michael bay

5 unsettling things I found in Fury

Posted on by Late Night

War really is hell

When I first started seeing theatrical trailers for Fury, I would inwardly (and sometimes openly) groan with displeasure, because I feel that the last thing this world needs is another movie that glorifies the violent taking of other people’s shit, commonly known as war.  So I was pretty much planning on not seeing it… until I read some of the reviews and learned that glorification was the absolute last thing on director David Ayer’s mind.  Which makes sense for someone who claims that his favorite movie is Apocalypse Now.

David Denby of The New Yorker (whom I usually ignore) calls it “one of the great war movies…”   I might take issue with that, but I readily admit that it is an involving piece of cinema about the very harrowing prospect of life and death in a tank in an old, bloody war.  Many people will not like this film, just as many didn’t like other war movies bent on telling the truth about the ultimate futility of fighting, but it is hard to argue this film’s visceral impact. Check out the trailer and then my 5 things:

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Hackery 101 – Pissing Off the Fanboys

Posted on by HakSnider33

Michael Bay

Michael Bay is gearing up to destroy TMNT

by HakSnider33
Recently, an extreme amount of nerd rage has been directed towards Michael Bay, the producer of the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, over the announcement that his team will be changing the TMNT origin story.

These turtles are from an alien race, and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely loveable.

As if that quote was not ominous enough on its own, Bay threw even more gasoline on the fire using word choices that exuded that classic Michael Bay swag when Bay responded to the irate fanboys with the following message on his website:

Fans need to take a breath, and chill … They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.

Not exactly reassuring words coming from the man who directed films that transformed the once heroic Optimus Prime into a homicidal lunatic . However, the combination of TMNT fanboy anger and Bay’s arrogant, “nerds, go back into your mother’s basement” response serve to highlight one of the core skills that every hack director must keep in his locker — the ability to effortlessly piss off fanboys.

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The Hack’s Toolbox – Recycled Cliches

Posted on by HakSnider33

Michael Bay's Epic Opus The Rock

by HakSnider33
Previously, we examined one of the tools used by visionary filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Orson Wells, Park Chan-Wook and Martin Scorsese – the long take.  Today, we will look at one of the most prominent tools in the hack filmmaker toolbox – the recycled cliche.  A cliche is something that is trite or overused, and according to our definition of a hack filmmaker, one of the primary things that make a filmmaker a hack is the creation of dull, unimaginative, mediocre or banal work. Read More