Somewhere in Hollywood the following conversation is taking place:
“Hey! Aren’t you Michael Bay? Man, I loved “Bad Boys”, “The Rock”, and “Armageddon”!
“Why, thank you!” He replies, beaming.
“Wait! Aren’t you the same Michael Bay that also did “Bad Boys II”, “The Island”, and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”?
Bay lowers his eyes and nods sheepishly.
“Son of a bitch! My girlfriend had to get an MRI because of how loud that Transformers shit was! F**k you, man! I want my money back!”
“Um…cash or check?”
In Hollywood, when you’re up, you’re UP, and when you’re down, you’re DOWN. I recalled this point while expressing my opinions on “Transformers” sole Oscar nomination (for sound mixing!) this year during our recent Round Table podcast, which you can find HERE (shameless plug!). I felt, if anything, that the film was a great example of BAD sound mixing, and completely undeserving of any type of award recognition (except, of course, the Razzies).
I hold Michael Bay completely responsible for this refuse, who apparently believes that every turd that falls from his movie making ass will turn into gold. This trend of directors falling hard from their previous lofty works has been a long standing one in the industry. Some fall harder than others, as the two following examples illustrate:
In 1988 French director George Sluizer made a superb thriller called “The Vanishing”, in which a distraught young man (Gene Bervoets) relentlessly searches for three years to find out what happened to his girlfriend (Johanna ter Steege), who was abducted without a trace from a rest stop while they were on vacation. Eventually he encounters the abductor, and essentially forces the man to walk him through exactly what happened to his girlfriend when she was kidnapped. This leads to a stunningly ironic (and unforgettable) ending that thoroughly befits the rest of the story.
A few years later Hollywood is in remake mode, and they call upon Sluizer to adapt his own film (with the same title) for American audiences, this time with Kiefer Sutherland and Nancy Travis as the couple. You’d think this would be a slam dunk with the original director on board, right? Well, think again. Somewhere along the line Sluizer would bow to Hollywood pressure and actually altar his ending to reflect a happier outcome, thus undermining the entire point of the story! This is the equivalent of Michael Curtiz changing the ending of “Casablanca” to show Rick and Ilsa escaping together. After being subjected to critical outrage and a box office bomb, Sluizer would eventually retreat back to France, where I’m sure he felt like Judas for betraying his own vision and taking the 30 pieces of silver from Hollywood’s coffers.
An even worse film legacy would be left by Italian director Ruggero Deodato, who in 1980 graced us with the cinematic classic, “Cannibal Holocaust”. This was one of those ‘found footage’ films, similar to “The Blair Witch Project”, and the more recent “Paranormal Activity”, where a group of anthropologists venture into a VERY bad section of South American jungle, only to find themselves raped, murdered, then (adding insult to injury) eaten. A class act all the way.
So classy, in fact, that when the film was released there was such an outrage over the material that it was banned in just about every country on the planet! While the animals slaughtered in the film were in fact real (the days before such animal protection laws came into effect), the human actor’s deaths were only a result of some clever editing and surprisingly lifelike special effects for the time. That fact didn’t deter the public, however, who believed that Deodato had made a snuff film! This poor bastard would be repeatedly called in court again and again over the years with the actors in tow to prove that they were alive and well! Imagine that! So disillusioned by the experience, Deodato would later come to regret ever making the film in the first place, even though it is his best known work to date.
As you can see, Michael Bay is certainly not alone as he continues to take a hammering from critics and fans alike regarding his latest embarrassment of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”. Rarely have I seen a film so thoroughly kill a franchise as this one did. Sure, he’s hard at work on next installment (this time in 3D, which FW Centauri will just love). Sure, he cashed the paycheck and hasn’t looked back. But you know what? Money only serves to dampen the guilt, it never fully erases it. Bay may say he doesn’t care what critics and fans think, but he’s not being completely honest. He’s an artist, and as artists we always strive for a positive appreciation of our work. We want our work to be liked. Occasionally, we lose sight of that goal due to our own inflated egos. Occasionally, we fall.
Perhaps Bay will have learned from this experience, but given his prior track record as of late, probably not. At least not for a while. So yes, we will have to endure yet another “Transformers” ear bleeding before we see his legacy on an upswing. Frustrating, I know, especially when his trash fills a valuable slot on the Academy Award nominations ballot. A slot which could have been taken by a more worthy piece of work.
The only sound mixing I want to hear from Michael Bay is the sound of my fist striking him squarely in the face, although I suppose it’s a good thing he didn’t go down Deodato’s path and actually ‘kill’ Megan Fox onscreen. But then again, that might actually be a good thing given her sad legacy…
“Deeds, not words…”
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