Sam” is that the kids name? I never really cared. And He Goes “it is not my war” which makes me think he is going to die! Wait a second, wasn’t stuff blowing up by now?

BOOM BAM BANG thumpthumpthumpthump

Ah there we go, all better now.

Stuff is always better with explosions. WAIT WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? It looks like a Decepticon on a unicycle. EXTREME UNICYLING IS AWESOME! Yes it is a real sport. Or it should be.

And now we see bumblebee has two friends, I hope they die. I miss Jazz. And then that guy from the usual suspects ask that kid “does this look familiar?” and plot tries to get in the way of a good trailer.

And then we are underwater, and four big Decepticons surround Megatron. And one of them is HUGE, like just as big as Megatron. And on the third year MEGATRON SHALL RISE FROM THE ABYSS! And he looks like he has taken steroids! He was huge as it was but now…. Holy crap he is huge! And he has a really big gun and every thing and he sneaks up on this girl.

HOW CAN YOU MISS A 30 FOOT TALL ROBOT!? ARE YOU BLIND?

But now it is back to the trailer. BANBG, BOOM, ZAAAAAAP, KECEWL, ZOOM, VROOM!

Crying and ownage, and that stupid kid is in a flying audi. I think it was thrown. Please die kid. Or get arrested at Walgreens again.

And opttimus gets in the fray, dueling up on blades like Samuel L Jackson. But he gets pwned. And then “Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing.”

And a bunch of scenes flash and then……


WHAT THE HOLY JESUS BLUE FUCKING MONKEY CHRIST IS THAT????