Transform This, Bitch

No, that's not a quote from Transformers but it should have been. Apart from that slight mishap, I gotta say Transformers is kind of amazing. It's easily Michael Bay's best film - granted, not exactly a hard task but I do think he gets a bad rap sometimes when there are other directors, more prestigious directors, who make films and get praised every time purely because their movies are about depressed self-destructive people on drugs and not cars that turn into giant robots. Anyway, apart from this being Bay's best film, it's also:

The best movie in which a main character is called "Bumblebee"

The best movie in which the MacGuffin is moved from the desert to a highly-populated city because it's better to watch skyscrapers get smashed then cacti (I assume).

The best movie in which someone's character introduction are the words "I. Am. Megatron. !!!!!!!!!."

The best movie in which I felt empathy for a car that turns into a robot.

The best movie that features a discussion about masturbation and how it can be renamed "Sam's Happy Time" to dodge embarassment.

So, yes, Transformers is quite good. It's much much much better than Spider-Man 3 and I'm sure I'd much rather sit down and rewatch this than Pirates 3. It's actually, wait for it, fun! It's hard to believe that somebody tried to make a movie about cars than turn into robots and didn't decide to make it about their internal struggle and dilemmas. "But I don't wanna be a yellow camero! This is doing serious danger to my gender imbalance issues. My therapist will hear about this tomorrow!"

No, there are LAUGHS! There are AMAZING SPECIAL EFFECTS! There are TOUCHING MOMENTS BETWEEN HUMANS AND CARS THAT TURN INTO ROBOTS. There is even an incredibly bizarre moment when the president's face is obscured FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON!


I must say though, those special effects? WOW! I know it's not cool these days to get pumped up and geekified over special effects ("omigod that 'splosion was so cool!!!1") but DAMN! They are Am.Aze.Ing. And I don't split the word "amazing" up into a ridiculous-looking grammatically-incorrect turn of phrase very often. You know how they say the best visual effects are when you can't tell they're there? Well, it's quite obvious that they're there right in front of my eyes, but they look so freakin' real! There were some moments where I could have sworn they were using real models. There are even moments in the second half of the film where I (and my friend, for that matter) were feeling actual empathy for the cars that turn into robots. One scene inparticular between Bumblebee was sad and quite emotional. It's like the end of Terminator 2 but with chryogenic freezing instead of dissolving into molten steel.

The best scenes are actually the more quiet scenes that are just the Shia LeBeouf character corresponding with the cars that turn into robots. The scene at his character's place as he looks for the secondary MacGuffin is particularly well-done. Great humour there, too - from the humans and the cars that turn into robots. "Sam's Happy Time" is clearly the most amazing line of dialogue since anything in Casablanca. And, you know what? Casablanca doesn't have cars that turn into robots. Just so you know.

Lastly, the cast is generally fine. Josh Duhamel is basically given the biggest cliche possible and told to act accordingly, people like Jon Voight and Anthony Anderson do what they need to. Megan Fox only really shows any attitude towards the end. Rachael Taylor makes the transition from soap to star quite well, actually. And it's true what I always say, I only ever notice and Australian accent when it's surrounded by American ones. Shia LeBeouf? Well, I really like this guy. He's incredibly handsome and he has his bumbling-idiot routine down to a tee. I'm glad he's becoming famous because I've liked him since Holes. Of course, it could be that I have a lil crush on the guy, but whatever. I at least believe him as a High Schooler as opposed to the muscle queens we're routinely meant to suspend belief for.

So, in conclusion: Transformers has cars that turn into robots and I'd say that it's got a couple of Oscar nods in it's future too. That's all, thank you. B+

Soap to Star: Part 30384

It seems that everywhere you look these days there is another Aussie female soap star making it big overseas. We all know about the musical ones - There's been Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia and Natalie Bassingthwaighte (of the Rogue Traders) who all started out on Neighbours. There was even Holly Valance for a while there, and Radha Mitchell had a stint on Neighbours too in 1994. From Home & Away we received Dannii Minogue (singer and now frequent television talent contest judge), occasional Heroes co-star Lisa Lackey (she plays Greg Grunberg's wife), plus prominant up-and-coming Hollywood gals Melissa George (The Amityville Horror) and Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers). And let's not forget that Oscar winner Naomi Watts* appeared on Home & Away briefly.

Even Rachael Carpani from McLeod's Daughters (probably the apex of absurd australian soap operas, which is mighty impressive) was in a pilot for a new American series called Law Dogs with Janeane Garofalo and Mark-Paul Gosselaar, but I don't think it was picked up for series.

Anyway. After all of those I guess it's no surprise that Rachael Taylor should be about to "explode" onto the international stage. However, it does surprise me. It surprises me because she used to be on the tragic HeadLand - an incredibly expensive soap that Channel 7 produced thinking it would be a huge hit. And then it premiered and it went nowhere fast before swiftly getting the axe.

So, yes, it was with surprise that I found out a few weeks ago that not only is this Rachael Taylor girl in the upcoming Michael Bay-directed July 4 sure-to-be blockbuster Transformers. She's not just one of the background character if IMDb is to be believed. Over on Transformer's main page she is credited fourth under Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox and Josh Duhamel. She's credited above Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight, Anthony Anderson and John Turturro. Pretty good work for a no-name who couldn't even win the Best New Talent Logie Award.

Apart from Transformers she has a part in the upcoming Hugh Jackman-Ewan McGregor thriller The Tourist as well as the lead in a horror film called Shutter. Is there enough room in Hollywood for her? We'll see. I hope she can prove me wrong, but I didn't exactly see "STAR MATERIAL" in, admittedly, the one episode of HeadLand that I watched (the first episode).

*Naomi Watts won the Oscar for Mulholland Drive. Don't you remember? Halle Berry lost and Naomi won on a write-in vote.

That was also the movie in which fellow Home & Away stars Melissa George and Lisa Lackey played rival actresses. Crazy, huh? I know David Lynch has said he deliberated cast soap opera actresses but did he intentionally cast three from the same one?