Posts Tagged ‘Michael Bay’

Although it might be a bit untimely to talk at length about Drive nearly three full weeks after it opened on Sept. 16th, we at Movie-Thoughts thought it to be an even worse idea to not talk about it at all. Our Marisa Carpico did of course write a glowing review of the film, directed by Nicolas Refn (Bronson) and starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, and it appears her sentiments match that of the critical majority (RottenTomatoes rating is 93%), and because of these reasons we thought it was downright necessary to devote more time toward inspecting this refreshingly stylized action thriller. We tried to elaborate more on some of the angles explored in Marisa’s review, and took the opportunity to also bring up topics we felt hadn’t been addressed as often or thoroughly by other critics. We hope you find our discussion intriguing, and we of course encourage you to throw your two cents in at the comments section below. For those of you who have been debating internally about going to see Drive we hope our musings give you the extra incentive you need to give it a go and experience it for yourself. And for those of you who simply don’t wish to see it… well, you’re missing out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Transformers: Dark of the Moon has quickly become a box office phenomenon, pretty much just like most of us thought it would. However, what has been surprising is the relatively positive word of mouth the film has earned. After the critical failure of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen expectations were exceedingly low for the third installment. But even with this being the case audiences have seemingly been walking away feeling very satisfied.

Critics have by and large panned Dark of the Moon, amassing only a 37% approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com. On that same site, however, 90% of over 60,000 people voted to say they enjoyed the film. So for those of you who got a charge out of the movie we here at Movie-Thoughts thought it would be interesting to talk about several aspects of it that we weren’t able to fit into our review. Below you can find the conversation that took place between our writers Cliff Bugle and Marisa Carpico. Be sure to send us your comments! We want to hear your thoughts as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

Short Take: Perhaps Michael Bay's most patriotic film to date. The American male's dream made real.

Director: Michael Bay

Screenwriter: Ehren Kruger

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey , Frances McDormand

Length: 2 hours, 37 minutes

Synopsis: Despite saving the world twice, Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) finds himself jobless after college. Not helping his self-esteem, his girlfriend, Carly (Huntington-Whiteley), is a successful museum curator with a troublesome relationship with her handsome boss, Dylan (Dempsey). Worst of all, Sam’s Autobot friends are off traveling the world on government missions while Sam is left behind wishing he could join them. However, Sam is pulled back into the Transformers’ world when the evil Decepticons hatch a plan that could destroy Earth.

Read the rest of this entry »

With so many bombs like "The Green Hornet" trying to sell 3D (converted no less), which don't even warrant a normally priced ticket, why should we not still consider 3D to be a money-grabbing gimmick that doesn't add enough to the viewing experience to justify the higher ticket price?

Dear Hollywood,

Please stop pushing 3D.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides has underachieved in terms of earning first weekend grosses for 3D showings, with more audiences opting for 2D prints. Now, with $90.1 million earned its first weekend in just the U.S., and over $400 million to be earned worldwide by the end of its first full week, the film can hardly be considered unsuccessful. However, numbers show that American audiences’ interest in 3D could be waning. What everyone is trying to figure out is whether fewer 3D tickets sold means audiences are no longer seeing the value in 3D technology or they are becoming less inclined to fork over the extra cash for a 3D ticket.

Guess what Hollywood – if Americans are indeed sick of 3D it’s because of both reasons.

The list of recent movies released in 3D where the extra dimension actually added to the viewing experience is extremely short, including only Avatar, Tron: Legacy, How to Train Your Dragon, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Coraline, and Monster House. Notice how four of those six are 100% animated, and the two “live action” films are ones which were greatly reliant on digital effects to the point where one could justifiably consider them mostly animated as well. This is not a coincidence, and such a pattern does not help the argument that 3D is the future of the medium. Personally, I won’t give that claim any consideration until I see a truly live action film wow me like the six just mentioned.

Read the rest of this entry »

This May's "Iron Man 2" will be the latest summer vehicle designed to appeal to the biggest audience possible. How is it this came to be? Is it a good thing?

With the summer movie season nearly upon us (officially beginning with the release of Iron Man 2 on May 7^th), I naturally got pulled into another conversation with a fellow moviegoer who felt the need to express his contempt for this time of year. According to him, and I’m sure many of you out there as well, the summer months are reserved for when Hollywood likes to flex its corporate muscles and make boat loads of cash by feeding the masses the intellectual equivalent of junk food. Basically, if it’s loud and shiny, it sells. But the movie studios are not entirely to blame, as it’s also the fault of the audiences who readily pay their hard earned money to sit stupefied at a screen while their senses get pushed to the limits (Michael Bay’s Transformers movies were listed as examples several times during the conversation).

This is one way to look at it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Freddy's back April 30th

ShockTillYouDrop.com published their findings of when they visited the set of the new Nightmare on Elm Street remake. The film is meant to reboot what had become a tired franchise, which was launched with Wes Craven’s career-defining 1984 film of the same title. Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes production studio is the creative entity behind the movie, which also helped create The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake back in 2003 as well as the recent Friday the 13th remake.

The set visit documents various aspects of the new film, from the look of the actors, the attitude of the creative minds behind the project, and the differences between this picture and its original. One feature of the film that its director Samuel Bayer stresses was how it’s trying to be legitimately scary, not “fun horror” like the remake of Friday the 13th.

The article includes many quotes from director Bayer and producer Bradley Fuller, which do well to explain exactly what their aims are with this film. According to the article, Bayer was pursued feverishly by Platinum Dunes and Newline Cinema because of his knack for being a visual storyteller (almost all of his credits are for directing numerous music videos). As Spike Jonze has proven (Where the Wild Things Are, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich), a background in directing music videos is not a bad one.

The article overall proves very revealing – so much so that if you’re not one for spoilers then you might want to avoid it. Likewise, if you can’t get enough information about this remake (which opens April 30th) then you’ll want to check it out ASAP.

Also See…

ComingSoon.net interviews Johnny Depp about his role as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, as well as some other upcoming roles. The film opens March 5th.

Paramount Pictures has signed a first-look producing deal with Platinum Dunes, the genre division run by Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form.

Because Bay has proven commercially successful with Paramount with his last two Transformers films, the studio is now trusting him and his Dunes team to make low budget horror movies.

The Paramount relationship gets under way with The Butcherhouse Chronicles, a thriller that is being scripted by Stephen Susco (The Grudge) and is being likened to The Breakfast Club in a haunted house. The producers have also come aboard the Paramount project Property of the State, a Howard Franklin-scripted thriller about a young white-collar criminal whose attempt to straighten out his life is imperiled by an obsessive and menacing parole officer.

The latest Platinum Dunes film will be the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. They’ve also done The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Amityville Horror (2005), and Friday the 13th (2009), all of which earned many times their budget.

Source: Variety

Director Michael Bay with Megan Fox

Director Michael Bay himself has made known the release date of the next Transformers movie, along with a letter to ComingSoon.net with a note to lead actress Megan Fox, which reads as follows:

Well its official: We have a great Transformers 3 story. The release date is now July 1st 2011. Not 2012.

Today is Day One. This morning started with an ILM meeting for five hours in San Francisco. Currently I’m flying with writer Ehren Kruger to Rhode Island to talk to Hasbro about new characters.

P.S. Megan Fox, welcome back. I promise no alien robots will harm you in any way during the production of this motion picture. Please consult your Physician when working under my direction because some side effects can occur, such as mild dizziness, intense nausea, suicidal tendencies, depression, minor chest hair growth, random internal hemorrhaging and inability to sleep. As some directors may be hazardous to your health, please consult your Doctor to determine if this is right for you.

Pain and Gain is right after shooting of Trans 3.

Michael

The summer of 2010 now has 2 huge projects slated for release, with the other being Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (no firm date yet set). Battleship (based off of the Hasbro game) is also scheduled to release around that summer.

Source: ComingSoon.net