"He's my new daaaad"

Welp, time once again to dust off the old blog to share some movie news.

Things have been rather slow on this blog the last couple of months, and I apologize for that. Between the job search and all the other crap going on this summer, updates have been rather scarce. It doesn't help that 500 Days Of Summer and The Hurt Locker got limited releases either.

Not to worry, though. I have a couple of ideas on how to keep weekly content up on this blog, and I think advertising it a little more and getting a bigger audience would give me some more incentive to update. If only I could find some free time...

But anyway, enough about me. Today I wanna talk about Star Wars, or more specifically Episode I, The Phantom Menace, which I just learned turned ten years old a little while ago. Why do I even want to discuss this movie? Well, Claudine Zap of Yahoo's Buzz Log had a little video interview with Jake Lloyd, who played Anakin Skywalker as a little kid, just last week as some kind of retrospective. You can read about it and see the video here.

I find it funny how Zap mentions that people blame Lloyd for ruining Star Wars. It's probably been a good seven years since I've seen The Phantom Menace from start to finish, but when I think back to it, I can think of a number of things that were ten times worse than Anakin as a little kid.

The stupid aliens (especially mildly racist Jar Jar and Watto) stick out in my mind, as well as Natalie Portman acting horribly not just in this film but in all three prequels, and let's not forget George Lucas' extreme disdain for plot, continutiy, dignity, character development, or scenes that do not involve shitty wacky aliens partaking in cah-raaaazy antics and throwing up CGI bullshit all over the goddamn place.

Also, "Can I be a Jedi, mom? Yippee!!" might be an annoying line, especially with how it was delivered in the movie, but "He's holding me baaaack!" is even more brain-melting, and was delivered by, in my opinion, an even worse actor. If you ask me, Anakin was way more creepy and nauseating when he grew up.

Well, I'm done nerd-raging for now. Hopefully I can have some kind of review or something up next time, but for now, here's a pretty impressive tv spot for District 9, courtesy of Film School Rejects, to keep everyone occupied.

Oh, and one last thing. I don't give a shit what anyone says, the podracing was badass.

God Damn It Michael Bay, Part Two

Celebrity gossip isn't usually something I cover too often on this blog. If there's one thing in this world I will never understand, it's why us humans will gossip and talk shit about everyone behind everyone's back. Michael Bay, however, really seems to deserve it lately. After Megan Fox, lead actress of his new movie Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen, pretty much said what everyone already thought about this movie, he made the decision to chime in with his own two cents, in an interview with Lauren E.K. Schuker of the Wall Street Journal:

It’s interesting that you want to focus on acting. Megan Fox, one of the leads in “Transformers” has criticized your films for being special-effects-driven and not offering so many acting opportunities. Do you agree?

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in Armageddon. Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did Transformers—and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from Bad Boys. Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in Transformers. I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.

Jesus, could this guy come off as any more arrogant with this statement? Fox isn't exactly being civil here either, but Bay is honestly trying to tell me that he made Ben Affleck, Nicholas Cage, Will Smith AND Martin Lawrence in to huge megastars? It's been pointed out before, but previous evidence would definitely suggest otherwise for all three of them, especially for Ben Affleck (I think Bay owes Kevin Smith an apology at this point). As for Nicholas Cage, I don't think Bay directed Face/Off, and I think Will Smith owes more to NBC and DJ Jazzy Jeff for helping with his career than he does Michael Bay. The second Bad Boys film wasn't exactly cinematic ambrosia or anything.

Also, boy do I feel sorry for Megan Fox right now. We've got Michael Bay forcing her to wash his car to audition for the first Transformers movie (well, according to British critic John Solomons anyway), then he goes and calls her immature for stating the facts. On top of that, I've seen a lot of reviews for Transformers 2 lately, and they hardly have anything good to say about her that doesn't concern her body. Shia the Beef doesn't even want to play Wii with her. She has got to be feeling pretty frustrated right now. Here's hoping she's getting a better chance to prove herself, and a little more respect working with Jimmy Hayward, Josh Brolin and John Malkovich over these next few months.

I know this seems petty, but I'm almost thinking about avoiding Transformers 2 even when it comes out on Blu-Ray, just out of fucking principle.

Anyway, I leave you guys with some hilarious Transformers 2 reviews, one from Charlie Jane Anders of io9.com, another from Rob of Topless Robot, and one last one from the ever-so-snarky Roger Ebert straight from his own blog at the Chicago Sun-Times.