http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/artslife/story.html?id=f1f46c3a-d949-4409-b908-5a78d98677df

Michael Bay's name means little outside the film studios

Scott Feschuk
National Post
July 27, 2005

There was much pointing of the finger and raising of the eyebrow and
blaming of the subordinate down Hollywood way this past weekend -- The
Island, widely tipped to be a runaway hit, opened Friday and by Sunday
night was doing about as much business as a line of Ethel Merman lingerie.
The picture finished fourth at the box office. The words "bomb" and
"flop," until now the summertime property of Will Ferrell (Bewitched,
Kicking and Screaming), were legally made the chattel of director Michael
Bay.

What went so wrong? Or, for those who regard Bay -- the purveyor of such
intimate art-house productions as Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon -- as
a hyena stripping clean the bones of American civilization, what went so
right?

Let's begin with the obvious yet useful observation that neither the TV
ads nor the Entertainment Weekly cover photo did much to help the
prospects of the picture, a futuristic tale of cloning that prompts
viewers to ponder such deep and penetrating questions as "What are the
moral and ethical implications of the pursuit of longer life?" and "Would
a babe that hot ever really hook up with Steve Buscemi?"

The commercials made the premise seem like something concocted by Mr.
Rourke and Tattoo late one night over a few too many coconut daiquiris.
And as for the EW cover pic -- having Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson
appear clad in all-white apparel and glee-club smiles ... well, let's just
say the mise en scene suggested these two handsome actors were on hand to
promote Man From Glad: The Next Generation.

But the substantive problems are rooted more in the insular nature of
Hollywood culture than in the trappings of this particular film.

Travel to Los Angeles. Walk among the aspiring thespians and would-be
filmmakers (they're the ones wearing the buttons that say Barista). Spend
even a couple of days reading the trades and talking with executives and
actors and you, too, will emerge convinced that every breathing being on
the North American continent knows that Gyllenhaal is a family of actors
and not, say, a Swedish suppository.

Within this Botox-glazed hothouse of megalomania and sycophancy, racy
gossip and obligatory Pilates, it is, I'm sure, surprisingly easy to
convince oneself that because you and all your industry colleagues saw
Lost in Translation and totally wanted to nail Johansson, then surely she
has the marquee chops to open a major, big-budget summer blockbuster. She
doesn't. Nor does McGregor, for that matter. Yes, the guy starred in three
Star Wars movies -- but take away the Obi and the Wan and the hyphen
between Obi and Wan, and what you're left with is a talented chap who
nevertheless wields all the box-office might of Mark Hamill circa 1986.

Hollywood executives tend to mistake effect for cause (in much the same
way they mistake breasts for talent, breasts for intelligence and breasts
for charisma). They see that Michael Bay has made five major films, and
that all five films have been hits, and they assume that people will go to
a Michael Bay movie because they've always gone to Michael Bay movies.

What they fail to recognize is that a huge proportion of moviegoers have
no idea who Bay is. They don't know, they don't care. They've gone to see
Bay's movies not because they're Bay's movies, but because they have
without exception featured A-list stars placed in simple, engaging
scenarios in which stuff blows up real good. (Armageddon: Earth's survival
and Bruce Willis's manhood threatened by asteroid; Pearl Harbor: America's
survival and Ben Affleck's manhood threatened by Josh Hartnett's
overacting -- and, to a lesser extent, by the Japanese).

Take away the A-list stars. Take away the simple, engaging scenario. You
are left with the words "A Michael Bay Film." And a lot of empty seats at
the multiplex.

This won't be the last such disaster. In recent years, more and more
directors have been negotiating prominent mention in trailers and
advertisements. When it comes to ego maintenance, directors are the new
actors. Commercials now routinely end with Trailer Voice Guy declaring
something along the lines of "The Nautical Mischief of Capt. Numbnuts -- a
film by Antoine Fuqua!"

I'm sure Fuqua is a lovely man and a quality director, and I certainly
wish him no ill, especially considering he's probably just now, some eight
years later, finally stopped getting razzed about having cast Mira Sorvino
in The Replacement Killers. But seriously -- studios would attract more
people to their screenings if they replaced those five words -- "a film by
Antoine Fuqua" -- with something more likely to pique one's curiosity,
such as "Stuff blows up real good" or "Yes, she does get naked."

It's one thing for a studio to lavish a vanity bauble on a director once
the novelty of on-demand oral sex wears off. Fine, put his name in the
commercial. It's another for the studio to start believing its own hype
and thinking that because everyone in Hollywood knows who directors are
that anyone outside of Hollywood actually cares who they are.

As for The Island itself, folks are missing a pretty good movie. For the
record, the pretty good movie lasts about 20 minutes, and is followed by
roughly two hours of McGregor and Johansson shrieking: "Run!"

The Island is about a community of clones that has been bred to serve,
unknowingly of course, as replacement parts for the wealthy humans of
2019. Though only 14 years from now, this world of the future includes
such amazing advances as trackless trains, flying motorcycle-type vehicles
and people who are able to plunge 70 storeys from the side of a skyscraper
and emerge unscathed through developments that render plausible by
comparison the "air brakes" sequence in Ernest Saves Christmas. Happily,
there is still room in the America of tomorrow for such enduring and
traditional societal constants as Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Apple computers
and gaping plot holes. (I wasn't present for the pitch session, but I can
assume the writers concluded their presentation by declaring: "To sum up
-- it's Orwellian, but with more hot chicks and freeway mayhem.")

Get the gist of the thing? No? How else to describe it: Let's just say
it's the kind of movie in which, when the time comes to elucidate a point
absolutely crucial to the development of the narrative, a learned
physician saunters on screen, a pair of high-tech brain scans in hand, and
soberly utters a patch of dialogue along the lines of: "Look! There's a
little bit of blue in this old scan. But check out this new scan --
there's lots of blue!" And everyone nods and looks at each other gravely
and knowingly, except for those people unfortunate enough to be in the
audience.

--- Peter T. Chattaway ------------- http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/ ---
Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments; only afterwards do they
   claim remembrance, on account of their scars. -- Chris Marker, La Jetee

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