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But yeah, they're both sorta right and mostly full of themselves. How sad. And I definitely agree that his help with actors' careers is overblown. The man makes summer blockbusters; a lot of exposure for the actors is incidental to the mainstream audience that the genre tries to attract. The actors Bay listed, I argue that they got big for movies other than the ones Bay directed (Cage, Leaving Las Vegas; Affleck, Good Will Hunting; Will Smith, Independence Day; Shia LaBeouf...just sucks, if Indy 4 was any indicator). Any attractive person could be in a Bay film and get big (Hi Megan!), just like any other competent, special-effects talented director probably could've done a good, if not better, job with Transformers than Bay (you're telling me JJ Abrams, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, even the initial choice of Spielberg, they couldn't have done a better job?)
1. Michael Bay is absolutely an auteur. I am not the biggest Michael Bay fan in the world, though I do enjoy some his films, he has a style and a substance that cannot be replicated. If you really want to look back at all his films there are THEMES and a WORLDVIEW, no matter how silly or dumb or pathetic they are, that you can find. Ed Wood was also an auteur. I have seen a lot of his movies and he has a style and substance that, as bad as they both are, cannot be reproduced. Also there are themes that he keeps on going back to. Here is an excerpt of the Manohla Dargis review of Transformers 2.
"Mr. Bay is an auteur. His signature adorns every image in his movies, as conspicuously as that of Lars von Trier, and every single one is inscribed with a specific worldview and moral sensibility. Mr. Bay’s subject — overwhelming violent conquest — is as blatant and consistent as his cluttered mise-en-scène. His images, particularly during the frequent action sequences, can be difficult to visually track, but they are also consistently disjointed. (And proudly self-referential: the only director he overtly cites is himself, with a shot of the poster for his movie “Bad Boys II.”) The French filmmaker Jacques Rivette once described an auteur as someone who speaks in the first person. Mr. Bay prefers to shout. "
2. All of those people that Michael Bay mentioned were big stars before they appeared in any of his films. Nicolas Cage and Ben Affleck were both Oscar winners when they worked with Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf had already opened a movie that went on to gross over $100 million worldwide, and Martin Lawrence and Will Smith were both pretty big names at the time of Bad Boys.
3. He completely misread her quote. She wasn't ripping on Transformers 2 as much as just saying that the acting is not the thing you go for when you go to see a Michael Bay film. I am pretty sure that is true.
2. and 3. Agreed, though beyond Bay misreading the quote, I am willing to argue that he would still find offense at the "acting is not his thing" statement. My only reason for arguing this is because one of Transformers 2's biggest weaknesses is that too much of the film's focus was on the progresson of Shia LaBeouf's character. While that's usually not a bad thing, it is the lack of a serious focus on acting that makes this a poor choice of script execution. Yet he still chooses to linger on Sam, moreso than he did in the first film and to the point where EVERYBODY took a back seat to him, which signified (to me, anyway) that he wanted the crux of the film's epic scope to be on the character undertaking a hero's journey as opposed to being the human counterpoint to a giant robot fight. But either way, yeah, agreed on both points.
The movies are actor proof.
- I am not at all surprised Michael Bay described LaBeouf's career with "Explosion".
Almost.
Hope the third man won't take the same road
Just do it, nimrod.
Let's be real. The reason ROTF is making money is because it's based on a beloved 80's Cartoon and there wasn't shit else to do for two weeks or so. People wanted a distraction, they got it. Michael Jackson died and next week we'll move on to something else. Megan Fox is just an accessory along the way.
Michael Bay has a time and a place ... and that time and place caters for many millions of people. There is nothing wrong with him at all and his movies are always a bit of fun. I, for one, like our robot overlord director.
Megan Fox is awesome... For those of you who think she's a snob for saying the truth, wtf? I consider her relatively normal.
"syaaaaaamm" I dunno how to explain it.
Except, you know, not.
SUPER AWESOME ROBOT FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
/grandpa rant
//sarcasm
Maybe he's just not good with women...
Bay just gives bad actors good money
quoted from www.wwtdd.com
I live in hope he won't do Transformers 3 - given the uproar over ROTF can you imagine how closely scrutinised EVERYTHING in the next movie would be...? Come on Mr Spielberg - Please.......
Fox has a lot going for her at the moment. Fox is the current go-to-hot chick in hollywood, but there is one every couple of years so she should enjoy it while it last and try not to burn so many damm bridges.
I think she has a lot to offer in way of talent, she is someone that I believe could really pull off a great drama based role given the right material and right director.
By now even Bayhem has realized he's all about the size of the explosions and that's it.
Probably you already talked about this, but how many of you are tired of the "circling crane Bay shot" ? I think I counted 7 in Transformers 2.
Michael Bay knows how to make a movie. He happens to like explosions and action - so what? He happens to like event movies - so what?
This movie was hampered on the writing side by a crazy tight timeline, and nobody willing to say "Back to the drawing board". ROTF feels like a script that never made it past the outline stage, and one that was written in a weekend. There are some COLOSSALLY catastrophic choices in some of the characterizations, but when everything is rushed during the writing process, this is what you get.
The studio is even more responsible. The release date was a year to early, and the blame falls squarely on the studio. Moreover, the budget for this was very high, which means Bay, Kurtzman, and Orci all have to do what the studio wants. If they want another character or two worked in so that their deal with the toy company has more potential, then fine, I understand that part of the business. BUT, as a creative type (filmmaker or writer), the inclusion of an extra character can throw off the whole balance of a movie... and because the studio has so much money riding on the project, they have the final say.
The problem here is not Michael Bay, the problem is with the studio and the writers.
Megan Fox can probably act... but how many Megan Fox toys are going to be out there for sale? This movie is about entertaining people and selling toys (and maybe a little Armed Forces recruitment, but that's a whole other conversation).
Megan should be a professional. She's a household name, she should be grateful for the chance to be in a pair of films that will gross over $1.5 billion worldwide. If she wants to 'act', she should take on smaller films (as she has with Jennifer's Body)... but don't go blaming Bay for not letting her act. It's not his choice.
Michael needs to just leave this stupidity alone instead of responding. I understand that he's probably frustrated that people keep targeting him on all of this, but his responses aren't helping. If he responds like Uwe Boll, he'll get the reputation of Uwe Boll. The best way to defeat the critics is to make a great film. The best way to do that, is to keep the budget under $20million so that you actually have some control over the content.
Though I don't think Fox is a good actress Bay sucks at making a coherent story.
Michael Bay needs to grow up and stop picking public fights with actors and directors.
He just had an academy award for Leaving las vegas the year before The Rock.
But it surely means nothing.
Also "to blow smoke up in people's ass" WTF does that even mean?!
Megan's intellectual level is low and she pretends she talks like this because she wants to.Its because she can't talk in any other fashion.
Michal Bay = evil (also,he is a total douche...)
I don't watch Megan Fox movies for the movie or the acting. Just like I don't watch Michael Bay movies for the great writing and direction. No harm, no foul. Lighten up, people.