You Me and Optimus Prime, James Struthers Official Music Video

Here is a funny spin on wish fulfillment when a fry cook fantasizes that everything would be fine if only Optimus Prime was his buddy. From Canadian song writer James Struthers, here is the official music video " You Me and Optimus Prime.

YouTube link

Review: Transformers - Dark of the Moon

Transformers - Dark of the Moon

Directed by Michael Bay

Starring
Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand

Would someone please explain the meaning of self restraint to Michael Bay please! Oh and excuse me for saying this but how much did Leonard settle for to proselytize himself in this farce? The needs of the many my ass!

Ok, you know the game already....Transformers Autobots Decepticons....Autobots saving the Earth, Deceticons want to destroy Autobots oh and what the hell, Earth and all it’s inhabitants for good measure.

The setup? In the 60s an impact is registered on the moon. Apollo is rushed into existence to ostensibly beat the Soviets to the Moon when in fact it was a secret mission to explore the crash site. Armstrong in fact discovers a ship with a metal man in the wreckage.

Forward to present time and an Autobot mission is put in place to recover the ancient Autobot pilot and his precious cargo.

In truth this all is one big trap - way over though and full of holes but basically entails setting up a wormhole to transport the Autobot’s home “planet” to Earth and various other machinations to destroy Earth and enslave Humans.

This movie is plainly one big mess. Bay telegraphs the plot worse than you best friend sitting beside you that has seen the movie before and is constantly elbowing you with “here is comes!” and “Oh this next part is awesome!” The plot is schizophrenic not knowing if its a straight action movie or a comedy and winds up a campy knock off of itself. I am not saying the movie isn’t fun to watch at times (some of the visual effects are stunning) but there are times when I found myself screaming at the screen! Mostly with Nemoy proselytizing his Star Trek lines.....other times you will laugh but for the most part this episode is a clear “show me the money” effort.

The Blu-ray follows suit as well. There is NOTHING extra for the disk fan. Movie period Which proves my point. And for me that means...rent the movie if you are bored but don’t expect greatness or even extras... The movie is a seven in my book. ehhhhhh

Fan made Transformer short!

Fan made movies are seriously off the hook! When home made films are taken as the real thing or backroom productions rival the multi-million dollar "pros", you just got to know that film making far from being dead is entering a somewhat second childhood. There is definitely a wild wild west feel to some of these shorts.

Take for example this Transformers fan movie. Alexander Semenov has created what he titled Transformers test film 1. The basic plot line seems to be that two eastern European gents have a bit of a transformer throw down. But twists being what they are, the addage never bring a knife to a gun fight applies. Make sure you watch the production animations at the end.

Transformers from repey815 on Vimeo.

Review: Transformer & Transformers Revenge of the fallen

Transformers 2007
Director Michael Bay
Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro

Revenge 2009
Director Michael Bay
Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro

Remember the old Saturday morning cartoon about robot that change into cars jets and trucks? Robot in disguise! remember? Well even though I was captivated by animation, I found the whole concept of transforming robots too big of a "suspension of belief" to swallow. And if they were alien robots, why did they have stupid names like Autobots and Decepticons? Decepticons? Hey they all changed into cars and stuff! And Optimus Prime? Who thought of these names? So you can see, I was not a fan of the cartoon, and transferred that to the movies.

I decided to watch both movies back to back just to get an idea of the CGA and see why they movies were so popular. In the first movie, rival autobot (autobots?!!!) try to discover the whereabouts of an ancient cube that will allow the Autobots to once again populate their war devastated world. Their only clue to its location is a pair of glasses etched with the location and belonging to the lead character Sam.

The observation that comes to mind with the first movie is that Bay took himself and the movie way too seriously. Perhaps overcompensating for the fact that he is making a movie about Saturday morning cartoon characters. While the action sequences are spectacular, the dialogue is ponderous as the robots are large and verging on dogmatic. Heavy handed comes to mind quite easily. The only person who seems to be camping their character is Turturro.

Bay telegraphs the movies climax that you are left wondering why he drags it out so long.

The movie is by the numbers geeky guy in high-school, buys car (or whatever) that has weird powers, and is drawn into a conflict way beyond what he ever expected and (I swear I am not giving anything away) becomes the hero in the end. Star Wars anyone? Harry Potter? Back to the Future?

The film is diverting, the action is good, the DVD has bupkus for special features.

So lets talk about Revenge of the Fallen

And Bay loosens his sphincter and quite possibly has fun with Transformers 2. The movie is for all intents a carbon of the first. The hero is tired, dispirited and wants nothing more than to have a normal life, but is pulled back in by the original conflict.

With the last movie, we were lead to believe that the Autobots on Earth were fighting the few Decepticons left but since the cube was destroyed there was little left to fight about. But now there are shards! No Kidding! Who woulda thought! Kidding aside, Revenge is just plain more fun. Nowhere near as heavy handed as the first. Humor and campiness is in ready supply. If anything, Turturro is allowed to run wild with his character and that alone would have been worth the price of the movie. He brings to life this maniacal conspiracy theorist recluse living with his mother in a New York deli. He can deliver a line like "remember the sacrifices I have made for my country" and make that and other one liners something especially funny. The action sequences are if anything even more spectacular. You completely buy into 50 foot robots beating the crap out of each other on busy city streets. The plot is no less formulaist than the first movie, but the humor quite literally ties the move together and keeps the flow going. Scenes like the little demon decepticon that changes into an RC truck? Found that he could switch sides, clings to the girl friend's leg and then pantomime some pretty rude behavior. Sam says..."you do realize what its doing to your leg right?" and the girl friend replies "yeah, but he is so cute!" all done with a falsetto voice saying things like "oh yeah, who's your daddy now?" and "oh you like that don't you!" I know...bathroom humor but it demonstrates a director willing to have fun and be a bit less pendatic with his material. I know I laughed.

So if you have been sitting on the fence with this DVD, the movie is entertaining enough to make at the very least a rental worth it. But forget about any extras. If there were any, I couldn't find them. Which means I guess I am seeing a trend now. No one it seems is bending over backwards to make the DVD value added anymore. It really is a shame because that is how the format was promoted. You could have so much more than what a vhs could offer. The commentaries, deleted scenes, trailers what have you. Perishingly few DVDs seem to be offering anything anymore.