The latest:

>> Every douchebag has his day! Michael Bay's upcoming movie, "The Island," is receiving left-handed praise from such unlikely entities as Slate ("Bay has a fluid, gliding camera—he's using quick cuts to create atmosphere") and the Village Voice ("It's big, it's loud, it has no context, and if you show up tanked, I'm sure it's really quite poetic"). The argument seems to be that we've somehow suffered at the movies this summer, and only the director of "Armageddon" and "Pearl Harbor" can save us from ... I don't know, staying fucking home and not paying $12 to watch an out-of-focus picture and fifteen minutes of Coke ads.

In any case, I come here today not to insult Bay, but to offer qualified praise unto him. On the official movie site, there are trailers specially prepared for both the US market and the international market. The US trailer is loaded to overflow with all the silly horseshit we've come to demand from our coming attractions: quick editing, fast percussion, slo-mo shots of cars flipping over and the "in a world" guy. By comparsion -- and compare you must -- the international trailer is glacially-paced: it has less cuts, slower music, and presents a dialogue scene practically intact. There's a superflous shot of a character drinking wine -- hey, Europeans dig wine, right? And the "in a world" announcer is replaced by text. Text! Like the stuff you read.

The international trailer makes "The Island" look like a film I'd actually want to see. The US trailer is so full of noise, visual and auditory, that I can easily tune it out. Though he didn't set out to do such a thing, Michael Bay has beautifully illustrated what's wrong with the American mind, and for that, I commend the glib fuck. And I also thank him for putting Scarlett Johansen in form-fitting jumpsuits.
posted by Geoff Carter at 6:39 PM