The Robot Horror Picture Show

When the summer rolls around, and everyone gets excited about the newest big-budget smash, I save my cash. When I'm paying $7.50 for a movie, I want it to linger in my mind. I am not that sold on "mindless entertainment"... at least not if I pay for it. "Mindless" is what TV is for. Do I want to sit in a theater for two hours, laugh along with popcorn spillers and Diet Coke guzzlers, and then get home and not remember any of the punchlines? Not usually. My preference is for movies that leave lasting impressions. I just read Revolutionary Road, the Richard Yates novel, this week and it was astonishing. Many of the feelings I had during the film came flooding back. Some people excoriated it, but I could still remember each scene vividly as I flipped the pages. I've only seen it once, like a riveting piece of theater, and it stays with me.

So, yes, call me anti-populist, but I'm just not into this idea that entertainment has to be primarily "entertaining." It never hurts to at least go for something slightly deeper. Last year, The Dark Knight was a big deal... well, yeah, because it tried to merge comic book icons with myths of American culture. Not to mention the Oscar-winning performance, and the accompanying curiosity (the "too soon?" factor). Oh, right, and Batman's cool. Yes, but see, I assumed that it did so well because people want more than surface "cool." There was, maybe, a purpose for spending trillions of dollars on a few reels of celluloid.

So I respected America and then came Judgment Day. I paid $7.50 to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and could I tell you anything about the Fallen? It was part of a man-night before a wedding, and a fantastic weekend, so I was happy to join in and not upset or bitter that I saw it. But the thing is, nobody seemed to think it was that great. And yet, even though people walked out un-transformed, they're making millions (and I bet a three-quel).

In lieu of "reviewing" or being negative, because the whole idea of Transformers II holding a box-office record is just ridiculous and needs no editorializing, I came up with a wholly positive critique. No use of "cretinous" or "noxious" here; no words like "a horrific experience of unbearable length." Here goes:

Thank you, Julie White. Now that there are 20 spots in the 2010 Oscars for Supporting Actress in a Summer Blockbuster, you are guaranteed a nomination for being hysterical as a mother who endures a ruined kitchen island, her first reefer brownie, and a sudden re-emergence in the narrative to console her son after he dies, enters Alien Robot Heaven to be told, "it is your destiny," and rejoins the living with nary a wound. You may now return to an acclaimed Twelfth Night in Central Park knowing that your rent is covered. And that they can't take your Tony away.