Alien vs Alien

My wife is out of town for the week. So that means that I'm bored. Instead of watching the shows stacking up on my DVR (all of which my wife wants to see), I am hitting up the Red Box and catching up on some movies that I have not been able to see yet. To make this even more fun, I will be blogging my reviews and thoughts about the films. Today's Final Installment: Super 8.

What is wrong with aliens today?  This is something that I noticed in some recent movies that has started to bother me.  When I was growing up, we had some really iconic aliens.  Think back.  There was the plethora of cool extraterrestrials in Star Wars and Star Trek.  You had THE alien in Alien and Aliens.  Then there was the predator in Predator.  I would even include E.T. as one of these guys.  They were recognizable and memorable.  If they were scary, they inspired fear.  But they also were just plain cool.  I remember when I saw Alien.  That thing was terrifying.  It looked horrible.  And it was a complete nightmare.  It had armored skin, even side of it was lethal, and it even had acidic blood - so if you did shoot it, it could kill you with its wound!  That is just vicious.  BUT, the alien was so ... stinking ... cool.  I felt the same way about the predator.  They were terrifying with their hunting helmets on.  And when they took them off, man, even worse.

I don't know filmmakers that came after those epic monsters were worried that they couldn't live up to the standard of awesomeness.  Maybe they were afraid that people accuse them of just making a cheap knock off.  Or it could be that they needed to follow the current mindset of "bigger, gaudier, blockbustier" when it came to their creations.  Whatever the reason, aliens in movies are just not doing it for me.

I noticed the trend back in Independence Day, actually.  I remember that they never showed the aliens in the previews.  My friends and I intentionally didn't read anything or watch anything that might show the invaders - just so they would be ready to be stunned at the big revealing scene.  Then they showed the things.  Whaaaa?  What the heck is that?  Their ships were cool, their attacks were awesome.  They were just stupid.  I mean, look at that thing.  As memorable as the movie is (and trust me, it has a huge following), the alien in it is just about the least memorable thing.  You don't see people with little figurines of that or hear anyone clamoring for more of the shovel headed freak.

This has continued with other movies.  I really have rarely been that impressed with the aliens.  It seems the reliance has been on their technology or their ships instead.  Many times we never even see the alien.  There is a menacing craft doing unspeakable damage.  But the thing piloting is is irrelevant.  Think about The Avengers this summer.  Now, I loved the movie.  Absolutely loved it.  But was anyone talking about the aliens in it?  Nope.  They were just cannon fodder.  They had nothing unique or awesome about them.  They actually were one of the weakest elements of the whole movie.

I watched Cowboys and Aliens the other day.  This is a movie that is based on the terror of these invaders.  Again, they never showed the aliens in the previews - just their ships flashing around and the mayhem they cause.  I was looking forward to see what they aliens looked like in their big reveal.  Again, I have kindly included a shot of these things.  What in the heck is that supposed to be?  Is that a fish?  A rock man?  They were ridiculous.  Their chest would also open up and these weird hands would come out.  It actually made no biological sense at all.  Was there a symbiotic relationship?  Were there two creatures inhabiting the same body?  What was the purpose of the second internal hands?  And do they have internal organs?  Plus there was no consistency in how to dispatch the aliens.  They seemed like they could take arrow or bullet hits, but if you hit their head (which seemed extra reinforced) they could die.  The whole thing was very bizarre.  I'm sure it didn't help the movie that the aliens - part of the title of the movie - were lame.

This all brings me to Super 8.  On the whole, this was a very good movie.  I loved it.  Well, I loved the first three-quarters of it.  Then it seemed to derail.  (Hmmmm.  Kind of sounds like another JJ Abrams project involving suspense and thrills.  cough LOST cough cough)  I thought the opening minute of the movie demonstrated Abrams' absolute brilliance at story telling.  The opening scene has the haunting score, penned by the always incredible Michael Giacchino.  There is a factory with a sign showing how many hundreds of days it has had without an accident.  A worker climbs a ladder and starts taking the numbers down, replacing them with just a 1.  Then it cuts to a boy sitting on a swing in the snow.  In just a moment, we already know this boy lost his parent.  Brilliant.  I loved it.

Abrams has a knack for opening a story - it is one of his hallmarks.  Consider the opening scene of Star Trek.  It was absolute mayhem.  And it was incredible.  I remember watching it with my friend, Greg, and he leaned over to me when the scene ended and the title screen came up.  "JJ Abrams is a freaking genius."  I agreed.  The pilot of Lost was as good as any television episode ever.  The same could be say about the pilot of Heroes, the pilot of Alcatraz, the opening of Mission Impossible III.  Abrams grabs your attention on a consistent basis.  The challenge is carrying that all the way through.

Super 8 started off great.  I was very interested in the story.  It was a great tale.  The train wreck that really catapulted the movie was intense and incredible.  I really liked the kids that were the center of the movie.  It was a very good movie and it was very enjoyable.  But...

Throughout the film, there is this monster hiding.  It escaped from the train and it now lurking in the city.  We see glimpses of things happening.  The monster is obviously formidable.  It can crush a car.  Somehow it affects the electricity in its area.  People scream a lot when it shows up.  It is supposedly terrifying.  They are building to the moment when we finally see it.  I am actually excited and nervous to see the thing.  I'm sure that Abrams and executive producer Steven Spielberg will come up with something worthy of the hype.

Ummmmm.  What exactly is that?  It has six legs, I think.  The first time we saw it on the kids' video it looked like a spider.  I thought maybe it was a giant spider.  A giant spider is what they are going with?  After Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, we are supposed to be freaked out by a giant spider?!?  Then I realized it wasn't a spider. It had that weird face too.  What is that?  It looks like a dozen other creatures we have seen.  Actually, his face reminds me of Megatron from Transformers.

There are tweaks and such, but I wasn't that impressed.  It was ugly.  And then we are supposed to actually have some sympathy for it.  It just wants to go home!  Of course, it has killed dozens of people already and caused tons of damage.  One character has already said that it has no remorse or pity for anything.  And we are supposed to be like, "Poor spider looking transformer thing.  It misses its home."  Sorry.  Not working for me.

The other problem is that the scenes where we actually see the alien up close are so dark that I could barely make out details.  There is no big scene where the thing emerges so we can see it in its full glory.  It is always in shadows or silhouettes.  That's really annoying.  So we either have to deal with scenes too dark to actually be scared of the non-spider or we have to deal with Abrams love affair with lens flares.  [Side Note - there is an entire online community devoted to ripping Abrams for his love of lens flare effects.  For those of you who don't know, lens flares are this trick where light hits the camera just right and you get a little starburst of light in a scene.  Awww.  However, they also can be added through any video or picture editing software.  I know how to do them in Photoshop.  They are actually one of the first "tricks" people learn.  Star Trek was infested with them.  Light bounced off all the chrome everywhere and there were flares galore.  I actually laughed at one scene in Super 8.  It was a gas station at night (of course).  I counted six lens flares in one shot.  In a gas station.  At night.  But I quibble.]

I know that this whole alien thing may seem like a small thing to focus on in a rather enjoyable movie - especially for a guy who gave Cowboys and Aliens a VERY generous evaluation.  But, I think it should be an understandable rule in Hollywood.  If you are going to make a movie or show that focuses on the presence of a terrifying alien, then the alien needs to live up to the hype.  If not, then the movie kind of crumbles.  I mean, that is the crux of the conflict, right?  Was the alien in Super 8 scary?  Well, sure, if I was a kid standing there in a cave and that sucker came up to me, I would soil myself.  Heck, if I was the sheriff and that thing came jumping out of the dark at me, I would soil myself.  But I'm not. I'm a grizzled moviegoer who is used to aliens from decades of invasion movies.  I need to see something memorable.   I don't even know what I was hoping for.  I just know that wasn't it, especially with the big names that were associated with the film.

In addition, to have the movie end the way it did just seemed weird.  It almost felt like I had wrongly identified the main story arc.  The whole time we are sitting there worried about how to defeat this alien.  At the same time, we are supposed to be suspicious of the military guys, knowing they are up to no good.  The alien is actually going out of its way to hunt people.  He isn't just offing the clowns who cross his path.  He is out and causing trouble.  He takes out sympathetic characters, too.  So there is no reason to feel bad for this guy.  I am wondering the whole time how the kids and their parents are going  to fight off the military AND defeat the spider thing.  Then we get a twist that this guy just wants to go home.  And then he goes home.  Aaaaaand scene.  What?  That doesn't make any sense.  Everyone just stares up as his cobbled together ship takes off.  Now, mind you, only a couple people know that he just wants to go home.  But what's left of the town is just going to stare up approvingly at the killer leaving, as their buildings are burning all around them.  Nonsense.

In short, the movie was three-quarters very good and one-quarter confusing as heck.  The alien was disappointing on many levels.  And the ending was bizarre.  But there were some very cool elements and moments.  Which brings me to the end of my week of movie reviews.  I hope all two of you enjoyed it.  Actually, it is funny to see friends of mine out of nowhere putting status updates like "I finally am watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" or "Let's see if Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is any good."  I would like to think I made a difference.  Whether or not that difference was worth making is a different story.

Cowboys vs Aliens

My wife is out of town for the week. So that means that I'm bored. Instead of watching the shows stacking up on my DVR (all of which my wife wants to see), I am hitting up the Red Box and catching up on some movies that I have not been able to see yet. To make this even more fun, I will be blogging my reviews and thoughts about the films. Today's Installment: Cowboys and Aliens.


There is an especially funny episode of Friends where Rachel decides to make a traditional English trifle.  Her cookbook somehow gets some pages stuck together and she ends up combining the recipes for trifle (custard, lady fingers, and jam) and shepherd's pie (ground beef sauteed with peas and onions).  The resultant dish is reviled by all, with Ross going so far as to say, "It tastes like feet."  However, Joey eats not only his plate, but all the other hidden plates.  When someone asks him if he likes it, he says, "What's not to like?  Custard? Good. Meat? Good. Jam? GOOO-ooood!"

That exchange immediately popped into my head when I was thinking about Cowboys and Aliens.  On the surface, the individual elements of the movie look and sound great.  Jon Favreau, who brought us the incredible action movies Iron Man and Iron Man 2 and the class Christmas comedy Elf, was directing.  Steven Spielberg was producing.  As far as the cast goes, you have both James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in roles that seemed created just for them.  The supporting cast was even stellar: Clancy Brown (Highlander, Shawshank Redemption), Keith Carradine (Deadwood), Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy, House), Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2, Galaxy Quest), Walter Goggins (The Shield, Justified).  You get the point on the cast - a good strong cast.  It's a Western, which has a strong following.  It's a sci-fi, which has a stronger following.  Then you have a unique concept when so many people complain about too many reboots and sequels.

So, naturally, with all those great sounding ingredients, the movie bombed.  No, it wasn't a John Carter or Battleship level bomb.  But it was hardly the raging success everyone hoped for when it was made.  It took in $100 million in the USA and another $75 million overseas.  That doesn't sound bad, except it cost about $170 million to make, not counting the massive promotion costs.  So it didn't make blockbuster money.  Not only that, but its reviews were far from stellar.  If you go on Rotten Tomatoes - the online review site - the movie has a 44 percent fresh rating.  That means just 44 percent of people who reviewed it gave it a positive rating.  Among professional critics (translation: Morons that can't relate to the average moviegoer), it had a 50 percent fresh rating.  With the general audience, it had a 45 percent positive rating.  So, across the board, the movie just seemed to be not well liked.

When you actually read the reviews, few of them are actually viciously negative, though.  For some films, you will find hateful and scathing reviews.  I didn't see many like that at all.  Instead, most of them echoed along these sentiments.  "The movie wasn't as good as it should have been" or "It wasn't as fun as I thought it would be."  It seems like most people who went in thought they were going to get a fun, madcap, action film.  They were disappointed that the movie didn't deliver on it.

All of this puzzle me.  I remember reading about the movie from its original casting announcements.  I saw the previews, saw the marketing.  I don't really remember the movie ever being pitched as some kind of summer fun ride.  It wasn't supposed to be The Avengers or Fast Furiou6: More Fasterer and Furiouser.  So I'm not sure where people developed this perception.  After seeing the movie, I can say that the movie was a Western.  It had the pacing of a Western and the feel of one.  Thinking back on the Westerns I have seen, I don't remember to many of them having a frantic pace.  There aren't planes or guys in metal suits to race around.  There aren't race tracks and sports cars zipping back and forth.  People ride horses or walk.  It is dusty.  Fun time is sitting in a saloon and drinking, playing cards, and listening to music.  That's your average Western.

I know that the commercials highlighted the exciting moments of the film - Daniel Craig jumping off a cliff onto a spacecraft, Daniel Craig blowing up a ship with his bracelet weapon.  But it also showed a lot of Harrison Ford growling and Daniel Craig scowling and Olivia Wilde staring.  So, was Cowboys and Aliens mismarketed?  It is entirely possible that is the answer.  I know that even up to the release, friends of mine were not sure if the movie was supposed to be funny or not.  "Is it a spoof or something?"  [Answer: No.  It is not funny.  Very few laughs.]  When I would try to explain it to them, they would look at me and usually say, "That sounds dumb."  Now, these are the same people that have already pre-ordered tickets to Dark Knight Rises and can give you a fifteen minute dissertation on the symbolism in the Batman films.  They aren't movie noobs that don't get to a theater often.  But they still didn't catch the Cowboys and Aliens fever.

I remember in the past that there have been a handful of movies that were horribly mismarketed.  The strange thing is that I generally like those films because I judge them based on what they actually are.  But most moviegoers go in with a perception and are disappointed when the movie doesn't match that.  Here are a couple of examples.

• Hudson Hawk - This movie was supposed to be a typical Bruce Willis film.  Lots of action, some humor and sarcasm tossed in.  It was marketed as a caper film.  Bruce Willis was the best burglar in the world going after his biggest prize.  I can understand why someone would be upset when it turned out to be an action comedy about a duo of burglars who sang songs during their thefts instead of wearing watches.  It was zany and bizarre.  There were subplots about Da Vinci, the Vatican, mercenaries named after candy bars, and alchemy.  I loved it.  But it was NOT Die Hard 3: Rob Hard.
• The Cable Guy - Jim Carrey was a superstar.  Everything he touched up to this point was pure gold.  He was in the middle of a run that most stars would kill for.  Ace Ventura ($72mil), The Mask ($120mil), Dumb and Dumber ($127mil), Batman Forever ($184mil), Ace Ventura 2 ($104mil) led up to this movie.  The next two after it were Liar Liar ($181mil) and Truman Show ($125mil).  The Cable Guy thudded in at $60 million after costing $47 million to make.  It had Matthew Broderick, Ben Stiller (who directed it), Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and a very hot Jim Carrey.  People HATED it.  Why?  Well, simply enough, they were expecting a Jim Carrey movie.  They wanted to see him acting all crazy and speaking out of his rear end.  They thought he would twists his mouth sideways and cackle.  Instead, they got a VERY dark comedy and commentary on the unhealthy infatuation with entertainment, especially the voyeuristic appeal of criminal trials and the like.  It was should be paired up with Truman Show instead of Ace Ventura. Horrible marketing.
• Last Action Hero - Arnold Schwarzenegger at the peak of his drawing power.  He had just put out the monster hit Terminator 2 and was about to release True Lies.  This movie raked in a pathetic $50 million on a $85 million budget.  How did it fail so badly?  Again, it was marketed as a big Ah-nold blockbuster.  And it was NOT!!!  It was a BRILLIANT satire on the action picture genre that was about to collapse on itself.  Seriously, go back and watch it again.  I remember seeing it in the theater and being disappointed that it wasn't typical Arnold.  I watched it again a couple years later at home and loved it.  It was hilarious.  
• Shawshank Redemption - It wasn't marketed at all.  Or it was promoted as "from the mind of Stephen King."  Yes, he wrote the story it was based on.  But it was NOT a Stephen King film.  I remember seeing it in theaters and saying, "What in the world is THAT?"  I had no clue until the Oscar nominations came out that it was even a good movie.  Then I saw it.  WORST. MARKETING. EVER!  Seriously, this is one of the top 100 movies ever?  And it doesn't even get promoted.  Dumb.

So, did Cowboys and Aliens get tripped up by its own packaging?  I don't think it was as horribly mismarketed as those other films.  It wasn't presented as a comedy and then turned out to be a drama or anything.  But I do think it was communicated poorly.  People thought it was either a spoof, a rolling action flick, or a sci-fi film.  Each of those comes with a pretty standard set of preconceptions.  And those are all a pretty far cry from a Western.  Imagine if someone went into it thinking it was like Will Smith's Wild Wild West and realized it was closer to Unforgiven.  That would throw you for a loop.  

Judging the film for what it is, I actually liked Cowboys and Aliens.  I read one review that said Favreau couldn't control the erratic shifts in tone and mood.  Well, you're in a Western.  There's a guy who is wanted for all kind of crimes wandering through town.  People are coming after him, slowly, on horses.  One of them is a corrupt and cruel cattle baron.  They are threatening to hang him or ship him off to the marshalls.  Then three alien spaceships comes screaming down the middle of the street, blowing up stuff and snatching people.  That would be a erratic shift in tone and mood.  That is what made the movie so interesting to me.  How exactly would a Western gold rush city handle an invasion of massively technologically advanced alien spacecraft?  They don't have a clue.  They have six shooters and rifles and sticks of dynamite.  Think of the panic that ensued in films like Independence Day or V.  Those people at least had the benefit of having science fiction movies predicting alien invasions.  The Wild West didn't have that.  So it was a shock.

I also saw one reviewer mock the fact that the characters were able to overcome their differences to defeat a common foe.  Well, duh.  They had to.  Isn't that a common theme in movies from the very beginning?  And books?  And all literature?  Sometimes it takes a common enemy to help people learn that their differences are not really that important.  It puts things in perspective.  Why in the world someone would have a problem with that is beyond me.  That is the message at the heart of The Avengers.

I did enjoy the movie.  It wasn't my favorite movie of all time, or even my favorite Western.  (That still goes to Tombstone.)  I think that Jon Favreau has done better work.  Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig were both good in their roles.  And the aliens were actually very creepy and somewhat original.  There were some surprises that caught me off guard.  But I can understand the overall opinion that it didn't blow me away.  If I had spent the money to go to the movie in the theater, I would have been a little disappointed.  When I used to go to the movies all the time, this one would have fallen into the "good, not great, mostly forgettable, a little disappointing" category.  Now, I would have been more let down, since I don't go as often.  I wouldn't buy it, but I'm glad I saw it.  

Tonight I finalize my week of catching up with another film that I never got around to seeing.  Like last night's film, it has a lot of good credentials.  But this one lived up to the hype according to most people who saw it.  It is a good conclusion to the week - it has aliens,  secret agents, JJ Abrams, Steven Spielberg.  Basically it has a little bit of everything from the whole week.  Super 8.  Now the review won't probably be up until Saturday, though.  I'll be driving to Tampa on Friday.  Sorry to make you wait.  

Movie Transformer

From the latest box office numbers, is looks like everyone in America is rushing out to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  I read on Facebook as dozens of my friends rushed out to see the film - some at midnight the day before it officially opened.  Then I read their varied opinions.  These ranged from "you will wish you were dead" to "that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen" and just about everything in between.  I keep hoping the movie will stop making money, but it doesn't.  This makes me wonder what exactly is wrong with me.  Why don't I want to see this epitome of a summer action flick?  Not only have no interest in seeing it, but I actually have been rooting for it to fail and be awful.  Why is that?

I am a movie fan.  And I am far from one of those snooty filmgoers that only watch foreign films and limited release films (aka Oscar voters).  I am just as likely to avoid an Oscar nominee as a brainless action film.  I set my own standards for what I want to watch.  They don't have to make sense to anyone else.  I really don't care if you think my decisions are stupid.  I'm the one who ends up having to sit there.  I used to go see just about everything that came out, except for horror films.  (I have NEVER liked those.)  But now I actively avoid certain movies.  What changed?

I spend far too much time thinking about this and came up with reasons.  And, more than that, I came up with an exact date when all of this changed.  September 11, 2001.  Now, I know a lot of things can be hung on that infamous date.  You may think it is extreme to blame my increasing disconnect with many movies to that day.  But I don't.  There are three major reasons that can be traced back to that particular 24 hour time period.  But they aren't all what you may think.

REASON 1:  REALITY TRUMPED FANTASY
I used to be lustily waiting for big time disaster and action movies.  Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Godzilla, Volcano, Dante's Peak, The Rock.  I loved those movies - even with all the completely impossible plot lines and over the top stupid dialogue and moronic characters.  I knew they were far from top notch cinema.  But they were sure entertaining.  And I was just as amazed as anyone else with the shots of the White House exploding and New York City being demolished.  But, when 9/11 happened, the reality came home to roost.  The fact is that a city being annihilated is horrific.  When it came down to it, no one sat there and thought, "Ooooo, cool.  Look at that sucker fall."  Instead, we all got nauseated and started crying.  Turns out mass destruction and global upheaval wasn't so cool after all.  I had trouble disconnecting that reality when I watched movies.  I couldn't help thinking about the aftermath.  We always are left with scenes of plucky survivors hugging and promising a new day.  But the reality would not even be close to that.

As we saw several other major disasters, like the tsunamis in Thailand and Japan and the earthquakes in New Zealand and Haiti, we began to realize the massive human toll in these events.  It isn't just special effects.  Cities and countries don't just "come back" from that.  They are decimated and may never recover.  For me, I couldn't always turn that off.  In some movies I really like (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man) I can turn down the volume on those thoughts.  But even then, I may have random questions pop up like, "How much money did it cost Gotham to rebuild that elevated train after it got blown up?  What did all those people think when their cars got destroyed?"  But I couldn't ignore it when movies like 2012 and Day After Tomorrow just cavalierly obliterated these mega cities.  That was one of the same things I thought about in the original Transformers.  There was this major battle in the middle of downtown.  Buildings are getting shredded.  City blocks are destroyed.  The mayhem is a little too much for me to take.

REASON 2: HUMAN LIFE ELEMENT
The second reason that came from that day was the awakened reality of human suffering.  That wasn't so much from the scene in NYC.  It more came from the fact that my first child was born at 2:11am on September 12, 2001.  In the midst of all that tragedy, my wife was in labor with our boy.  And now, I had this little life to protect and care for and hurt for.  And suddenly it wasn't so minor to watch lives get snuffed out - even in a fictional context.  Subconsciously, I am always aware of the fact that those characters had families.  Those thousands of people who just got blasted by an out of control robot had kids who now were orphans.

I know a lot of people say, "It's just a movie.  Lighten up."  But isn't the point of a movie to have viewers connect with the story on screen?  I just connect in a different way.  I easily slip myself into the story.  As a result, I have a hard time watching movies about kids getting hurt.  I don't enjoy movies that have a lot of physical pain or killings.  Again, there are some movies that I like enough to disconnect those things.  But this plays a major part in how I watch movies.  I remember going to see Monsters Inc after our child was born.  I had such a hard time because I sat there and kept saying, "This must be killing Boo's parents - to have her missing for days."  I actually had to walk out of Finding Nemo when I went to see it in the theater.  My pregnant wife was on a mission trip in Germany and my toddler son was staying with his grandparents.  The images of a father losing his wife and kids were too much - even if they were fish.

As my kids have grown and I have become more experienced as a father, this has diminished somewhat.  I have more experience disconnecting my personal feelings from shows and movies.  But I still try to avoid things that spend a lot of time showing kids getting hurt.  If a movie shows child abuse, I won't see it.  I didn't follow the Casey Anthony case at all.  When my wife and I had a free night this summer without the kids, we wouldn't go see Super 8 because I knew kids would be in peril - and our kids were hours away from me.  I couldn't just go home and kiss them after the movie.  Transformers is just another movie franchise that glorifies violence.  People get hurt without much thought.  And I just don't like that any more.

REASON 3: KIDS ARE EXPENSIVE
Money isn't so easy to come buy when you are responsible for a family.  That combined with high ticket prices means that you have to be choosy when going to films.  If I am going to spend $10 on a ticket - or $30 on a family worth of tickets - the movie had better be worth it.  I know that critics are usually giant wastes of space.  But, when there is an avalanche of bad press and negative reviews, it may not be worth my investment.  It used to be that I could use my student discount and get a $5 ticket.  If that didn't work out so great, it was only five bucks.  And what else was I going to spend the money on?  Now, though, it is much more expensive.

When you combine that with the easier access to movies after their theatrical run, it doesn't make sense to risk an unpleasant movie going experience.  I have Netflix.  For $8 a month, I can watch any of thousands of movies free.  So, if there is a film that I wanted to see and wasn't so sure about, it's easy to watch.  Or I can go to Redbox a couple months after the theater run and rent the movie for a buck.  Or I can buy it on DVD or BluRay for less than a family going to the theater.  So now, if I'm not sure about a movie, I just don't go.

It used to be that I would go to any superhero movie that came out - if it was good or not.  For Pete's sake, I saw Spawn in the theater.  But that changed when I had to buy two tickets, pay a babysitter, or leave my family home to go.  Now, I am much more discriminating.  Take this year, for example.  I saw Thor, Pirates 4, X Men: First Class, and Cars 2.  That's pretty standard.  I will go see any Pixar movie that comes out.  I go to see most Marvel movies - although I avoided the first Hulk and both Fantastic Four.  I did NOT go see Green Lantern.  I love DC Comics.  I prefere them to Marvel.  I like Green Lantern.  I like Ryan Reynolds.  But I had a bad feeling about this one.  I could just tell it was going to suck.  And, sure enough, it did.  It was either going to be phenomenal or a disaster.  I guessed right and saved a good chunk of money.  If there is a franchise I particularly enjoy (Harry Potter, Bourne, James Bond, Pirates) I usually will keep seeing them until they prove themselves unworthy of that support.  Pirates 4 did just that.  If they do a fifth film, I will not go see it.  I still want to go see Captain America, Cowboys and Aliens, and Zookeeper - and of course Harry Potter 8.  

[Side Note: Yes, I realize Cowboys and Aliens seems to violate two of my new rules.  But there are several things that make me want to see it anyway.  Jon Favreau is making it and I think he is brilliant.  It stars Daniel Craig - who I really like.  It also has Harrison Ford - who I have always liked.  Mix in Sam Rockwell and Olivia Wilde (NO! Not just because she is attractive.  She is an intriguing actress.  Follow her on Twitter and watch Tron Legacy and you'll see what I mean.  This is where I am interested enough in the movie to suppress the other stuff.]


I am even discriminating with kids movies.  My kids would go see anything with a G or PG rating if they could.  But I don't take them.  We have found out how to minimize costs (go Tuesday night to a Regal theater or before noon to an AMC one).  But it still is $25 doing that.  So, even though my kids wanted to see Mr Popper's Penguins, I didn't take them.  That is a Redbox movie.  I still love movies and watch a lot of them.  But, honestly, I have swayed more to television shows - I think they have a higher percentage of enjoyable ones.  And I just watch my movies in different ways than I used to.

So, when it comes to Transformers 3, it fails on all my criteria.  It has too much wanton destruction and violence.  It is cavalier with human life.  And I wasn't sure it was going to be worth seeing.  I never saw the second one and didn't feel like I had missed out on anything.  I even got the DVD for it from Netflix and sent it back eventually unwatched.  Truth be told, I could have been fine without ever seeing the first one either.  It wasn't exceptionally enjoyable or life changing.  I think Michael Bay knows how to make an exciting loud movie.  I don't think he knows how to make a good one.  I hated the Transformers in their modern form.  They were so chaotic it was impossible to make out many features.  The voiceovers were poorly connected to the character (like my argument for why the Hulk movies keep failing).  The movie is so loud and wild - just for the sake of being loud and wild.  Shia Le Bouf is so annoying; I think he ruins anything he is in.  I feel the same way about Megan Fox.  And, replacing her with an animatronic Barbie doll isn't going to help matters much.  So, I just will remain in the minority of movie fans and stay away from Transformers.  I may have felt different if everything I read and heard was trumpeting the film as a work of cinematic art.  But, since even my movie loving friends couldn't decide on it if was "epic" or "lame," I stayed home.  I'll bide my time and save my money until something more my taste arrives.