Googling for movie line I ended up electing not to include in a blog comment, I came across this AV Club list of things Woody Allen just doesn’t get (as revealed by his films). Commenter Indeer opined “Michael Bay is the opposite of Woody Allen. Woody Allen doesn’t understand anything about the human beings outside himself while Bay probably engages in zero introspection but has a strong grasp on what many, many other people are-and hence what they like.” I suppose it’s not too original an idea (haven’t there been a number of movies where some sort of man-child is hired by a big company because he/she/it knows in their gut “what the people want”?), but I don’t think I’ve had a post about it before. Michael Bay has become too much of a synecdoche for what people of taste (like “people of color” or of gender) dislike so I invite others who watch movies to give examples.
Compare also an anonymous commenter’s claim that Clint Eastwood’s “monkey movies” were some of his biggest commercial successes as well as Country of the Blind.
August 3, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Like deep-fried Twinkies, Michael Bay takes several relatively inoffensive guilty pleasures and makes them obnoxious in the purity of their fusion.
There’s nothing wrong with liking action, violence, and visual display. But having too much of a good thing makes them distasteful. It’s like eating a whole bag of potato chips and then feeling sick.
How far into “too far” can a person go before their works become ironically good? (Think Blaxploitation movies and Camp.)
August 3, 2010 at 2:57 pm
This goes into some of that:
http://www.slate.com/id/2262214
“How Not Having a Car Became Hollywood shorthand for Loser.”
In short, Woody Allen = no car. Michael Bay = car.
August 3, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I need to try a deep-fried Twinky. And Scottish style Mars Bar.
I looked up Michael Bay on Wikipedia to see if he has any good movies to his name (I think Armageddon is the only one I actually sat through in full). I was surprised to learn that he’s adopted.
Dain, that seems to be a New York vs L.A issue.
August 4, 2010 at 5:15 am
It’s immeasurable. Transcendent. Like a poetry of film.
August 4, 2010 at 10:23 pm
That movie is so bad it actually is bad. I don’t know how anyone is able to sit through it without RiffTrax.