I'm gonna pull a fark and count up the few posts I agree with and equate them to some sort of victory for my side, whichever one I was on.

Enjoy your evenings.

robsul82: Well, upon review, he didn't burn Up at the stake. It sounds like he liked it a lot but he thought Carl and Russell were written thinly as characters, especially Russell. The kid can be annoying at times.

You might have a point about Russell, but I didn't feel that way at all about Carl's character. I thought he was a very sympathetic and well-written character.

Of course, Ebert loved Up, so even Pulitzer winners don't always agree with each other. I don't think you should rely on them to determine what movies objectively "suck".

And for the record, Peter Travers hated Transformers even more than Ebert.

sgilman: Meh. I didn't to the movie for a good story; I went to see new robots, explosions and hot chicks. I wasn't disappointed.

This

robsul82: pookeywan: robsul82:
Sorry, should've specified...the first one (about Ebert's review of Knowing). Went to see it mainly based on his review, and comparisons to Dark City (one of my favorite movies). Was confused (about his praise), depressed (by the movie) and disappointed (in general) by the end of the movie.
I still respect the heck out of him, but have to wonder if he has been smoking teh crack...

Yeah, doctors are prescribing weird treatments for the cancer these days. Knowing was just hideously awful.

/hey, an example already in the thread of my disagreeing with Ebert on one thing while still calling him more credible than quote whores, thanks

Not to mention I went to see Knowing specifically because of Ebert's review, his credibility at least in my eyes. Thought to myself, "Well, geez, maybe the film's been mismarketed, wouldn't be the first time trailers got cut that misrepresented the content of a film. From the review, this sounds like a thoughtful movie with ideas, and the trailers and TV spots seem like a shiatty action movie."

Yeah, the trailers DID misrepresent the film...but only in the area of not including ANY of the mystical alien crap. The entire third act was a huge surprise, and not a very good one.

TribeFan695: robsul82: Well, upon review, he didn't burn Up at the stake. It sounds like he liked it a lot but he thought Carl and Russell were written thinly as characters, especially Russell. The kid can be annoying at times.

You might have a point about Russell, but I didn't feel that way at all about Carl's character. I thought he was a very sympathetic and well-written character.

Of course, Ebert loved Up, so even Pulitzer winners don't always agree with each other. I don't think you should rely on them to determine what movies objectively "suck".

And for the record, Peter Travers hated Transformers even more than Ebert.

True, I was farking STUNNED that Travers teed off on TF2. 99 times out of 100, he's the "STUNNING! ACTION-PACKED! THE BEST TIME YOU'LL HAVE AT THE MOVIES ALL SUMMER!" guy in tiiiiiiny print in the TV spots for movies like that.

BTW, trust me - I rely on myself to determine what objectively sucks or not, I just give greater weight to different critics when it comes to whether I should give my time to a movie, i.e. Ebert and Knowing. Total backstab, lol.

How come none of the pictures of Megan Fox show her toe thumbs?

notmtwain: Transformers had a bigger week to week decline in business than any other movie in the top 10.

Those of us who were saved from wasting our money and time have a lot to thank Roger for.

/// And to those of you who loved it-- good for you. I liked the first part of the first movie but could not imagine having to live through the last 10 minutes of film one for two hours.

Uhhhhh - it's still number 1 AND already the top grossing of the year.
Link
You FAIL with your statistic.

scarchin: notmtwain: Transformers had a bigger week to week decline in business than any other movie in the top 10.

Those of us who were saved from wasting our money and time have a lot to thank Roger for.

/// And to those of you who loved it-- good for you. I liked the first part of the first movie but could not imagine having to live through the last 10 minutes of film one for two hours.

Uhhhhh - it's still number 1 AND already the top grossing of the year.
Link
You FAIL with your statistic.

He didn't say it wasn't either of those things, he was talking about week-to-week decline. Different.

vanhalenfan32


your mom :)

mralphabet: How come none of the pictures of Megan Fox show her toe thumbs?

Meh that doesn't do it for me. I'm more of a thumb-toe kind of guy.

robsul82: Thought to myself, "Well, geez, maybe the film's been mismarketed, wouldn't be the first time trailers got cut that misrepresented the content of a film. From the review, this sounds like a thoughtful movie with ideas, and the trailers and TV spots seem like a shiatty action movie."

Yeah, the trailers DID misrepresent the film...but only in the area of not including ANY of the mystical alien crap. The entire third act was a huge surprise, and not a very good one.

That was my experience exactly!
/I did find the first 2/3 of the movie interesting and engaging; but overall, was disappointed and depressed enough to give it 2 out of 5 stars and wouldn't watch it again or recommend it to anyone else.

scarchin: notmtwain: Transformers had a bigger week to week decline in business than any other movie in the top 10.

Those of us who were saved from wasting our money and time have a lot to thank Roger for.

/// And to those of you who loved it-- good for you. I liked the first part of the first movie but could not imagine having to live through the last 10 minutes of film one for two hours.

Uhhhhh - it's still number 1 AND already the top grossing of the year.
Link
You FAIL with your statistic.

The FAIL is yours my retarded friend

%decline means more than week to week gross

pookeywan: robsul82: Thought to myself, "Well, geez, maybe the film's been mismarketed, wouldn't be the first time trailers got cut that misrepresented the content of a film. From the review, this sounds like a thoughtful movie with ideas, and the trailers and TV spots seem like a shiatty action movie."

Yeah, the trailers DID misrepresent the film...but only in the area of not including ANY of the mystical alien crap. The entire third act was a huge surprise, and not a very good one.

That was my experience exactly!
/I did find the first 2/3 of the movie interesting and engaging; but overall, was disappointed and depressed enough to give it 2 out of 5 stars and wouldn't watch it again or recommend it to anyone else.

I certainly liked the hook of the film - a sheet of seemingly random numbers is unearthed and the numbers correlate to gigantic disasters. Then Nicolas Cage got cast and I checked out, and then Ebert gave it four stars and gushed over it, so I decided to check it out. And it was a solid downward spike from the first act onward, highlighted by the WTF? third.

TheFredSavages: Semantics? You just called it a movie? Isn't that the same thing as 'film'?

I think it's the difference between comic book and graphic novel. Or something

mralphabet: How come none of the pictures of Megan Fox show her toe thumbs?

Richard in a Box: If I didn't enjoy a book, it was not well-written to me. I may understand certain historical implications ("This book was the first non-fictional account of blah blah") but it doesn't automatically make that book good in my opinion. How then, is my opinion wrong? Because it is considered by some "experts" in a given field to be well-written? If you feel that way, that's fine, but that doesn't invalidate my opinion or make me wrong in my book.

Really, you're going to rally at the feet of this piece of shiat, and attempt to argue the merits of film criticism to defend it?

"I liked it" is an opinion you can have, and cannot be argued with.

"It was good" is a different ball of wax altogether.

/waiting for this current anti-intelligence phase of modern culture is over with.

GoNDSioux: zedster: I'm still upset that no one threw a hissy-fit that they ran from Egypt to Jordan without passing thru another country

Or that Davis-Monthan AFB was somehow in the Smithsonian's backyard.

/Assuming that that is indeed AMARG, which is at Davis-Monthan.

Also, falling backwards from in front of the pyramids at Giza onto the Temple at Karnak was a bit much... So is landing amphibious crafts and tanks from the Mediterranean onto Giza. Cairo/Giza is about 200km/130m inland. The photoshopped scene of the destroyer with the railgun next to the pyramids looked obviously shooped.

Their C17s have amazing speed, range, payload capacity and cavernous interiors...

Hebalo:
/waiting for this current anti-intelligence phase of modern culture is over with.

BergZ: I had never noticed in movies before the concept of "Faux Feminism" until now. You can tell it because the female character is supposed to be very independent and strong, but when the critical moment comes she gets all 'girly'.

Ugh, you got me started. I'm actually quite forgiving of Michael Bay in this aspect because any standards are like expecting a retard to write a coherent essay. Thing is, I've noticed the problem a long time ago because it's hard to find respectable female characters in cinema at all. That includes the chick flicks, in which the women are often even more pathetic. At least as disposable sex objects they're good for something in the action movies.

If they're not girly in the critical moments, they're over-the-top -- women that try to out-do the most absurdly macho men in masculinity. News flash: MASCULINE DOES NOT EQUAL TOUGH. I don't even like to see over-the-top bravado in male characters. Toughness is the ability to overcome adversity. Bravado is a farkin' bluff; I got to see enough of that being bullied in school. And of course, the tough girls always need to be either oversexed or taken off their high horse by a man's man.

This isn't that tough to do, Hollywood! Sigourney Weaver's performance as Ripley (in the first two Alien movies -- I'm ignoring the rest) is too easy to mention and tough to beat, granted. But even if the main protagonist is male, you can make a female co-lead respectable. Carolyn Fry (as played by Radha Mitchell) in "Pitch Black" comes to mind. She doesn't do too much, but more to the point, she doesn't try to do too much. I'd also say Naomi Watts did a good job as Rachel in "The Ring", other issues with the movie aside. Again, she's more focused on the matter at hand than prancing around like a narcissistic attention whore.

Faux feminism runs as rampant in Hollywood as an STD in a red light district, so I'd hardly expect any movie whored out by Michael Bay to stay clean in that respect.

URAPNIS: I actually enjoy watching Waterworld so I don't listen to opinions about movies nor do I offer them.

Waterworld was pretty good, and I really liked The Postman. They were more famous as box-office flops than as critically despised films IIRC.

/didn't like Transformers 1
//didn't like the new Star Trek for all of the same reasons critics are dumping on TF2 (incoherent story line as a vehicle for stuff blowing up, constant assault on common sense and basic science)

ObscureNameHere: Telos: yogaFLAME: Didn't read Ebert's review, but I guarantee he was far too nice to the film. This is better.

Yeah, it's like what an idiot would write if he were trying to make a film look worse than it was so that he could brag to his friends about his popular internet site.

Hey look! Michael Bay has a FARK account!

i call shenangins on that, as it is obvious from the autobiographical characters of mudflapz and skidz (or what ever the fark the minstrelbots are called) that michael bay cannot read nor write.

/sad really.

I have about 30 Transformers in my office (Binaltech & Masterpiece lines).

I have over 200 G1 (and assorted other generations) Transformers in my collection at home.

I have the original series and animated movie on DVD, and rewatch it occasionally.

I enjoyed the Beast Wars/Machines cartoons and have been meaning to pick them up on DVD for a while.

I therefore feel, after viewing the movie on the 28th of June, that I am fully qualified to call Revenge of the Fallen an unmitigated piece of garbage whose only positive attributes are that Peter Cullen is still voicing Optimus Prime and Meghan Fox's looks.

iamrobot: URAPNIS: I actually enjoy watching Waterworld so I don't listen to opinions about movies nor do I offer them.

Waterworld was pretty good, and I really liked The Postman. They were more famous as box-office flops than as critically despised films IIRC.

/didn't like Transformers 1
//didn't like the new Star Trek for all of the same reasons critics are dumping on TF2 (incoherent story line as a vehicle for stuff blowing up, constant assault on common sense and basic science)

Waterworld made a profit.

Gofigure.

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

scroufus: Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

bravian: Yes a movie that sucked so bad that it has only made $591,459,000 so far worldwide and TIED for first place against the opening weekend of another popular sequel.

Do you think Brittany Spears record sales in any way points to her talent or is a redeeming quality of any kind?

Transformers is a bad collection of action sequences. It's not even a movie. And the action sequences weren't entertaining. I didn't even pay to see to this crap and I still feel cheated.

The worst are the people that say "I went expecting to see giant robots fighting and megan fox's ass and that's what I got!" You know what? All of that was in the trailers. For free. What was worth paying for that wasn't in the trailers? Nothing.

Basically you paid money to see John Turturro in a thong.

dragonchild: Thing is, I've noticed the problem a long time ago because it's hard to find respectable female characters in cinema at all.

I could literally only think of 2 in the past few years, one of which is iffy:

Meryl Streep in Doubt.
Maggie Gylenhaal in TDK.

holiday_inn_in_cambodia: iamrobot: URAPNIS: I actually enjoy watching Waterworld so I don't listen to opinions about movies nor do I offer them.

Waterworld was pretty good, and I really liked The Postman. They were more famous as box-office flops than as critically despised films IIRC.

/didn't like Transformers 1
//didn't like the new Star Trek for all of the same reasons critics are dumping on TF2 (incoherent story line as a vehicle for stuff blowing up, constant assault on common sense and basic science)

Waterworld made a profit.

Gofigure.

Thanks to overseas ticket sales.

In the U.S. it was a bomb.

Omis: Transformers is a bad collection of action sequences. It's not even a movie. And the action sequences weren't entertaining. I didn't even pay to see to this crap and I still feel cheated.

The worst are the people that say "I went expecting to see giant robots fighting and megan fox's ass and that's what I got!" You know what? All of that was in the trailers. For free. What was worth paying for that wasn't in the trailers? Nothing.

Basically you paid money to see John Turturro in a thong.

Yeah, I'm stealing that in the future, just so you know.

mvfreeman: holiday_inn_in_cambodia: iamrobot: URAPNIS: I actually enjoy watching Waterworld so I don't listen to opinions about movies nor do I offer them.

Waterworld was pretty good, and I really liked The Postman. They were more famous as box-office flops than as critically despised films IIRC.

/didn't like Transformers 1
//didn't like the new Star Trek for all of the same reasons critics are dumping on TF2 (incoherent story line as a vehicle for stuff blowing up, constant assault on common sense and basic science)

Waterworld made a profit.

Gofigure.

Thanks to overseas ticket sales.

In the U.S. it was a bomb.

It's a good thing that the producers get to keep that overseas money instead of it being thrown into a huge pile and lit on fire

StaleCoffee: I just went back and watched all the original cartoons, including the movie where Unicron eats planets, and I can plainly see the cerebral disconnect between that and these movies. Obviously, the cartoon we loved as children was about fine film making and not about shiat that turn into other shiat then blew shiat up.

Wow, you mean every single story and trope sounds lame and derivative when you disingenuously simplify it to absurd levels? Who'da thunk it.

The animated movie had a plot that was easy to follow, reinforced canon and gave the series a better set of stories to follow. I went into the live action movie (first one) wanting to be blown away just like I did with the animated movie. Yet over twenty years later I still enjoy the hell out of the animated movie but twenty minutes into the live action one I wanted to leave.

The end run of the US comic series was epic when they brought over Simon Furman to finish it off. Darkest and most adult storylines to date for the series.

TemperedEdge: And you Megan Fox hounds (heh) can all STUF. Yeah, she's hot, but she's the chick Hayden Christensen

Bless you for expressing my feelings about Megan Fox in words...

ObeliskToucher: TemperedEdge: And you Megan Fox hounds (heh) can all STUF. Yeah, she's hot, but she's the chick Hayden Christensen

Bless you for expressing my feelings about Megan Fox in words...

Hey, Hayden Christensen, love him or hate him, has notched exactly one good performance in his career - Shattered Glass.

That at least puts him up 1-0 over Megan Fox.

/3-0 if you count the thumbs

ObeliskToucher: TemperedEdge: And you Megan Fox hounds (heh) can all STUF. Yeah, she's hot, but she's the chick Hayden Christensen

Bless you for expressing my feelings about Megan Fox in words...

I don't think that's fair, though. Megan Fox is doing what she's supposed to do. Hayden Christiansan had to play freaking Darth Vader. This comparison would only be fair if Megan Fox had played the young Eileen Wournos or something. The big reason Christenson was so bad is that he wasn't just bad, but he needed to be better than good to justify his being cast in that role. Fox is perfectly cast.

yogaFLAME: Didn't read Ebert's review, but I guarantee he was far too nice to the film. This is better.

First, let me say -- I really really liked the movie. I've seen it twice. I loved Transformers when I was little and I loved getting to see Bee & Prime kick major butt.

Now. I did not give Eberts review much respect because I assumed hes a bit old to have been a fan of the cartoons and therefore misses out on the nostalgia factor. Since he doesn't fall into the target audience, I figured that played a big role in his hatred for it. He can also tend to be a pompous ass about these things.

The review yogaFLAME links here is pretty awesome though. It was far more harsh -- but it's from someone who "understands" transformers and who appears to at least be in the target audience. Plus it's funny. I laughed a lot through that review, even as someone who enjoyed the movie.

Also, chock me up to one of the ones who didn't realize that the decepticons weren't really doing anything until the autobots sought them out and attacked them. Prime did mentioned there were "incidents" on various continents and that they were obviously looking for something, but still...

DROxINxTHExWIND: They give Scarface 2 stars, so I'm not really interested in what a critic thinks.

Scarface was a shiatty movie :(

mccallcl: DROxINxTHExWIND: They give Scarface 2 stars, so I'm not really interested in what a critic thinks.

Scarface was a shiatty movie :(

Did you have fun?

Yes?

Then quit your biatching!

Liked the video link.. Michael Baysplosions!

That, too, was fun.

It's farking entertainment, people - get over it!

aggravatedmonkey: as much as I love violence and cocaine, scarface was boring. Even on cocaine.

Dr_Gats
But the one thing I will not agree with is the above quote. HOW THE FARK can you possibly not have loved the optimus death scene? AWESOME robot action, was probably the best part I took away from the movie!


i just remember Optimus delivering a quick jab (or maybe an uppercut) as he was falling backwards.. it was cool they were in the forest. but by this point in the movie, were were exposed to 2 hours of robot fighting already. It all kinda blurs together after a while.

mccallcl: DROxINxTHExWIND: They give Scarface 2 stars, so I'm not really interested in what a critic thinks.

Scarface was a shiatty movie :(

I don't usually say this to people on the internet, but

F*CK YOU

mccallcl: aggravatedmonkey: as much as I love violence and cocaine, scarface was boring. Even on cocaine.

What are you doing watching movies while on cocaine? That's what weed is for. Cocaine is to go out, get ass-wasted and f*ck til you drop.

SymphonyXtasy: Look, I know I'm late to the thread here, you're probably not going to see this, and it's totally not related to TFA, but... really? You think WHARRGARBL was born on or after January? That meme's been around since before the primaries...

My timing is off, I agree. But it was certainly the republican's insanity that spawned it, not "What Optimus Prime is better?"

DamnYankees: I don't know what the phrase "objective beauty" could possibly mean. Beauty is a property which emerges as the result of the interaction between a sentient observer and its object of observation. It has no other existence other than that. And when all sentient observers share common traits, as humans do, you now have 2 objective things to work between - the non-changing objective of the observation, and the unversial traits of the shared observer. I fail to see why we can't tease a solid standard of beauty out of that, any less than we can tease out a solid standard of language.

Here we go.

Are there patterns between what people consider beautiful? Of course, that much is obvious. However, let's go back to your Michelangelo-third grader comparison. While most people would consider Pieta to be more beautiful, you're certainly not convincing that kid's mom as such, at least not internally. My argument is that artistic appreciation is so tied to subjective emotion, that any sense of standard beauty is going to be extremely fuzzy and broad at best, to the point that it is fairly useless.

Freedom to criticize is the right of all sentient beings.

aggravatedmonkey: goddamn, this applies to A LOT of you...

Megan Fox is a butterface.

There, I said it.

The Icelander: aggravatedmonkey: goddamn, this applies to A LOT of you...

Megan Fox is a butterface.

There, I said it.

you know, i can take it when other people dis megan, but damnit icelander, i LIKE you...

that hurt.

badly.

;)

/still think she's hot

Hebalo:

/waiting for this current anti-intelligence phase of modern culture is over with.

It's like rain on your wedding day.

don't know if this has been posted here already, but Ebert's review of Leonard Part 6 will always have a special place in my heart...

"how funny...how hilarious...how highly highly humorous."