As Woody Allen said, the heart wants what it wants. So, why are you here?

Transformers and Schindler's List

Watch Transformers in theaters or not at all. Loads of fun, but the silliest thing I have ever seen. If you watch it at home, you'll end up spending half the movie saying "hey, this movie doesn't have a plot. Hey! Do you see this? This movie actually has no plot whatsoever! I've never seen that before."

It's funny to me to hear Michael Bay talk about this movie, because he says things like "all my friends want to know why I'd do a silly movie like this, and I don't know what to tell them," and "this is just the most ridiculous thing I've been involved in," etc., etc.

Let me refresh your memory, Mr. Bay. You are Michael Bay. You made Armageddon, you made Pearl Harbor, you made a second Bad Boys movie eleven years after you made the first one. Frankly, it could be argued this is the most serious thing you've ever done, that's how ridiculous your career is. Do not, for a moment, try to give us your "auteur director" b.s. We see through your web of lies.

On the complete flip side, I watched Schindler's List for the first time last night. A lot of the shock was gone for me since the film has become so entrenched in our film conscious that most of the stunning, blood-run-cold bits were a bit dulled, in the same way it would be if I'd watched Empire Strikes Back for the first time tonight while still having lived in pop culture for the past 23 years ("oh, look, Darth Vader is Luke's father. Shocker.").

Still, that's a film of some real raw power, isn't it? The best parts were whenever I got to a bit that I didn't know anything about - that Auschwitz shower scene, for example, I knew nothing about - and all of a sudden my stomach clenched with a "what's going to happen? How terrible is this going to end? I can't take it!" type of suspense, which I imagine is what it would've been like for people who saw the film when it came out. I wish I'd seen it then.

Labels: Schindler's List, transformers

posted by Ben Wyman @ 5:12 PM