To think he even has disciples.
oh damn,i’d rather be a snobbish ass amidst my peers and start bartering them abt the rarest of rarest films out there instead of dealing with their overt excitement abt another upcoming film of this money-making loser…
and to think most people still accuse Ed Wood of non-imagination,sigh…his films are of much more artistic quality than those of directors like Bay or worse…Uwe Boll!!!
That’s an infuriatingly stupid quote. I’m getting very frustrated who refuse to treat film as art. I find myself arguing about this more and more. This almost makes me respect Uwe Boll for the time he challenged Bay to a boxing match, saying it was a fight between big studio business films and independent cinema.
But it’s actually impossibly to respect Uwe Boll, so nevermind.
“’To think he even has disciples.”
Some even dwell among us.
I agree with the very early comment that the quote is far too general… what is “easy” anyway?
Indeed, a movie such as Transformers GENERALLY takes much more technical man power than an “art” film… also meaning though, that it takes more people to make it (again, generally) which makes it more impersonal.
However, an “art” film for the most part is created to revolve around its depth and concept… meant to connect with the viewer and evoke feelings from the viewer immediately but also in the long run (MUCH more difficult in the sense of one’s ability to think and prepare as opposed to one’s ability to edit animated robots), just like a truly great painting is meant to do (although I’m hesitant to say that because it is so hugely debated, but I’ll say it none the less).
Michael Bay makes a movie with the primary goal of keeping someone entertained for an hour and forty minutes without the viewer really needing to think. Strictly immediate entertainment.
So, when you take a person’s brain out of the picture, yes, it would seem it is easier to make an “art” film because Michael Bay’s movies mostly just replace a brain with a computer to do everything.
It makes sense in my head… not sure how well I did trying to convey it otherwise, though, sorry.
…but… the winery thing…? Yeah… how about “no”.
Looks like Transformers 2 was too hard for Bay:
Rene Rodriguez (Miami Herald) and Joe Williams (St. Louis Dispatch)
- 2.5/4 stars
Carrie Rickey (Philadelphia Inquirer)
- 2/4 stars
Gary Thompson (Philly Daily News) and Emanuel Levy
- C
Tasha Robinson (The Onion), Tom Long (Detroit News)
- C-
Ty Burr (Boston Globe), Lou Lumenick (NY Post), Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune), Christy Lemire (Associated Press), and Claudia Puig (USA Today)
- 1.5/4 stars
Roger Ebert (Sun Times) and Michael Sragow (Baltimore Sun)
- 1/4 stars
Tomatometer score: 28% (after 82 reviews)
RT.com critical mean: 4.4/10
i’m sure there is an incredible amount of effort placed into making movies like transformers, but does that make the final product good? not necessarily. What line of logic is he using? Its like saying that slow roasted and marinated dog shit tastes better than frenchfries because it takes longer to make.
In my opinion, what Bay was meaning to say is very incorrect and also sickeningly arrogant. I dislike the man and I don’t think he deserves to be regarded as a gifted or particularly important figure in movie history.
But when read literally, the words “shooting an art movie is easy” are true. It is easy to make an art film. What isn’t easy is to make a good art film.
See, art is such a difficult thing to define that nearly anything can be considered art. Honestly, anyone can be an artist. That’s easy. But it’s not easy to create art that is skillful, meaningful, and ultimately worthwhile.
There will always be artists that are pretentious douchebags, and having to deal with them is an unfortunate fact of being involved in any art community, no matter the medium (in this case, it just happens to be movies). But at the same time, there needs to be bad art. If there wasn’t, good art wouldn’t really matter.
Sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent regarding my views on art, but holy fuck, it’s these shitty, misinformed statements that really get my brain cooking. It pissed me off when I first read it, but I wouldn’t let myself comment on it until I’d thought about why exactly it irked me so much. I don’t consider myself an authority on art, nor am I particularly educated in the way of “art films”, but anyone who belittles an entire genre due to their own shortcomings or feelings of bitterness in response to bad feedback really needs to shove their foot down their throat and think a little before they start flapping lips.
He also said
""I need to do something totally divergent, something without any explosions."
http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0839146/
Michael Bay, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is one of the most insanely idiotic films I have ever seen. At no point in your rambling, incoherent story were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in that theater is now dumber for having seen it. I award you no points, and may Orson Wells have mercy on your soul.
^anyone know the film im referencing???
Billy Madison?
YESS haha i love that movie
Cool.
(CNN) June 24 — “A movie studio,” Orson Welles once said, “is the best toy a boy ever had.”
Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf run from destruction in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
Michael Bay must know the feeling. In making a movie that’s literally about toys — “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” — the director had access to a reported $200 million budget, the high-tech talents of Industrial Light & Magic and the It performers Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, reprising their roles from 2007’s “Transformers.”
Audiences, so far, have been excited. Fandango.com, the movie ticket-selling Web site, reported that it sold out more than 2,000 midnight and wee-hours showings of the film, which opened Wednesday.
MovieTickets.com, another ticket-selling site, reported that “Transformers” had broken into its list of the top 20 pre-sellers of all time, ahead of films such as “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Watch the Transformers make their change »
Passions have been running so high that a New York iReporter said that police shut down a Manhattan theater Tuesday because the waiting crowd — which had been gathering for hours — started getting out of hand.
But there’s one group that’s not impressed: those traditional killjoys, movie critics.
The film is earning a 21 percent rating at the review-aggregation site RottenTomatoes.com, marking it as one of the most poorly reviewed films of the year. (At rival Metacritic.com, it’s not doing much better, with a score of 42 out of 100.) But what’s really striking is the vitriol with which some critics are attacking “Transformers,” to wit:
• Eric Childress, eFilmCritic.com: “The single worst film to be released thus far in the summer of 2009.”
• Peter Bradshaw, The (UK) Guardian: “Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan.”
• Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: “Cretinous.”
• Steven Whitty, The Newark (New Jersey) Star-Ledger: “Can you thwart a migraine for two-and-a-half hours?”
CNN.com’s Tom Charity didn’t think much of it either.
Even some of the movie’s hoped-for audience — the fanboys who have admired Transformers since the toys first appeared in the 1980s — weren’t kind. One CNN staffer compared it to one of the all-time bombs, the George Lucas-produced “Howard the Duck.” iReporter “davidseaman” called it “the worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
In a cheeky review, iReporter “Achiever” praised Bay “for his excessive use of the 360 spinning crane cam” and the frequent slow-motion shots of Megan Fox fleeing.
“I’m certain that scientists will be able to extrapolate many books on information in the field of boob jiggling,” he wrote.
Of course, there were words of outright praise as well. Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, who gave the movie a B, hailed the Transformer characters for having “wizardry and grandeur.” Newsday’s Rafer Guzman enjoyed Bay’s “obvious delight” in making the film. And iReporter Rajiim Gross described the film as “awesome.”
In the end, none of these lines will matter. The only line Bay, producer Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood execs are paying attention to is, of course, the bottom line.
The first “Transformers” made more than $300 million domestically. If “Revenge of the Fallen” gets into that neighborhood, it will be another indication that giant robots can be readily transformed into cold, hard box office cash
Just because his crew spends a lot of time in the editing room does not make it art, it in fact makes it work. His movies are definitely not art or even films. They are pieces of work made for entertaining mindless people and making money. To call what Michael Bay makes films would be to like calling a dollar a work of art.
Given those reviews, apparently he ought to try an art movie, cause apparently he can’t even make a shitty movie right.
“Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: ‘Cretinous.’”
And thus why I adore Manohla Dargis.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997
That is why I love Ebert.
It seems that Michael Bay thinks he is cinema’s Messiah or something like that. If making an art movie is so easy, why is he troubling his precious brain with hard-to-make blockbusters? Apparently, his idea of an art film is this: a drunk French guy (who loves Proust and is an existentialist) filming two other French guys in a gallery, while they’re talking about marxism and red wine! Yes Michael…that’s an art movie! Well spotted…Congratulations! Let’s give you an Oscar!
Now seriously, a little humility wouldn’t harm…
“If making an art movie is so easy, why is he troubling his precious brain with hard-to-make blockbusters?”
“A lot of directors don’t want the pressure of a movie the size of Pearl Harbor. But I love it. I thrive on it.” -Michael Bay
Not sure if anyone’s had this response:
I’m sure making a movie like Transformers is hard. Very hard, in fact. But just because a film is difficult to make doesn’t mean it’s any good.
It’s like beer. The most difficult type of beer to make is actually American style macro lager – universally agreed to be the worst-tasting style of beer in the world – because it has comparatively little flavor to mask any mistakes.
The Associated Press gets it right !
“Transformers sequel will be by far the worst-reviewed movie ever to make the $400 million club.”
Sorry Mr.Bay – perhaps you’ll have better luck with “Transformers III – Revenge of the Artist”.
I can’t even put into words how much I dislike Michael Bay. He mentions art & Transformers in the same quote. WTF?!
Paramount is fast tracking Transformers 3 as well and Bay wants to make his small "Pulp Fiction like’ film before he gets back to the series.
Armond White liked it. Spielberg must have surveillance pics of White getting up to sumpin’.
Ebert: Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars.
Where’s Marcellin? R.H., you out here?
Ebert: “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys.
Can’t say I blame the robot.
“Ebert: “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys.
Can’t say I blame the robot."
Yeah, if I’m not mistaken, that would be Meagan Fox’s leg.
Go Dog, Go.
Don’t dump on Michael Bay, he’s out there making the movies he wants to make, every director should emulate that.
“…every director should emulate that.”
Every director should, RUS, but it doesn’t seem to stop people from dismissing Godard after 1967, and it’s certainly not going to stop people from dumping on Mr. Bay.
People, to Michael Bay, Art=money, that and/or France winery..
Francisco J. Torres
" His films need to be released as an Eclipse set, “Michael Bay: Films as Merde.”"
It is worse : it is Merde as Films.