f13.net

No nudity nerves for Johansson, director says (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&e=5&u=/nm/20050712/en_nm/johansson_dc)

Tue Jul 12,12:00 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Some Hollywood actresses are cautious about revealing too much skin but 20-year-old
Scarlett Johansson had to be persuaded to keep her underwear on, according to her director in "The Island,"
Michael Bay.

Speaking before Monday's New York premier of the thriller, which stars Johansson and
Ewan McGregor as human clones on the run, Bay said he was prepared for the usual actress nerves when it came to shooting a love scene between the two leads.

"We're ready to go and of course the actress is not there," he told reporters. He said he was summoned to Johansson's trailer, expecting to have to reassure the star of "Lost in Translation" that her privacy and dignity would be protected.

"She's standing there and she says, 'I'm not wearing this cheap ... bra. I'm going naked,"' Bay said.

"I said, 'It's PG-13, you have to wear the bra,"' he said.

Bay describes "The Island" -- which carries a PG-13 rating meaning it is suitable for children with parental guidance -- as a summer "popcorn movie," though the plot raises important ethical issues about science and the morality of cloning.

The film by the director of "Armageddon" and "The Rock" is a change of direction for Johansson who has played a string of critically acclaimed roles in films such as "Girl With a Pearl Earring" and "In Good Company."

"I said, 'It's PG-13, you have to wear the bra,"' he said.

No nudity nerves for Johansson, director says (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&e=5&u=/nm/20050712/en_nm/johansson_dc)
"She's standing there and she says, 'I'm not wearing this cheap ... bra. I'm going naked,"' Bay said.

"I said, 'It's PG-13, you have to wear the bra,"' he said.

That bodes well for the future though.

Who says PG-13 can't have any nudity? There are PG-13 movies that do and more than just a brief flash as well (e.g. Doc Hollywood).

Independence Day for Transformers (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=794&e=5&u=/eo/20050714/en_movies_eo/16938)

By Joal Ryan Wed Jul 13, 8:35 PM ET

Optimus Prime has a prime release date: The Fourth of July.

Transformers, the long-planned, live-action movie based on the robot-morphing cartoon, comic and toy franchise, will roll into theaters July 4, 2007, DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures announced Wednesday.
Michael Bay (The Island, The Rock) will direct; Steven Spielberg will executive produce.

Children of the 1980s likely will be champing at the tie-in lunchbox.

"The diehard fans will like it as long as it stays true to Transformers roots and doesn't stray too far from the ideals that we grew up with," Brendan Reilly, co-Webmaster of The Transformers Archive (www.tfarchive.com), said in an email interview about the movie announcement. "The casual or un-familar fan will need to see something awesome to win them over, although a 40-foot robot is usually pretty cool."

Cool-looking robots who convert themselves into battle tanks and other vehicles in order blow up things real good are at the mechanical heart of the Transformers, the classic tale of good automaton (the Autobots) versus evil automaton (the Decepticons) in a battle for control of Earth. Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots; Megatron, the dark lord of the Decepticons. Both Autobots and Decepticons hail from the planet Cybertron. All this backstory and more was revealed in Transformers, the syndicated cartoon series launched in 1984 with the help of toy-maker Hasbro, which simultaneously--and savvily--launched a still-thriving merchandise line.

No less savvy today, the makers of the new Transformers movie have already begun a full-scale offensive. The new official Website (www.transformers.com) went up Tuesday. Transformers: Cybertron, the latest animated series, launched this month on Cartoon Network. Burger King cooks up a monthlong action-figure promotion beginning in August. And this weekend in San Diego, on the occasion of Comic-Con International, the geek world's largest annual gawkfest, an 18-wheel truck touting the franchise's considerable wares will be beached in the convention hall.

In theory then, this thing ain't going to be Transformers: The Movie.

Transformers: The Movie was the little-loved 1986 animated feature that gave Optimus Prime, Megatron, et al., their first crack at the silver screen. Much as Fox is planning to right past cinematic wrongs with an all-new, A-list take on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, another 1980s cartoon/toy phenomenon that spawned a cheeseball 1980s film, the new Transformers crew is looking to take its property upscale.

In a message board Monday post on his personal Website (www.donmurphy.net), Don Murphy, a Transformers co-executive producer, said Spielberg, DreamWorks and Hasbro are committed to making a film that is no less than "GREAT" (the capital letters are all his).

"It will be GREAT," Murphy continued, "and then we will make sequel after sequel. There is no doubt that this is true."

With excellence promised, the powers that be now need only to lock in actors and writers--none were announced Wednesday--and start cameras rolling. Time, after all, is of the essence. In publicly staking claim to July 4, 2007, DreamWorks and Paramount become the first studios to reserve that holiday date for their own. Currently, the only other release on the 2007 calendar is Spider-Man 3, set for May 4 of that year.

Until Transformers debuts in theaters, and after Comic-Con wraps, its considerable fandom can busy itself with BotCon (www.transformersclub.com/conventions/frisco/), described by organizer Brian Savage as being "like a giant group hug for everyone who enjoys Transformers."

Scheduled for Sept. 22-25 in Frisco, Texas, the latest edition of BotCon--the event is more than 10 years old--is expected to draw as many as 5,000 devotees of the shape-changing robots. "The whole movie announcement just adds more fire and fuel," said Savage, director of Hasbro's official Transformers Collectors Club.

The way Savage sees it, the unlikely secret to the Transformers' success is: Personality. Anyone, he said, can make a transforming robot.

"But guess what? It's not Optimus Prime."

"The diehard fans will like it as long as it stays true to Transformers roots and doesn't stray too far from the ideals that we grew up with," Brendan Reilly, co-Webmaster of The Transformers Archive (www.tfarchive.com),

I'm going to take a wild guess and say this man probably does not know what a woman's vagina looks like.

At least film it without the bra and add it to the DVD.

Transformers, or He-Man....

What Has Our Society Come To When March Of The Penguins Is The Blockbuster Hit Of The Summer? (http://www.theonion.com/opinion/index.php?issue=4133)

I've been a major Hollywood director for a long time, and I thought I'd seen it all. But I can't help wondering what's happening to the entertainment industry—indeed, to our entire society. Where are our standards? Our values? For fuck's sake—our cultural priorities? I simply cannot accept that March Of The Penguins is the big summer hit everybody's talking about. Hello?

It used to be that a summer blockbuster had to have brutal violence, sexy women, breathtaking action sequences, adrenaline-pumping high-speed chases—at a bare minimum, some explosions. But sitting through that penguin movie, I couldn't believe my eyes. Where were the big set pieces? Hell, this movie didn't even have sets! Has anyone ever heard of production values? It's one of the most vital aspects of the filmmaking art, and you don't get it by just showing up on an iceberg and filming whatever happens to be in front of you. Frankly, for real icebergs, they looked fake. This film is an insult to the great men and women who spend countless hours in front of computers creating incredibly realistic CGI icebergs.

Does no one out there care about these things anymore but me? Am I a lone voice of sanity crying out in a universe gone mad?

What kind of a world do we live in when a futuristic techno-thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as escaped clones on levitating jet bikes doesn't outgross the shit out of a glorified Discovery Channel rerun? Don't people realize how much money I spent? How many people it took to bring that vision to the screen? Do people realize how many rewrites and punch-ups we went through? I paid my writers millions of dollars, and they were some of the best in the biz. You know who wrote their script? A bunch of birds.

Where was the villain? A story's not going to keep an audience on the edge of their seats without a strong opposition. Where was the second-act turning point? You've gotta have that moment when the hero's at the end of his rope and the bad guy looks like he's going to win it all. And where was the love story? Stars have to have real chemistry that smolders on the screen to make a summer blockbuster one to remember. Okay, the penguin movie had mating cycles, but that's not love. Is it all about sex to these animals?

Speaking of which, I think we can all agree that the penguins in this film gave some pretty wooden performances. In many scenes, it was impossible to tell them apart. Maybe if they'd moved the camera once in a while, I could have gotten more emotionally invested in what was going on. For Christ's sake, there was not a single crane shot in the whole movie!

I remember a day when the public appreciated fine cinema. In that lost age, it made sense that my important historical drama Pearl Harbor had a fighting chance for at least a special-effects Oscar. Best sound, no question. But now, in this crazy upside-down, topsy-turvy world, I hear that—guess what?—the only summer movie getting any Oscar buzz is a static, near-silent documentary about waddling, flightless birds!

These days, I guess old-fashioned values like "megawattage," "high-octane thrill rides," and "explosions" just don't matter anymore. Well, I call that a sad day for American moviemaking.

I'm busy in pre-production planning my next big spectacle (which no one will see because they'll be off watching a 10-hour documentary on park squirrels, no doubt). But if you are in the San Diego area, do me this favor: Go to Sea World, walk into the emperor-penguin exhibit, and punch one those fuckers right in the face. Tell 'em Michael Bay sent ya.