If it weren't for those meddling kids.

Insert Obligatory George Allen Joke Here

Transformers
Michael Bay, 2007
Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, Jon Voight, Peter Cullen

Brief Summary: Autobots wage their battles to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons

Less Brief Summary: Transformers is a touching story of a socially awkward boy who manages to snag the girl of his dreams against a backdrop of chaos, and the touching story of a soldier in the middle east struggling to survive overwhelming odds to make it back home to his loving wife and the daughter he hasn't yet met.

Oh, and it's got giant robots in it.

I went to see Transformers last night on the assumption that, this being Michael Bay, it would be a big, beautiful mess: a lot of flashy and exciting and visually impressive action sequences, linked together with a nonsensical and very think spackling of plot.

As it turned out, I had it exactly backwards.

For some reason, the thing that they did, despite it being really obvious, did not occur to me until about the second scene of the film, when we first meet Sam Witwicky (LeBeouf): It is hard to make a successful mainstream movie that is "about" giant CGI robots -- the fans would hate it because of all the things they got "wrong" (Megatron is an alien spaceship, not a Walther P38. Now, Megatron hasn't been a gun since the end of the original series, what with it being a really bad idea to sell a realistic replica of a gun to children to play with. And, I suppose the fact that Megatron no longer violates the law of conservation of matter quite so blatantly soothes my inner geek), and non-fans wouldn't like it because it was, well, about giant CGI robots. So what they did instead was to make this a movie with giant CGI robots, not about giant CGI robots.

Transformers is not a giant fighting robot movie. It's not even quite a monster movie, with the thin veneer of plot encasing a story in which Godzilla really is the star. Transformers is a disaster movie. It's a story about a small band of people struggling to survive under fire from a barely-comprehensible menace from space which spits destruction indescriminantly and against which mankind is essentially powerless.

In point of fact, I was reminded of nothing so much as Deep Impact (Some would say that Armageddon is a closer fit, being another Bay big-flashy-lights-and-splosions feast, but Transformers is much more about the human drama than Armageddon). In fact, we've even got a "meteor" strike as the protoform Autobots crash to Earth.
And since here there be spoilers, you'd better wait until after the jump...

Continue reading "Exactly the same amount as meets the eye" »

I hear that happened to Moses once.

So, as mentioned previously, I bought a car.

This has proben to be a an expensive operation, nickel-and-diming the hell out of me. So far...

• $90 - Engine diagnostic and disposal of the old car
• $3399.00 - Purchase price of the car
• $954.10 - Taxes, Tags, and MD State Inspection repairs
• $6.96 - Wiring harness adapter
• $8.50 - Center Console Pocket (Necessary to fill the extra space in the dash left by...)
• $179.99 - New stereo to replace the old one that sucked
• $1.05 - Bandages for the cuts on my hand from pulling the stock stereo out
• -$4.23 - Found in change inside the stock radio
• $29.95 - Keyless entry fob that isn't compatibile with my car
• $32.99 - Keyless entry fob that is compatible with my car
• $19.99 - Faux Suede seat cover for the passenger seat, since Leah sticks to leather.
• $7.99 - Steering wheel cover the day after I parked in direct sunlight and nearly defleshed my hands
• $38 - New power antenna that isn't quite compatible with my car but which I managed to get in there anyway
• $30.98 - Performance module
• $11.58 - SD cards for the new stereo

This news from Sony, already famous for creating the Camcorder NightShot feature, best known for the fact that under the right lighting conditions, it can show you your subject's nipples.

Pervs.

(Warning: Will Suck Your Time)

The Attractors

[1 point]

Because this one is so cheap, I'll give you a double-dose.

First, I just really like how it appears in this news snippet that Bush's reaction to Congress growing some ethics is the pouty-face look.

I think Google News must have some sort of clever algorithm for deciding which President Bush Expression to assocate with each article, because this one threw up the same image: