The Big Picture: Leave Michael Bay Alone

[HardkorSB]

We keep bashing him specifically because we know he can do better because of movies like Bad Boys II and The Rock, but he keeps pandering to the idiot masses.

Yes and Bad Boys 2 was the thinking man's film, wasn't it?

All of Bay's movies are dumb entertainment but he's really good when you give him free reign.
With Transformers, he has to keep it PG-13 and essentially make a big budget toy commercial. He doesn't even want to make these movies but he's so successful that the studio keeps hiring him and he's a businessman so he's not going to pass up the biggest movie of the year.
He only got money for Pain and Gain because he did Transformers 3. He probably got another extra movie out of them for doing the 4th one.

 

[badmunky64]

Someone was bitter while making that video.

 

[Netrigan]

The thing is that Television is inherently better suited to that kind of in depth character driven drama. A good portion of your average 2-hour movie has to be devoted to exposition and plot mechanics, leaving only maybe an hour or so to completely focus on character building/development. Yes, a good film weaves its character development into its expository scenes, but even then they have a fraction of the time a TV series has. The average tv season is 20-24 episodes, they have literally 10x the space to have intimate character moments that film simply cannot afford.

I think the decline of 'serious cinema' viewership goes hand in hand with the rise in serialized television. With how expensive movie tickets are these days i'm not going to a theater to see a film unless its something that i can only experience there. Which invariably means big showpiece movies with lots of CGI and explosions, because thats something i can't experience the same way on my computer monster at home. Therese no reason for me to pay 13 dollars to go see Lincoln when i can spend $1 and get the exact same experience when it comes out on redbox.

A few years back, I was a serious movie watcher and I've almost completely stopped watching them for exactly this reason.

Oddly enough, I've also almost completely stopped reading comics for much the same reason... TV started playing the same game as Sandman and Preacher and Watchmen and end up being better written than 99% of the comics who try the same sort of thing.

TV is simply doing an amazing job at telling long-form stories with great characterization that movies just feel so hollow and empty now. 12 Years a Slave should have been an instant favorite but I couldn't help but notice how none of the characters (including the lead) were truly established. Too many characters got reduced to "woman who tries to sleep with him" or "asshole who wants to lynch him".

And there's really no way the movie could have been better. It hit all its targets with great skill and great acting, but I would have rather sat down to watch an HBO or AMC production which lets me get to know more of those characters.

Which kind of leaves me in this weird situation where I view movies as rides and I rarely venture out for anything which isn't a big, loud affair. I still head out for the odd Wolves of Wall Street or American Hustle, but TV is where I go to think. Movies are where I go to watch shit 'splode.

 

[thedoclc]

-Snip-

The thing is that Television is inherently better suited to that kind of in depth character driven drama. A good portion of your average 2-hour movie has to be devoted to exposition and plot mechanics, leaving only maybe an hour or so to completely focus on character building/development. Yes, a good film weaves its character development into its expository scenes, but even then they have a fraction of the time a TV series has. The average tv season is 20-24 episodes, they have literally 10x the space to have intimate character moments that film simply cannot afford.

I think the decline of 'serious cinema' viewership goes hand in hand with the rise in serialized television. With how expensive movie tickets are these days i'm not going to a theater to see a film unless its something that i can only experience there. Which invariably means big showpiece movies with lots of CGI and explosions, because thats something i can't experience the same way on my computer monster at home. Therese no reason for me to pay 13 dollars to go see Lincoln when i can spend $1 and get the exact same experience when it comes out on redbox.

I completely agree with you, and I hasten to add that this is pretty much what happened in the middle of the 20th century, only backwards. TV took over serving up affordable family low-brow entertainment, so the movies took over being bigger, more dramatic, with gimmicks and so forth. Only today, TV is serving up the more challenging entertainment, and Hollywood continues to be pretty vapid.

Something neither of us thought about: how do video games, as one of the largest entertainment industries, fit into this? I don't have a good answer except to say they really weren't an option accepted by families until fairly recently.

 

[dubious_wolf]

snip

I think Bay probably feels he needs to appeal the lowest common denominator.
as painful as that is. These movies keep making money for a reason. It's like the endless call of duty clones. why aren't they better or deeper? They typically have some very talented people working on them. but they are so heavily sanitized that anything interesting gets left on the editing room floor.

 

[wolfyrik]

I agree with everything MovieBob Said, and yet I know that I'm still going to see the Transformers movie. Yes it will be objectively bad from a critical standpoint, but with brain switched off and a pile of icecream clogging up my arteries, it's going to be fun.

What I don't understand is the fact that Michael Bay gets so much abuse for only making objectively bad movies, while Tom Cruise gets called a legend for doing exactly the same thing. I can't recall a single Tom Cruise film back to and including Top Gun that didn't make it's money in exactly the same way as any Michael Bay film. In fact I'd argue that Michael Bays' few really good films, far outclass any film that included Tom Cruise in any capacity and yet Bay = bad, Cruise = good. I know Cruise acts rather than directs, but we're talking about acclaim based on the merit of the main name, the one that sells the films.

What's more, as far as I'm aware, Michael Bay hasn't accepted any gifts proudced by slave labour in the unlawful, unsanctioned gulags of space-alien cults. He hasn't publically insulted any mothers on the way they raise their children, as in differently to him. He hasn't given millions of dollars to a group of lunatics who think that other religions, especially christianity, only exist because of left over programming stuck in the souls of dead, brainwashed ETs who stick to our bodies, thanks to a galactic genocide by a warlord named Xenu.

And yet Bay = bad.

No I don't understand that and yes, I will see Transformers 4. I'll probably give his future films a go as well, if the subject appeals to me.

 

[walrusaurus]

-Snip-

snip

I completely agree with you, and I hasten to add that this is pretty much what happened in the middle of the 20th century, only backwards. TV took over serving up affordable family low-brow entertainment, so the movies took over being bigger, more dramatic, with gimmicks and so forth. Only today, TV is serving up the more challenging entertainment, and Hollywood continues to be pretty vapid.

Something neither of us thought about: how do video games, as one of the largest entertainment industries, fit into this? I don't have a good answer except to say they really weren't an option accepted by families until fairly recently.

Video games are in a really strange place as far as storytelling goes. The amount of time we can spend playing a game is even more than a TV series, so they have so much more time and opportunity for storytelling. Yet, the need to give the player agency makes telling a linear story difficult without compromising the game-ness. Some games do this better than others, but the industry as a whole is really dropping the ball.

And its not like having a meaningful story requires the whole game to be structured around it a la Mass Effect, there are other ways to get it done. Take Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time; its not a "story game" there's no branching dialogue or moral choice system but it has a story to tell. There are only 3 human characters and maybe 30 minutes of actual spoken dialogue in the whole experience, but it in my opinion has the best storytelling of any videogame I've ever played. This is a game that came out more than a decade ago and it still puts nearly every modern game to shame.

 

[Ashoten]

Your thoughts here would have more weight Bob if you your self didn't build a career on bashing people like Bay. Although you certainly wouldn't be the first person in history to build yourself up by taking shots at other peoples work. I would be angry at you about this accept you are correct about the movie critics jumping all over this movie having written the reviews before their butts were even in the seats. It is also true that to the modern America audience movie critics opinions are kind of meaningless.

My problem with Bay is that he tends to glorify violence as the only solution or at least the preferred solution. Talking is usually reserved for pointless comedy or having duche meat heads size each other up in a typical alpha male fashion. So can you talk about how Bays male characters set unreasonable and dangerous standards for young men to try and live up to? For those of you not in the know it is a real problem with young men abusing steroids to try and achieve those muscles that Hollywood tells them all the ladys love. OF course this isn't isolated to what Bay does we can see these same trends in video games that goes beyond just a power fantasy.

It still blows my mind though that I consider The Island to be one of the smarter scifi movies to come out in the last decade. Certainly better then Prometheus sadly.

After thought: I blame corporations whose only goal is to get the biggest pay out for the least cost. We live in a type of strip mining era of economy (at least in America) whatever franchise can be established is then milked and dragged out until it is no longer profitable. This is probably why being a hipster is pretty common. I mean people tend to be a hipster about at least one form of entertainment they enjoy attempting to find something that was born from true creativity and not mass produced dreg.

 

[loc978]

True about movies, games, television, music, food, sex, religion... the more interconnected we get, the more highly educated, intelligent people realize we have bad taste as a species. Laziness is a hell of a thing, and Bay capitalizes on it every bit as ruthlessly as McDonalds or Wal-Mart. Doesn't even attempt to hide his contempt much. Pain & Gain was a mocking, derisive expression of it (especially with Wahlberg's character claiming to be "smarter" than most people... and the moment where the movie pauses to remind you that it's still a true story).

...do I blame him, though? Yes. Not for the attitude, not for the beliefs or the scorn he heaps on his own regular audience... but for the advantage taking. The "greed is good" attitude is one of the biggest reasons we're going figuratively downhill as a nation and as a species. I equate Bay, McDonalds, any similar business model to a rapist targeting mentally handicapped children. A huge part of Pain & Gain's lesson (there is no easy way to success, much less the top tiers of it, without creating victims) could be targeted at Bay's other works. Fuck that guy.

 

[Triaed]

Adding some more text in a sea of text (... do you read these, Bob?)

Michael Bay represents the sins of Hollywood, you said, other directors are guilty of some of these sins too. The issue with Bay is that he embodies ALL of these sins in one person, heck, in a single movie. If that is not reason to call him out, I do not know what is.

You went from insulting Bay a couple of years ago to insulting the audience; perhaps there will be an episode in 2016 where you apologise to the audience. Don't get me wrong, I think the audience has some blame, but it is NOT all theirs, just the same as it is not all Hollywood's, nor Bay's for that matter. The matter is more complex and you know that the oversimplification and accusing the audience of being slob-loving pigs serves no purpose.

Oh well, in my opinion, Bay sucks, and I am surprised there were so many closet-defenders in the comments.

 

[Shjade]

We keep bashing him specifically because we know he can do better because of movies like Bad Boys II and The Rock, but he keeps pandering to the idiot masses.

Sorry, remind me, how were Bad Boys II and The Rock not pandering to the idiot masses?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

As ever, Bob, well said.

We can't blame anyone, really. Not everyone goes to the movies with the intent of watching something that's enriching or refreshing. Not everyone gets brought up on the idea that foreign cinema is worth it or that it isn't some sort of inscrutable Ur-Thing that's far too complex for mere humans to grasp. Not everyone is consistently on board to manifest open-mindedness and high-brow culture appeal.

In those cases, we turn to schlock for our entertainment. It offends those people who happen to be in the mood to gobble up some Woody Allen or some Almodovar, among many others, and that's unavoidable.

Schlock films aren't awful in and of themselves. They're just products; they can't hurt anybody. What *is* awful is seeing people who tune in for nothing *but* schlock because that's what gets the flashiest prime-time ads. In some ways, there's a parallel to be made between this discussion and Shuhei Yoshida's disappointment at seeing that there's a subset of gamers that willingly ignores indie games. The very same arguments apply.

I can't blame CoD fans or subscribers to EA's software catalog for purchasing what they purchase; it's their personal tastes being expressed! I have no right to blame them, even. People like whatever they damn well please, and that can involve as much or as little indie content or Auteur cinema as it can involve calling yourself a hardcore gamer while strictly praying at Call of Duty's altar.

It's sad when any form of willful exclusion happens and some outreach needs to take place, but the piggies that we are will like whatever kind of slop we choose.

 

[keniakittykat]

I don't really hate Michael Bay. He makes some really entertaining popcorn movies.
But the second he tries to be all super serious, it all falls apart.

And I agree that the audience is a big part of the problem, I myself have had that realization a few years ago when I realized how much money 'Happy Madison' was making. Adam Sandler can be really good and creative, but it's his brain dead audience that practically makes him to do nothing but brain dead movies. And the same goes for Bay.

It's pandering to the lowest common denominator, and that's just sad.
Sure, one can make the argument that Transformers shouldn't have to uphold to any higher expectations because it only exists to sell toys. And a year ago I would have probably agreed with that. But in a world where the Lego movie, a film that also only exists to sell toys, can be a great, original and clever movie, there is no excuse for Transformers 4 to be the way it is.

 

[mrhumble1]

Bob, you are way off here. Many of those posting are also not thinking before they post.

This guy gets it:

Agree completely the USA audience is the problem with why so many terrible films make so much money!

Just look at the 3 highest grossing films in the US this year.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - $257,225,897
The LEGO Movie - $257,000,260
X-Men: Days of Future Past - $223,414,899

While such great films as.

Robocop - $58,607,007
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - $50,577,412
Need for Speed - $43,577,636

Disappoint at the box office.

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm


edit
This post is sarcasm by the way.

The idea that the general public are the problem is small-minded. People don't get to choose what Transformers movie they get. They watch what is in the theaters, and they have no choice as to what comes. It is Hollywood's responsibility to create a compelling product. Let me say that again:

IT IS HOLLYWOOD'S RESPONSIBILITY TO CREATE A COMPELLING PRODUCT.

Let's play make-believe. Say there are two Transformer movies out, at the same time. Both done by different studios. One is a Bay-gasm and the other is made by someone who respects the material (and let's assume this person was proficient at movie making). Only then we would truly get to see which movie wins. If one is a stupid, misogynistic, poorly written, and excessively long while the other is more thoughtful, with smart dialogue, a coherent narrative, and interesting characters. Then the public would get to choose which one to see and we would know what the public wants. Both are Transformers movies, so both would have giant robots blowing shit up.
That's really the only way to know, and it will never happen.

As the above post points out, excellent movies can MAKE TONS OF MONEY. If someone else made the Transformers movies, and made them well, they would make MORE MONEY than the existing ones. I know I am not the only person who will not see this movie because it is a POS. If it was well reviewed and a genuinely good sci-fi film, MORE people would see it. It's not like the only way to get people to see the movie is to make it crap, and the idea that people want to see crappy movies is faulty logic.

Bob actually went over this very well in his rant about the first or second Transformers movie. He made excellent points about how these movies have no excuse to be bad. They are movies about giant transforming alien robots. There is no excuse for them to be so bad. Hollywood just chooses for them to be by giving them to a director who doesn't give a shit about the Transformers.

The people are not the problem. They go see what is given to them because they can either choose to stay home, or see a bad movie. Many people just go ahead and try to enjoy it, and I cannot fault them for it. Just don't blame them for this mess. It is 100% Hollywood's fault.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Its not that I dont like michael bay. I just don't like michael bay for transformers. Or TMNT. I like michael bay when he's doing what he's comfortable in. Small cast action movies with human stars. The Rock, Bad Boyz II, Pain and Gain (especially Pain and Gain) are all great movies (to me at least, and in general serviceable if not fun and good) becuase they're stuff Michael bay probably honestly enjoys doing movies about and is comfrotable with. He's just not that with transformers. and its looking like TMNT.

 

[RDubayoo]

And Bob defends Bay with what is essentially cinematic moral equivalence. No, sorry, you don't get it--Bay doesn't just do things that you might see in other movies, he does them BADLY. Take the redesign of classic Transformers in the movies, and compare them to how they look in Transformers Prime. The former look like a jumble of colored razor blades, whereas the latter have an iconic and pleasing look to them. You can't just say 'McDonald's is as good as Red Robin because they both make hamburgers' because that's a moronic line of reasoning. Come on.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

Generally this is why I don't get mad at companies for doing things I think are stupid, cheap, or ripping people off. people wouldn't buy it if there wasn't something they liked about it. If the guys peddling the crap make "better" stuff then somebody will come in and take their place.

Nintendo will always churn out the "fun for everybody" drek, Sony and Microsoft will always butt heads playing second fiddle to the PC's (and I say that as a console gamer primarily), and the masses will buy sequel after sequel all the while bemoaning for original IP.

To paraphrase Men in Black: a person is smart, people are dumb, stupid, panicky and you know it.

 

[Tim Chuma]

I can't find the exact video on Youtube, but there is a funny clip of Roger Ebert talking about what happened when all the other film critics and people he had criticised saw "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens" for the first time. They had been waiting for a chance to get back at him and they did it in spades.

When you look at the Transformers movies in the context of 100+ years of cinema they are really only a small blip. There were very popular movies during the silent era that are not very well known now. I would recommend checking out some of the "archive" collections as you can find some really interesting stuff.

I did have the opportunity to see 5 John Woo movies in a weekend as 35mm prints (from the director's own collection) on the big screen last year, but decided against travelling up to the screening as it would have been too much (A Better Tomorrow, A Better Tomorrow 2, Bullet in the Head, Hard Boiled, the Killer), the other two movies were Big Boss and Fist of Vengeance and the other one was a Chang Cheh movie.

I do still buy DVDs even though a lot of people I know do not. I am too busy to go to the cinema that much but did manage to make it back to a double bill of Godzilla and Pacific Rim last night (had to leave early for the second one.) The Raid/The Raid 2 was a great double bill but a bit of a rowdy crowd. Under the Skin was probably the strangest movie I have seen for a while. Not sure I will go see the Babadook and Patrick (original not the remake).

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Let's be honest. A video defending Bay at this point would gather a hell of a lot more views than one condemning him.

 

[Cabisco]

This was a fantastic episode, I'd love to see you do a few more like this.