The Razzie nominations for the worst in film this year have been announced and it’s no surprise Michael Bay‘s Revenge of the Fallen at the top of the nomination list. Sandra Bullock, after winning a Golden Globe, and deep into the running for an Oscar, has been nominated for a Razzie for her “work” in All About Steve. Could we possibly see the same actress take home the Academy Award and Razzie? Land of the Lost also had a high number of nominations. I didn’t think the film was completely terrible, but I can see why it’s on the list. Although, I’ll be upset if the worst film of the year by a large margin, Revenge of the Fallen doesn’t sweep. Check out the full list of noms below. Read the full story

It’s no surprise after the box office success of the Transformers series that Hasbro would be itching to bring it’s other big toy line to the big screen. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra has arrived. While it isn’t great it does have the element of surprise and fun that the first Transformers film was successful at. This is the first time we get to see these toys on the big screen and Sommers packs enough action in that we are able to have a fun time with the film.

Stephen Sommers, who hasn’t made anything worthwhile since The Mummy, brings his stylistic campiness to the film and it works in his favor. The story revolves around key Joe characters Duke (Channing Tatum) and his partner Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) protecting a very dangerous weapon created by an evil mastermind and it just screams campiness. It is easy to deal with though because partnered with the campiness we get a few well-done action sequences.

Even during the moments when the film goes into unnecessary back story for some of the characters it is still a bit of a rush. Unfortunately, you can spot every plot twist coming a mile away – understandable but still unacceptable. It is nice that the trailer didn’t give away as much as I thought it did though. The story is about as deep as you would expect from a G.I. Joe movie and Sommers.

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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is the standard formula summer action movie. It is mindless, cheesy, and yet still remains fun. While most expected a disaster, this is far from it. This is a film that does replace character development with nonstop action, but it still works. It is filled with a few impressive action sequences and also a few notable characters. While this won’t go down as a highlight of the summer, it is far from being the worst movie of the summer.

The story revolves around soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) who must guard a case that contains nanomites, a very dangerous weapon that was developed by an evil weapons manufacturing company named M.A.R.S. Dealer. James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) is the head of this organization and he has plans to sabotage this mission so the weapons would appear to be stolen. Leading this attack is the Baronness (Sienna Miller), who is also Duke’s former girlfriend. After the attack Duke and Ripcord are saved by a secret military team thats run by General Hawk (Dennis Quaid). After this rescue Hawk enlists them to be apart of team G.I. Joe which includes Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park), Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui). Once all of them team up they must stop Destro before he causes destruction all across the world!

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Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend a premiere for the upcoming G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. While I didn’t get to talk to any of the actors, except when I yelled a question at Channing Tatum, I did however get to talk to the two men I was most eager to interview, director Stephen Sommers and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. Lorenzo di Bonaventura is undoubtedly one of the most successful producers working today and I had the opportunity to talk to him about Transformers 3, Jack Ryan, Constantine, and what characters he would like to see appear in the inevitable G.I. Joe sequel.

Hey Lorenzo nice to meet you, you’ve produced a lot of good films.

Lorenzo: Hey man, thank you. How you doing?

Good, so how excited are you to have another another big hit on your hands with Transformers 2 and this?

Lorenzo: (laughs) Transformers has been a total ball, you know? Its been great how embraced we’ve been, but this isn’t a hit yet.

Its going to be.

Lorenzo: (laughs) I hope your right. You know for me its almost bad luck to presume it, so its like… I love to see the enthusiasm here and its really great.

Is Transformers 3 still planned for 2010?

Lorenzo: We don’t know the answer, but not 2010. We’ve never discussed that, its either 2011 or 2012.

Editor’s Note: The official date Paramount set was June, 2011. I accidently said 2010 instead which of course could never happen.

You’ve always seemed to be open about how unfair fans have been towards the film (G.I. Joe), but during the past few days with the reviews glowing reviews coming in it seems like fans are now starting to embrace it. How’s that for you as a producer to see fans finally starting to embrace the film?

Lorenzo: Well its a relief, the drag about the internet is… Listen, I’m on it all the time and its an incredible resource because we get to interact with the fans. What’s a drag is that there seems to be a very vocal minority that presumes failure before they really can judge it. Thats the part for a filmmaker thats really hard, to hear a drumbeat of criticism and anyone feels that naturally. On the other hand there’s guys on the internet we exchange a lot of back and forth with, and we learn what the fans want from that. So if you come in with an open mind and an open heart we can interact with you in a great way.

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In a rather standard weekend at the movies, Sacha Baron Cohen’s new mock-u-comedy Bruno brought in an estimated $30.5 million against Fox’s wide release, the broad Graduation Night comedy I Love You Beth Cooper, which fell head-over-heels with an estimated $5 million. For general box office projections, see the article in Variety. For a more detailed estimation of the full weekend, go Box Office Mojo.

Click for more box office information >>

Talking to horror site ShockTilYouDrop (via CinemaBlend) today, writer and director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist) discussed the process of getting his adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451.  Both the movie and the book are set in a dystopian future where books are outlawed and burned, and how the main protagonist, Guy Montag, struggles with his occupation as a book burner in a society void of free thinking.

Darabont has been trying to adapt the book for years now, but has faced obstacles in getting the film made.  Tom Hanks was set to star, re-teaming the duo from The Green Mile .  But due to prior commitments he had to drop, even though Darabont has said “It needs to be somebody like [Hanks] who has the ability to trigger a greenlight but is also the right guy for the part. It’s a narrow target. It’s a short list of people.”  He also said that when he would take it to studios, even if the studio heads responded positively to the material, they felt it would be too mature or too difficult for modern audiences (a similar problem faced by Watchmen throughout it’s extensive production).  If production is further stalled, he may move on for the time being to his next movie, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Long Walk (written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman).

Stories like these help further illustrate the problems inherent in the studio systems today.  That a movie like Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen directed by Michael Bay can get greenlit the weekend of its predecessors release two years prior, but an adaptation of an acclaimed novel to be directed by Frank Darabont can’t find funding is sickening.  Darabont is one of the most skilled people making movies today, having already made Shawshank, The Green Mile, and The Mist (I’ll forgive The Majestic), and his vision for Fahrenheit 451 seems like it would be a fascinating experience.  Hopefully people will come to their senses, and, as they do occasionally, give smart, subversive material by great filmmakers a chance to break through into the mainstream.

What do you think of Frank Darabont’s career, and would you want him to make a Fahrenheit 451 movie?

By Jordan Raup

Editor’s Note: This review does contain spoilers.

During a scene in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen John Turturro’s (The Taking of Pelham 123, Margot at the Wedding) character demands an autobot to reveal the “plot” and “get to the point”. This is one of the only scenes in the film in which I could genuinely relate to. As we move from scattered and tedious action scenes to cringe-worthy conversations I was desperately pleading for something in the film to have some sort of motivation behind it. That moment never occurred and Revenge of the Fallen devolved into a complete disaster of a film. The main problem lies with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman’s  (Star Trek, Mission Impossible 3) script, but they aren’t all to blame. Michael Bay’s (Transformers, Bad Boys 2) mind-numbing action scenes are somehow inferior to those of the first film, having little energy, and even less comprehension behind them.

The barely understandable plot follows Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LaBeouf (Eagle Eye, Indiana Jones IV), going to college and trying to work out things with Mikaela Banes, played by Megan Fox (How To Lost Friends & Alienate People, Transformers). He somehow finds a scrap of the Allspark from the first film, which ignites him into full psycho mode, writing symbols everywhere. The rest of the film we are led to believe the Decepticons can only take over the world by getting a device  called “The Matrix of Leadership” (how long did that take to come up with?), which can only be found through Sam’s brain.

Check out the rest of the review below >>

By Jack Giroux

Editor’s Note: This review does contain spoilers.

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is an underwhelming follow up to a highly entertaining blockbuster. This sequel does contain “explosive action”, but it comes too scarce and is almost incomprehensible. It is incredibly dumb, bloated, and runs far too long for an action film with no brain. This is, without a doubt, one of the biggest disappointments of the summer.

After fighting in a war Sam Witwicky is trying his best to live a normal life while going off to college. After discovering the last remaining piece of the all spark he starts seeing symbols leading to the truth about the Transformers ancient origins. Sam is taken away from his failed attempt at a normal when it becomes known that the fallen Decepticons are soon ready to rage war. They soon attempt on taking him prisoner to bring total destruction upon earth. With the help of Optimus Prime and the other Autobots, Sam must once again fight his way to saving mankind.

Check out the rest of the review below >>

A few days ago I was lucky enough to be able to do an on-phone interview with Scott Farrar the special effects supervisor and second unit director on Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. You may not recognized Scott by name, but you have surely seen his work. Scott’s masterful resumé includes Star Wars VI- Return of The Jedi, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Jurassic Park, Men in Black, Artificial Intelligence: AI, and many other classic films. His work on both the Transformer films are ground breaking achievements in special effects.

How’s it going Scott? Big fan by the way.

Scott Farrar: Very well, thank you.

Was it a challenge getting all the effects done in a two year span and how much time did you have to work on the first film?

Scott Farrar: Well on the first film, actually each film took about a year and a half. We start with the script and then we start breaking it down to figure out how many shots and how much work is going to be involved. So after reading the script we realize, “Oh my gosh there are forty to six new characters!”, and they have major speaking roles and they have to act a lot better then they did in the first one. So right away you see some pretty daunting challenges.

So how do you make sure all the robots are different and unique in their own way? So when they are battling the audience can tell the difference between an autobot and a decepticon.

Scott Farrar: Well we know that in the first movie some of the characters were a little bit confusing because some of their colors looked similar. So that was a big note from fans and audiences. So we tried very hard to make sure we had colors and shapes that were a little easier to tell apart. So we try to make sure the fallen standout and hopefully the voice actors help the audience recognize some of the characters. It’s pretty easy for us to keep track of the characters because each one has a name so right away we start calling them by their name when watching dailies. So we can recognize that buffoon Starscream kissing up to Megatron! (Laughs)

Check out the rest of the interview below >>

Director Michael Bay has been doing the promotional tour for his upcoming sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, due out June 24.  While promoting, Bay was asked how he would feel about doing a third film in the franchise, and his response is not what you would expect.

A story reported on IMDb (via IGN) quotes him as saying that he’s done with the franchise.  His exact words on the matter are:

“After the three-and-a-half years I’ve spent making these movies, I feel like I’ve had enough of the Transformers world, I need to do something totally divergent, something without any explosions.”

“It’s easy to go shoot an art movie in a winery in the South of France. But people have no idea how hard it is to create something like Transformers. They [the critics] review me before they’ve even seen the movie.”

This news comes as a big shock to myself and to fans of the Transformers franchise.  In February in a video interview with Collider, Bay seemed pretty intent on doing a third film, stating that he would “need a year of time off before filming”.  But now he seems to have a sudden change of heart on the whole series.  I enjoyed Transformers for what it was, and while I think the new movie looks, well, terrible, fans of the franchise seems to think that it looks like a worthy sequel.  His comment about critics and his movies seems to carry a certain bitterness to it, as if it’s actually starting to get to him.  A few months ago I wrote a story about Bay wanting to do a smaller film, and it almost seems certain that might be his next movie judging on his comments above.  What this also says for the future of Transformers as a movie franchise is completely left up in the air after his statements made today.

Are you surprised at this news?  Why do you think Bay had this sudden desire to get away from the series?