KIDS LOVE MELANCHOLY MOVIES ABOUT ALCOHOLIC COUNTRY SINGERS, DON'T THEY?
[Jul. 13th, 2009|04:27 am]
Ever since Roger Ebert called TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN one of the year's worst and compared it to having all the entertainment value of a two-year old beating on pots and pans he has been getting deluged with hate mail from rabid teenagers and Gen-X'ers furious that he did not love their beloved Michael Bay robo-explodo-jigaboobot-cleavage fest. Even the gang at Spill.com has come under fire for daring to call the film crap; one angry viewer even going so far as to declare them racist and un-American for ripping on it. I took note of this bizarre sense of dementia that seems to have overtaken fans of the TRANSFORMERS movies that sends them into a mouth-frothing rage whenever they hear someone speak ill of the movie. I originally dubbed it "Trans Madness" after the first film's release. Now, as angry fanboys have taken online to all but declaring a fatwa on every and any television, print, or online critic that has taken to calling T:ROTF one of the year's worst film, I think maybe it might be time to coin the term "Transformers Derangement Syndrome".
Since Ebert, like others, has been called out as being old, stuffy, out of touch, and - the favorite refrain of pissed off fanboys outraged that a film critic did not like a nonsensical megabudget motion picture about incoherently filmed robots of indistinguishable design beating the snot out of one another - only like artsy films nobody in the general public wants to see, I thought it would be a good time to post this clip I found on YouTube of a similar debate that occurred on Nightline in 1983 in which Ted Koppel moderated a debate between Siskel & Ebert and the embodiment of the film critic stereotyping I just listed a moment ago (the man even has a voice tailor-made for a movie Nazi) over the merit of a series of films you may have heard of called STAR WARS. I think we can all agree the original three in that series, even the Ewok plagued RETURN OF THE JEDI, were superior piece of filmmaking to the current #1 box office grossing movie of 2009.
Sort of reminds me of the reaction much of the fan community had/has to any less-than-complimentary remarks made about a certain blockbuster from last summer, The Dark Knight. I enjoyed TDK and I'm certain that it's light-years better than ROTF, but anybody who dared venture that it might not have been perfect to them and not necessarily The Greatest Superhero Film of All Time only did so from the safety of a blast shelter. Again, I'm not hating on TDK, just noting that the fans can be the worst thing about any given film.
Transformers 2 is full of nonsense and deep flaws. But you know what? I STILL enjoyed it, despite all of that.
Maybe it's because I just went into the film knowing that I was consciously paying money to see a movie about giant alien robots. That transform into things. With the promise of explosions and Megan Fox bending over things and jiggling in slow-motion.
And thus, when I got those things, I was satisfied.
But to get back on point: Ebert basically lost all of my respect when he gave the third Mummy 3 stars out of 4. I mean, now REALLY.
Transfomrers 2 anit' that bad, When i saw it, I went in thinking it whold suck. and it soat of did, becuse bay had too control this time. it had problems that could have bee easly fixed.
"As I understand it, none other than John Simon used to mumble to himself in German throughout many a screening." - Rob Gonsalves, supposedly quoting Eric Kohn (the guy who text-messaged his review of Indiana Jones IV during its premiere)
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
foywonder's journal
