Box office roundup

[Hayduke]

The Rock was awful, but when you consider the body of Michael Bay's work, The Rock was probably his greatest work.

So still a flaming pile of shit.

[WayAbvPar]

The Rock was godawful, Nic Cage is a fucking joke, and Michael Bay couldn't direct his way out of a wet paper bag. He should be directing traffic safety videos or something. The fact that he is in charge of the Transformers is cause for grave concerns.

[Ironwood]

See, Will Smith is funny.

[shiznitz]

As I continue to be the one who interrupts ongoing conversations by referring to posts several days old, I just want to say that I saw Die Hard and came of it thinking "this is why people still go to the movies." Yes, one could brainiac it to death, but it was well done. I even liked the fact that the ending was somewhat anti-climactic.

[Comstar]

Transformers was a good movie, I give it 8/10. Michael Bay was the right man to direct it.

[Samwise]

I second and third the good things people have said about Die Hard.  It was not intellectual by any stretch, but it was a damn fine action movie.

[Ironwood]

I'd like to posit the theory that one going to see a film called Die Hard for intellectual jollies is perhaps not the cleverest of chaps in the first place.

 

[Samwise]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Abagadro]

I really liked Ratatouille. It's actually a film for adults masquerading as a kid's flick. My kid didn't like it at all but I loved it.

[schild]

I'd like to posit the theory that one going to see a film called The Rock for intellectual jollies is perhaps not the cleverest of chaps in the first place.

 

And that's why I'm flabbergasted by some of the people in this thread.

[Riggswolfe]

Transformers was a good movie, I give it 8/10. Michael Bay was the right man to direct it.

That's about what I think I'll settle out on a rating too. It's the first movie this year I'm going to see more than once in theaters.

[ahoythematey]

Transformers was really good.  I'm in the same boat as others that say Michael Bay was the right man for the job.  Shia LaBeouf helped a lot, too.

[climbjtree]

Just returned from Transformers. It was three hundred and sixty degrees of suck. The bots didn't look like the vehicles they were when not in vehicle form, and the Decepticons have a smaller robot (I can't remember the name. I think he was the cassette/boombox in the show. Soundwave?) that's on par with Jar Jar Binks.

I went into the movie telling myself that I wouldn't judge it by the old cartoon, but it was terrible in every way. Shia LeBouf was the only redeeming part of the show. Easily Micheal Bay's worst movie.

[Chimpy]

Just returned from Transformers. It was three hundred and sixty degrees of suck. The bots didn't look like the vehicles they were when not in vehicle form, and the Decepticons have a smaller robot (I can't remember the name. I think he was the cassette/boombox in the show. Soundwave?) that's on par with Jar Jar Binks.

I went into the movie telling myself that I wouldn't judge it by the old cartoon, but it was terrible in every way. Shia LeBouf was the only redeeming part of the show. Easily Micheal Bay's worst movie.

I guess you were a huge fan of Armageddon and didn't like a character in the movie making fun of that fine piece of art?

[climbjtree]

To be honest, it took me a while to get what you were talking about. Actually, I laughed at that joke in Transformers. However, that doesn't change anything. I'm not defending any movie here. I'm only saying how bad Transformers was.

[Ironwood]

...The bots didn't look like the vehicles they were when not in vehicle form...

You mean they . . . Transformed !

Surely not.  My mind, she boggles.

[climbjtree]

Optimus Prime in non-truck form. Surely, you can still see that he's a truck.



And I always knew that you had the mind of a woman!

[Ironwood]

No.

He's a robot in that picture.  I don't think you understand the concept.

Anyway, making them as they were (even for the cartoon series) gave a fuckload of problems when they wanted to fill in 'the backstory' of Transformers.  Remember before the Ark crashed and they were all on cybertron mixing it up ?

They had really, really cool 'hover' forms - Jazz and Bumblebee anyway - and The Decepticons were like these fucking weird flying pyramids.  And yet, they transformed and you saw 'Jet' 'Truck' and 'Fucking VW Beetle for Fucks Sake' written all over them.

It sucked.

I'd rather the movie version with a little bit of generalising.  After all, these fuckers are meant to change forms WHEREVER THEY GO.

[climbjtree]

Yeah, I understand all that. You've got a good point concerning the backstory, but I just don't understand why they didn't make them appear in their cool hover/flying pyramid forms for the backstory.

[SurfD]

Well, if you want to go all geek, they "tweaked" the transformers back story quite a bit for the movies.

If i remember correctly, in the cartoon, the transformers were robots created by a bunch of crazy multi faced aliens as slave labor.  The autobots were the "consumer goods" models, responsible for construction, transportation, entertainment and stuff like that, and the decepticons were the "military" models.   The Autobots eventually rebel, push their masters off cybertron and things go on somewhat peacefully untill eventually Megatron and the decepticons go all power-mad and trie to subjugate the autobots again.  Prime is then empowered with the matrix of creation as their defender, and the war starts.

[sigil]

I was pleasantly surprised by Transformers. It had some bad moments and gave me a reason to hate Shakeycam all over again, but I enjoyed it. the family did as well.

I was the only one of the family to like Ratatouille, Great film that doesn't fit its target demo.

[Engels]

Just watched 1408 at the movies. Very dark but good flick. Varies signifitcantly from the original short story, but it still was a very good job. I didn't like John Cusack before this film, but his acting was just superb.

[Riggswolfe]

I really liked Ratatouille. It's actually a film for adults masquerading as a kid's flick. My kid didn't like it at all but I loved it.

I saw Ratatouille last night. My daughter said it sucked. (she used the word cheap and finally explained that that meant it wasn't good. I'm not sure of the connection.) My mother liked it. My stepdad and aunt were neutral about it. I think it is by far my least favorite of the Pixar films.

BTW, a bit of an anecdote about how Transformers is doing financially. We walked out of Ratatouille, and the line for the Transformers was the longest line I have seen since the Return of the King. I was genuinely surprised.

I think it is going to be #1 or #2 this weekend. I've actually gone to see it twice now which is a first for me this year since no other film has been good enough to see twice in the theater.

[Furiously]

Watched Transformers yesterday with the wife.

She wasn't too impressed. I didn't go in expecting more then a couple robots fighting.

There were some good jokes.

But my god. The script sucked ass. the movie could have done without the whole "hacker" part. It really added nothing.

Both of us found it hard to track who was who in some of the fights. Seems like they lost all their color in their transformed states.

I think we both said, "Wish we had seen Die Hard."

[Venkman]

I loved Transformers. Sam was awesome, as was John Torturo (the Sector Seven guy) and Sam's parents (bit parts really). Overall, a very fun movie. And if you came out of it thinking it sucked because it departed from some script laid down for 9 year olds 25 years ago, or because the script was boring, you were in the wrong movie. Your opinion counts of course, but you gotta start this sort fo discussion within a common frame of reference.

And I thought it was one of Bay's better movies. I loved The Rock and Armageddon (Bad Boys... whatever) though, for the same reason. Do not overthink these things. It's like the hacking of an alien computer network in Independence Day. Go see some indie thing to think :)

Transformers made something like $45mil on Wednesday. But then it launched in over 4,000 theaters ;)

Oh and thanks for the correction on the Die Hard 4 character. Still liked Olyphant, but the kid was awesome.

[Ironwood]

So I went to see Fantastic 4 2 last night (Or 4, as it's apparently called  ).

I was expecting to giggle all the way through because, you know, Galactus.  And, well, The Silver Surfer.

How in the name of hell could they portray two such Lame characters with any semblence of, er, 'normality' for want of a better word.

I was surprised.  I thought it was really well done and managed to pull it off very well.  Sure, it wasn't exactly high cinema, nor was it the best superhero flick ever, but it surpassed my, admitedly, low expectations.  I actually came away liking the Surfer character.  Damn.

However :

You DO NOT need to keep shoving politics into every movie you make.  There was NO NEED to torture the Surfer in a Rendition to a foreign country.  That was just stupid and fucking gratuitous.

Anyways.

[naum]

Well, if you want to go all geek, they "tweaked" the transformers back story quite a bit for the movies.

Bah… …not like it's an epic cartoon… …for Gates sakes, it was a show conjured up by cereal ad moguls in the 80's who sat around in a boardroom devising a hook to sell sugar laden breakfasst goods to young lads…

[SurfD]

Well, if you want to go all geek, they "tweaked" the transformers back story quite a bit for the movies.

Bah… …not like it's an epic cartoon… …for Gates sakes, it was a show conjured up by cereal ad moguls in the 80's who sat around in a boardroom devising a hook to sell sugar laden breakfasst goods to young lads…

Actually, according to the Wikki page, the whole transformers backstory was created by like, one or two guys who were handed a bunch of japanese transforming toys and told "here, we need a story to go with these things before we launch them for x-mas".   heck, at one time it was a marvel comic, takeing place IN the same marvel universe as X-men and spider-man and co.

[Chimpy]

Caught Ratatouille today.

Was pretty good, I thought. Typical Pixar fare, entertaining, nice fluid and believeable animation. Bunch of kids in the theater that did not seem to be laughing at most the jokes, I agree it was not really a kid-geared movie.

I think there was more excitement for the Underdog trailer than for the movie by all those kids.

[Lantyssa]

We saw Transformers today and I enjoyed it.

My compaints were that we were in the third row and the fighting was really hard to follow.  It was mostly a blur, although I'm sure being that close didn't help.

[Rasix]

Transformers was entertaining and appropriately goofy at times.  It also had a heap of Michael Bay stink all over it.  I enjoyed it, despite cringing at certain scenes.

[Velorath]

So did anyone here see this teaser before Transformers?  I only bring it up because I've seen a couple of movie sites talking about it.  Apparently, the reason people are talking about it is because the teaser doesn't even give the name of the movie.  Also J.J. Abrams (who is producing the movie) has stated that there are a number of sites like this one set up to promote the movie (although he also said that's the only one that people have found so far).

I can't tell if the pictures on the site are some sort of puzzle that will lead to clues to other sites or if it's just some pointless waste of time.  In that respect, it doesn't seem as nearly well put together as some of the similar promotional stuff we've seen for various games (that Funcom MMO site as the most recent example I can think of).  The trailer seems decent, but nothing spectacular.  Director Matt Reeves has a less than stellar track record, as some of his past work includes writing and directing The Pallbearer and several episodes of Felicity, as well as writing Under Siege 2.  The script was written by Drew Goddard, who is making his first move from TV (he's written episodes for Buffy, Angel, Alias, and Lost) to movies.

Either they really think they've got something here and are trying to draw attention to it, or we're witnessing another Snakes on a Plane in the making when they find out that Internet Hype doesn't automatically lead to a big box office success.

[Merusk]

I dunno about that project, but in checking IMDB for answers I discovered they're remaking Star Trek.

...

I just don't know what to say about that.

[Ironwood]

Eh ?  Link ?

[Murgos]

I dunno about that project, but in checking IMDB for answers I discovered they're remaking Star Trek.

That's pretty broad territory there.  Remaking Star Trek as in casting some new guy as Kirk and doing one of the movies or the original series?  Or, remaking Star Trek as in some parallel story to what we've already seen on one of the series or movies?  Or remaking Star Trek as in a new series or entirely new movie based off an existing series or, even, a totally new thing?

edit: Lol internets