misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

Last night's viewing of Transformers reminded me of the glory days of summer films--early 90s-- when "summer blockbusters" didn't involve surfing penguins, domestic tales of unplanned pregnancies, and frustrated rat-chefs. In high school, the best summer films always involved the next-evolution of special effects, an epic storyline (usually involving the imminent destruction of earth via aliens, robots, or disease), and a ripped action hero you could get behind (before assholes started trying to convince me that Ben Affleck could pull off the role of a superhero). The importance of these factors didn't mean the movies without them were bad, it simply offered a justifiable reason to go to a movie theater. Movie theaters are, technologically, the best place you can possibly watch a film. Thus, the film you should see there is film that uses this technology to its full potential. Surround sound, digital film, graphics I want to see on a fifty-foot screen (i.e., the first time you see a transformation from car to robot, you truly believe you just saw it. It doesn't even seem digital. For all i know, there might really be transformers somewhere that they hired for this film). Knocked Up which i saw last week as well, had absolutely no qualities that justified the payment of 11 dollars to view it in a movie theater. I would have been perfectly fine viewing it on my own TV, either via Netflix or HBO (actually, I didn't like the movie, so I wouldn't advise that either). The theater experience adds nothing to 80% of today's summer films. Ocean's 13? License to Wed? Transformer's is the first summer movie since maybe The Matrix that merited an actual trip to the movie theater. Game-changing special effects. Epic (and totally ridiculous) plot. Cheesy one-liners. Totally implausible romance. Bad-ass good guy vs. Bad-ass bad guy, reminiscent of that scene in Terminator 2 when Schwarzenegger finally faced off against the T-1000 in the arcade. The kind of scene where the whole theater is yelling out loud at the excitement and anticipation of it all. The action scenes, which were most of the movie, were so brilliant nobody cared that the movie itself didn't really make sense. Being in the theater enhanced the entire experience. You cannot watch this movie at home, no matter what your set-up, so don't try. Stick with Music and Lyrics if you want to see something at home. If you want to watch the next evolution of action films, go see Transformers. And no, I don't have stock in the movie, so, unlike Taj, you can trust my recommendation is not seated in any selfish financial interests, a la eToys.