Man, what a week. Last time I wrote, it was from Bloomfield, CT. At the time, I didn't really have an inkling of the fact that the next day would be comprised of the 15-hour flight from hell ...
On Monday, I left Bradley Airport in CT bound for Vegas on route to Burbank at about 12:30 pm. Things seemed to be going okay, until we stopped in Chicago. It kind of sucked that we even had to stop in Chicago, as who wants to go through three separate take-offs and landings in one trip? Not I. But what happened was - we stopped in Chicago, people got off the plane, new people got on (I stayed in my window seat after a few brief moments of stretching) - and then, nothing. Due to some ambiguous weather issues, our plane was grounded on the runway and was unable to take off. At first, it just seemed like a momentary delay. It was only after a full HOUR had gone by that the pilot finally saw fit to update us on what was going on - only problem was, it wasn't much of an update. He gave no definitive time for take-off. I sat in my seat, cramped, read a bunch of chapters of Stephen King's The Stand, all the while growing increasingly paranoid that I was involved in some apocalypse-virus doomsday-quarantine scenario a la the characters in that book. Luckily, I was sitting next to some cool people, and when the pilot finally let us leave the plane for a half hour, I was both relieved that we were not being mysteriously quarantined and happy to have some good company with which to grab some food. However, the whole time I was worried because my connecting flight to Burbank was obviously not going to be an option to board as scheduled. So if I ever actually got to Vegas, how would I get back to CA? When I got off the plane in Chicago's Midway airport, I found that all flights to Burbank and even LAX from Vegas were full - only standby seats remained. Hmmm, not looking good. We got back on the plane at that point and sat for what seemed like an eternity. But again, thankfully, I was pretty engrossed in The Stand and also had some nice people sitting around me with whom to make conversation. FINALLY, we took off, as it began to rain and pour in Chicago, to much applause and fanfare. I'm still not even sure why we were delayed so long - I heard it had something to do with lightning storms, but who knows ...
We landed in Vegas at around 8:40 pm PT, and the last flight to Burbank was at 8:50. I RAN to the terminal and luckily was one of the first from my flight to make it in line to put my name on the standby list. Eventually, about 20 people got in line to be standbys, and only 5 of us actually made it onto the plane - and somehow, I was one of those 5. So I got on the plane, not even caring that I was stuck in a middle seat (I didn't even have time to groan at the fact that after several hours of sitting on a plane, I was now about to spend ANOTHER hour sitting on a plane ...). Luckily, the flight from Vegas to Burbank was quick and painless. Of course, landing was not the end of my journey. Since I had not made it onto my original flight to Burbank, my luggage was lagging behind me. Luckily, the 8:50 pm flight from Vegas, the one I ended up taking, was SUPPOSED to have been the last one, but an earlier flight got delayed, so my luggage was put onto that one (I didn't KNOW this for sure at the time, but the airline people said it was a strong possibility ...). So I'm waiting around at the Burbank airport, thinking that I'd only have to wait until 10 pm for my luggage to arrive. Nope, turns out that last flight out of Vegas got delayed a second time, so I now had to wait until 11 pm. So yeah, I sat down, talked for a while to this random guy who was in the same boat for a while, and read even more of The Stand (good thing I picked a long book, I'm still not even a third of the way through it).
Finally, at 11-something, my bags miraculously arrived (I was half convinced they'd never arrive). I made sure to get my free voucher from Southwest for having to wait for my luggage (another 15 minute wait), and procured a taxi to take me home. I arrived in my apartment tired, exhausted, and in a state of confusion - I felt like I had been in a time warp and had virtually no sense of where I was, what time it was, etc. I didn't bother to unpack. I just collapsed, lay down, and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
And now, a few days later, I still feel caught in that weird state of being. Work has been crazy, as I've had to catch up on a lot and get back into the swing of things. It's been pretty intense around here lately to say the least. Also, there's all the other stuff like laundry and grocery shopping that takes up time. So headed into this weekend, I am wiped out. And that's the story of my return to LA from CT.
- In my last post, I mentioned how my brother and I took time to watch the RAMBO movies over my break. Now, it's interesting - while my generation holds ROCKY near and dear, thanks to endless TV marathons and the like, most people I know have heard of Rambo, but never actually witnessed Stallone's other iconic character in action. Well my friends, Rambo is a must-see. The first movie, First Blood, is actually not at all what one would expect from the popular image of Rambo. Like the first Rocky, it's a very character-driven movie, very insular, and political as well in how it deals with a Vietnam vet who feels aimless and shunned by a country he fought for. The second Rambo, on the other hand, is basically the prototype for almost every action movie since, a pure, balls-to-the wall actioner with some great moments, all the while maintaining a very dark tone. The third one is much more cartoonish, but still pretty well done. And I'm glad that I am now fully prepared for the glory that will be JOHN RAMBO, the upcoming fourth installment, which has one of the most awesome trailers I've ever seen.
- Speaking of which, the other night I watched the cult classic Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! on TCM. Awesome movie, though extremely weird.
- And now, I guess I should finally review TRANSFORMERS, which I saw a while back but have yet to write much about. So, here we go:
TRANSFORMERS Review:
- I don't really like Michael Bay. I just thought I'd put that out there. But what can I say. There is ONE movie of his that I've really enjoyed, that being The Rock. Mostly, however, I can't stand his movies' ADD direction and generally poor scripts. I can't stand Armageddon, and The Island was one of the biggest misfires of a movie rife with potential I've ever seen. But I concede - if there was ever a movie franchise that seemed tailor-made for Bay's sensibilities, it's Transformers.
Now, again, I am not really a Transformers geek either. I think I had one or two of the toys as a kid and never really watched the cartoon. I was more of a He-Man / Thundercats / Voltron / Ninja Turtles kid. But let's face it - Transformers as a concept is basically built on the novelty of the toys - toys that are cars or planes or whatever and then turn into robots. It's a fun concept, but nothing that's really built on cool characters or storylines or any of the kinds of things that actually can translate into a legit good movie. Essentially it's good robots vs bad robots. And that's cool, I don't mind a movie that uses CGI to actually bring awesomely-realized robot-on-robot action to life.
And on that front, Bay does a pretty spectacular job of things here. While watching Transformers, you're confronted with a nonstop visual assault. The CGI f/x here are off the chain, and it really is something new that no one has seen before in live action. Right off the bat, from a purely visual standpoint, the movie is one "holy $#%@" moment after another. The problem is, all of these visuals are quality junkfood for the eyes, but there's really nothing here to sink one's teeth into. Bay's directorial style is so frenetic and random that what should be climactic action scenes are instead hard-to-follow and mean next to nothing in terms of advancing the plot and characters. And this is coming from someone raised on videogames and MTV. I love a good action scene, but I want action that MEANS something, where I'm rooting for characters to overcome the odds and where I can actually FOLLOW the ebb and flow of a set piece. Things happen so fast and furiously in Transformers that one second I'm thinking "whoah, awesome, a helicopter turning into a robot!" but the next second it's completely unclear who this character is or why I should care about them.
Look, I'm not expecting Oscar-worthy characterization from Transformers, but characters seem to come into and out of the picture with wild abandon. The movie begins with a bunch of military types encountering a Transformer, and yet these military guys seem basically useless the entire movie. The same thing happens with a group of world-class hackers - they are introduced, made out to be crucial to the story, and then all but disappear even after we spend scene after scene in the middle of the movie with hacker extraordinaire Anthony Anderson doing fat jokes.
That's another thing - I appreciate the movie trying to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but how many piss jokes do we need in a movie like this? Many scenes in the film would be more at home in one of those American Pie direct-to-video sequels than in what should be an epic action movie. But to the movie's credit, even though some of these hijinks are a little much, Shia LeWhatever is probably the one character here who gets ample moment in the spotlight. Shia pulls off the whole "boy and his car" angle pretty well, and has the right amount of deer caught in headlights / unlikely hero demeanor borrowed from the Jeff Goldblum school of action-movie-acting-for-lovably-neurotic-Jews-as-unlikely-leading-men. Now, Steven Spielberg is listed as an exec producer on this movie, and I believe it was him who wanted the "boy and his car" angle, which is fitting and very Spielbergian. However, while Spielberg specializes in Big moments of awe and wonder, Bay doesn't stop to breath for a second. Everything is bang, bang, bang, giant robots. Similarly, Spielberg is a master of building dramatic tension, and then airing out that tension in magical and intense set action pieces. Near the end of Transformers, Megan Fox's character is driving a truck of some kind, hauling around an injured Bumblebee (the friendly Transformer who moonlights as Shia's car). Every turn of her head, blink of her eye, etc, is given more slow-mo dramatic weight than you'd see in a typical Japanese anime. And yet all the while, you have no real idea where she's driving to, what she's trying to accomplish, etc. Meanwhile, while a bunch of army guys flail away at the evil Decepticons in downtown LA, Shia is inexplicably given a cosmic cube of sorts, told to run to the top of a very tall building, and ... yeah, basically, I had no idea why Shia, a regular teenager, was doing this instead of an army commando, let alone what he was doing in the first place. I'm not asking for Shakespeare here, all I'm asking for is the ability to decipher what's going on on-screen.
Okay, so there are my litany of complaints, most of which are typical of a Michael Bay film, where moments of awesomeness tend to be judiciously interspersed with stuff that's either totally nonsensical or else just plain stupid. But I would like to mention some of the cool things about this movie, things that made me turn to my brother more than once in the course of my viewing and proclaim "Daaaaaaaaaamn!"
For one thing, the movie has great casting, for the most part. I mean, not only did it have Fernando from Prison Break as one of the army dudes, but it had a bit part for AARON F'NG PIERCE of 24 cult-fame. Nice. Meanwhile, Jon Voight was a lot of fun as Secretary of Defense or whatever he was playing. John Turtorro is an amazing freaking actor but he was kind of grating here, though it was just cool seeing "Jesus" in a Transformers movie.
But the best part of the movie by far outside of the f/x was probably Optimus Prime. Like I said, I don't remember having watched the old cartoon much, but there was something inherently awesome about having Peter Cullen, aka the original voice of OP, return to do the honors again here. 80's cartoons had so many iconic voice actors, it was great to hear that kickass, over-the-top voicework style in a big budget live action movie. Cullen made all of Optimus' lines, no matter how cheesy, sound seven kinds of awesome. Basically, he ruled.
Again, this movie in many ways was, and excuse the vernacular here, pretty retarded, in a way where the more I thought about it the more I kind of thought it sucked. There was something about seeing Spielberg's name up there in the credits too that just made the movie's mediocrity that much harder to take. It had that visual coolness, but it could, COULD, have been an amazing action movie if done under more capable hands, if it had a script to match the f/x and direction that actually enhanced the visuals rather than made them hard to follow. Visually this one set the bar. But anyone who thought it was up there with legitimately good action films like 300 or Aliens or whatever is on crack. I mean, even amongst THIS particular subgenre of over-the-top, f/x heavy huge-concept light hearted action movies, Independence Day is still king. As it is, it was a movie which is great to see once on the big screen but prob won't have a very long shelf life - it's pop-cult junk of the highest order. Really, the best thing about Transformers is that it made a boatload of money, meaning that a live-action Thundercats, et al is now an inevitabilty, to which I say "Thundercats, hoooooo!"
My Grade: B -
- Alright, I'm out. Have a good weekend - PEACE.
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