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It's from a couple of days ago but I didn't see it posted. I have a feeling Kevin will be doing all the talking on the reality show as Danielle isn't the greatest interview subject...
The last 2 Transformers movies failed to capture an emotional core because the human characters are throwaways and the robots don’t get enough development, so these movies have turned into the quintessential Michael Bay turnoff. Why? Well, because their fan base genuinely consists of the younger, ADD-crazed teenage crowd that cares for nothing more than mayhem, Call of Duty and poop jokes.
And that’s what they’re directly associated with.
He turned a franchise that could’ve been something really special into a franchise that runs on product placement, loud noises and infantile humor. They’re riddled with horrible acting, plot holes, pace-killing moments of comedy, throw away characters, subplots that go nowhere and some overly complicated action scenes. My eyeballs want to vomit everytime Bay gives us a sequence of more than two robots fighting at the same time. It’s confusing at times, hard to follow in others and drawn out as a whole. Those movies suffer from “George Lucas Syndrome” where every single frame has so much crammed into it that your mind has no idea where to look or how to react. The first movie tempered this idea and managed to give us a decent blend of action, comedy and enthusiastic chase sequences. When they raised the scale (and budget) of the next two we were treated to bogged down action movies that were too ambitious for their own good. When you throw in the poop jokes and racially offensive humor of the stereotyping variety you get the recipe for utter disaster.
Those movies aside this guy really has a solid lineup of explosive fanfare that delivers to fans what they’re looking for in an action movie. He offers them the ability to escape and see some gorgeously stylistic chase scenes coupled with your standard characterizations that get the plot moving from point A to Point B. Zack Snyder is throwing feces like Sucker Punch in our faces but gets a free pass because.. well, why isn’t he getting blasted as much as Michael Bay? He gave us women in skin-tight fetishistic school girl outfits fighting gigantic dragons, Nazis and robots in front of a green screen with painfully boring CGI but people are eating it up and praising it as original artistry. No Thanks. That movie was just as bad as the last two Transformers movies but flew under the radar in terms of overly negative feedback.
One of the things that is criminally overlooked about Michael Bay is his use of stunt work and minimal reliance on computer generated images. He seems to only use CGI when it’s needed in context with the story. He built an asteroid set for Armageddon in place of a green screen with a CGI backdrop. He filmed on location for The Rock and built massive set pieces for The Island and Transformers. He totals tons of vehicles, buildings, and stationery objects and opts for real explosives and stunt work instead of digitized fire and cartoonish looking human designs. Too many action movies these days suffer from computer-generated sequences that stick out like a sore thumb and make them look like video game cut-scenes. We as movie fans are constantly criticizing filmmakers for the abundance of CGI in their projects but don’t step back and look at what Michael Bay does with every single movie. Look at the highway chase scene from The Island and tell me that it’s not better than 90% of the CGI car race we got from the 4th Fast and the Furious movie. Even in the Transformers series he filmed real stunt work and explosives but added in the robots later in post-production. A majority of the time something is exploding in The Transformers movies it’s actual smoke and pyrotechnics instead of computer generated explosives, and that’s why it looks so realistic compared to other movies. I love that he uses CGI as a tool instead of a medium and he never gets the praise he rightly deserves for it. I also appreciate his work-ethic behind the lens and his commitment to delivering the most thrilling and organic performances possible. He’s notoriously hard on his actors and puts them through vigorous training regimen to get into peak physical condition. Why? Because he wants to film everything as real as possible and often uses actors in place of stunt-men in his movies. He also works hand in hand with the United States military and a lot of the extras in his action scenes are active-duty or now retired veterans. He brings as much detail as possible to his movies and it’s nice to see someone reaching out to our armed forces and having a patriotic love for their country (and it shows in his trademark flag-waving screenshots).
At the end of the day everyone has their own opinion on Michael Bay and mine is that he makes a wide variety of movies that range from downright terrible to surprisingly effective. I think he gets a ton of flack for his egotistical and immature personality that translated terribly on screen with the last 2 Transformers movies, but there’s more to him than that series. Deep down I believe that there’s a brilliant action movie lurking inside of his mind that may never get out. It certainly won’t if he keeps getting caught up with the Transformers franchise and pushing complicated CGI robot models instead of a story-telling narrative and emotional core. Will we ever see something great from Michael Bay? Who knows. Maybe we already did. Maybe his best work was something as fundamentally sound but inherently flawed as The Rock. People seem to really view that movie as his best work so maybe that was the only time it all came together for him.. and unfortunately it happened at the beginning of his career instead of the middle. So, how do you feel about Michael Bay?
Sherlyn Chopra, a Bollywood film actor, will become the first woman from India to strip naked in Playboy.
The 28-year-old knockout wrote to the magazine and suggested the idea herself, the BBC reported. They got back to her within a few days to accept.
Fans will have to wait till the November issue circulates to get a glimpse of Chopra. A press conference earlier this week heralded the addition of a "Bollywood goddess" to the pantheon of beauties who've appeared on the pages of Hugh Hefner's magazine.
But her decision to pose caused a controversy in her native India where the granddaddy of all adult magazines is banned. A critic cited by the Daily Mail wrote "one wonders if Sherlyn Chopra’s pictures wound a woman’s integrity."
Chopra, who has had small roles in a handful of Bollywood flicks, is unfazed by the criticism.
"I have become the first Indian to pose naked for Playboy," she said to the BBC, "and nobody can take away that achievement from me,"
She uploaded snapshots from her tour of the famous Playboy mansions in Los Angeles to her Twitter account.
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Andrea Cremer Inks Erotica Book Deal
YA author Andrea Cremer has landed a book deal with Penguin Group (USA)’s Dutton imprint to write an erotica trilogy for adults. The not-yet-titled first book will be available in October 2013.
Cremer established her career as a YA author with the Nightshade trilogy, a fantasy series starring teen werewolves. The new adult books will be set in this Nightshade universe.
According to Publisher’s Weekly, Dutton publisher Brian Tart negotiated the deal with InkWell Management literary agents Richard Pine and Charlie Olsen. Associate editor Jessica Horvath will edit the books.
Fan fiction writers have certainly been known to add an erotic spin to some of their favorite books. What do you think?
Philomel Books, an imprint at Penguin Young Readers Group, published all three original Nightshade books. In August, Cremer will release a Nightshade prequel called Rift. A second prequel called Rise will follow in summer 2013. Prior to her full-time writing career, Cremer worked as a history professor.
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YA and erotica should not cross. Fifty Shades of Grey has inspired authors to come out of the woodwork with erotica stories, and writing erotica in a world that was a bestseller with tweens? This is just not going to end well, but hell, it'll be a bestseller, mark my words. Especially when it's clearly a cash grab in the wake of Fifty Shades. Twelve year olds reading erotica just creeps me out.
But as I say, there are different relationships between different characters and the problem is the legitimacy of the claim of certain characters to the throne, in the sense that in Westeros, after all, wars are started because of things like these. If they say "No, I'm the heir because I'm from two generations since a certain option", "Yes, but I'm from three generations since this other, closer, option", etc... By things like these, by questioning who has more right than the other to a throne, there have been wars in Westeros.
It's true that the Starks have recently grown scarcer, in the last generations there aren't many of them. Some say that it could be because all of Ned's siblings are dead. Brandon died before he could have children, Lyanna is dead too and Benjen is sworn to the Night's Watch, so he can't have heirs either. Maybe it is also due to the fact that their father, Rickard, was an only son and we have to go back as to why he was an only son. Either way, it is possible that I'm wrong about some of the details, because I'm saying them by memory. At home I have my little cards, my family tree to check this information, because I can't always remember the difference between people.
It's true that currently there are many more Lannisters. One has to consider also that in the North there have been revolts frequently, that there have been many rebel lords in the past, who had problems with the Kings Beyond the Wall, with the whole Skagos episode and all that happened in the last 100 years. All of this influenced in the fact that maybe there aren't as many Starks as there were in the past.
Jaqen refers to the Red God, and elsewhere to the god of fire. Is he referring to R'hllor? When we see Arya being educated by the Faceless Men, R'hllor doesn't seem to be particularly important to them.
(George thinks for a moment) Well, remember when Jaqen names him: he had very nearly died in flames inside the cart. So it makes sense.