Robot From The Future!

The movie’s been out since Wednesday at 12:01 a.m., so I’m not waiting any more to talk about it. If you haven’t seen it yet, tough luck Chuck.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen achieves its purpose. It’s two and a half hours of giant rampaging robots wrecking everything in sight. And they’ve upped the ante, at the cost of plausible geography and plot continuity. Last time the goal was Decepticon dominance, and a city got destroyed. This time — oh, oops. Scratch previous Decepticon goal. Actually they want to destroy the sun instead. And wreck archeological sites. There are incredibly long sequences with no dialogue at all while metal crunches against metal, humans run screaming for mercy, and many many bricks of C4 go kaboom. In short, exactly what I expected.

Michael Bay is better seen and heard as long as what you are hearing are explosions. The plot is ridiculous, and with the notable exceptions of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee every character is more hollow than the inside of a cheerleader’s head. This movie will cause Transformerphiles to end up like Star Wars nerds — loving and loathing their precious franchise with a furiously conflicted passion. Most astounding are the sheer number of racist stereotypes. African-Americans get the shortest end of the stick, although Latinos, Jews and Germans have fair opportunity for griping as well. Among the Autobots are the Racial Stereotype Twins, who speak an embarrassing picanninny jibberish, use a lot of profanity, and generally give the impression that Hollywood is just fine with encouraging stereotypes of urban youth as poorly-spoken illiterate doofuses. They may have been robots, but the gold teeth, sloppy speech and Ebonics are a somewhat less than flattering integration of black culture into robotkind. Lines like “Das’ cuz you a pussy” and “We don’ read” had me shaking my head. What’s next? Tap-dancing, fried chicken and singing about how much dey luv dat waddamelon? I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised to see one of the characters end up with motor oil blackface.

But on to the plot. Once upon a time . . .

Even though Megatron never said a word about it in the first flick, he’s actually working for a dude called The Fallen, a crochety old Transformer grandpappy who sits in a rocking chair kvetching about humanity while Megatron acts like a sycophantic suck-up– oh wait, he acts like Starscream. LAME. Oh yeah, Megatron is brought back to life because apparently the guards the U.S. Navy sends to monitor alien robot carcasses are about as competent as the ones Dr. Evil has to look after Austin Powers. Come on, guys. Any decent auto wrecking yard could have taken that bad boy to bits.

Anyway. The Fallen is the Transformer equivalent of Lucifer — having fought against the other Primes in prehistory when they stopped him from using the power of Earth’s sun to create Energon, the lifeblood of the Transformers that the giant robots use to power their babies, who drop from creepy cocoons in the ceiling like the vampire babies in Van Helsing. There’s a flashback here that shows ancient Decepticons with dreadlocks stepping on cavemen as the arrive on Earth to set up the sun harvester. Nice! Grudges die hard, so even after 19,000 years The Fallen hasn’t gotten over it and really, really wants to destroy Earth. Like, for reals this time.

Snap to the modern day, where Optimus Prime and his Autobots are working with their human allies to eradicate Decepticons. Just before killing Demolishor, who in his spare time must be a 1337 haxx0r, the human-Autobot team learns that “The Fallen shall rise again.” Wormy Liberal Guy, sent by the President (later identified as Obama) comes in and spouts off leftist talking points about Why We Shouldn’t Be In Iraq, threatening to halt their military actions. Tyrese jokes about shooting him. Optimus Prime royally outclasses him both in wits and word choice, leaving Wormy Liberal Guy speechless. Michael Bay’s currency with the U.S. armed forces rises 200%, if that’s even possible at this point.

Sam Witwicky announces that he doesn’t intend to take his Camaro (Autobot Bumblebee in disguise) with him to college. Hot Girlfriend fails to notice that this proves that he really doesn’t intend to cheat on her during their separation, because that car would have gotten him into the pants of every girl in the dorm. As soon as he gets there, he is met by Annoying Token Latino Sidekick That The Marketing Guys Thought Would Help The Movie Do Better Among The Latino Demographic (we’ll just call him Token), who looks about 10 years too old to be a college freshman and is an alien conspiracy theorist blogger. This guy spends the rest of the movie agging along when a smart person would run for it, screaming, and being Sam’s annoying sidekick. In fact, Sam does pretty much nothing for the entire film apart from acquiring annoying sidekicks. None of whom die. LAME.

While packing for college, he finds a remaining shard of the AllSpark (literally the only significant plot connection to the first film) which gives him visions of ancient symbols in a lost Autobot language. This information points to the location of the ancient machine capable of harvesting the sun and manifests itself in behavior that makes Sam look like he has Asperger’s and epilepsy. The Decepticons realize they can pump his brain for this information and send an improbably Hot Skank to try to get with him. Bumblebee, a true wing man, runs the girl off when her advances get over the top.

Sam shows the classic male weakness to appearances and fails to remember a basic rule of robots. If an improbably hot girl takes unreasonable interest in you for no apparent reason, there is a 100% chance that she is a robot and a 75% chance that she will kill you. Luckily RoboSkank is a lousy Terminatrix, opting for tongue strangling rather than a real robot murder weapon, like a liquid metal exoskeleton or a shotgun. Hot Girlfriend, who has imprisoned and tortured a Decepticon spy (nice!), walks into Sam’s dorm just as his virtue is being violated by RoboSkank. Hot Girlfriend gets angry and storms off, but she hears Sam screaming like a little girl and comes back to save the day. RoboSkank achieves Epic Terminator Fail by getting run over and destroyed by Hot Girlfriend driving a hotwired Saturn. A Saturn. Honestly. What kind of self-respecting Terminator can be taken out by a compact car? Despite the cunning escape, they all get captured and Sam almost gets a lobotomy by Dr. Frankenbot. Megatron demonstrates total incompetence as a villain by failing to kill Hot Girlfriend, Token, and Sam before Optimus and Bumblebee come to the rescue.

Sort of. While running for it, Sam and Optimus are outflanked and the Autobot leader, alone and outnumbered, defends the human boy and his brain goo from an entire pack of Decepticons. (Glam Quote: “You’ll never stop at one! I’ll take you all on!”) In the most beautifully filmed battle sequences of the film, Optimus kicks ass and takes a beating like Rocky Balboa, but Megatron stabs him in the back, killing him. Bumblebee finally arrives and the humans escape in style.

At this point I almost left the theater.

Movies based on television shows can often take the entire dynamic of a serial show and derail it with a plot finality that can shock the hell out of fans. (See: Firefly) The Transformers franchise did this to me once before in 1986. I was a devout follower back in the day when my pimped out ride was a Big Wheel with handlebar streamers and my #1 method for altering my mind was a Sit ‘N Spin. My main reason to keep breathing was to see Transformers: The Movie, which should have been a shining moment of my young life.

And then the bastards murdered Optimus Prime.

I cried. For days. I was inconsolable. And don’t you Firefly nerds compare it to when Wash gets staked through the heart with a fury that only shows that the Reavers are really descendants of Buffy Summers. It’s not the same. But it was bad enough that they killed him. And then! Oh, then! After breaking my heart, they go and violate his corpse, reincarnating Optumus as . . . Rodimus Prime.

Rodimus?

RODIMUS?

What the frak? I don’t care who opens the Matrix of Leadership — call Neo and have him stop it, because that plot idea was even worse than the Dinobots. I want my Optimus. He’s the perfect hero. Even his name is perfect, meaning “the ideal foremost.” He is uncompromising on his principles, never backs down from his word of honor, and will defend the innocent at all costs — even that of his own life. I quickly disavowed the film and plunged into a state of denial and depression. (Luckily the following year Masters of the Universe came out and showed that my hero didn’t have to die and be reincarnated a somebody who doesn’t kick nearly as much ass just to keep the franchise fresh. That movie changed my life.)

And they did it to me again. I didn’t know quite how to react. What do I say? I mouthed the word “no!” but no sound escaped my lips. I didn’t know what to do. Had they done it to me again? But then the least satisfying revelation of the movie struck me. This is a friggin’ Michael Bay movie. It’s an “America, Fuck Yeah!” movie. That means nobody important dies, and if they do they get to come back. After all, if they can resurrect Megatron’s carcass unscathed from the Laurentian Abyss with a spark plug and a scuba tank, chances were good Optimus would be back. So that bastards murdered him again, but it wasn’t even going to end up meaning anything.

So when Optimus bites the big one in Revenge of the Fallen . . . you know what? I haven’t got the energy to finish the story. It’s just too overcomplicated for words. So I’ll sum up.

Optimus is dead, so Sam collects his sidekicks (Token, Hot Girlfriend, Cute Prisoner Decepticon RC Car, The Racial Stereotype Twins, and Jewish Stereotype, who was the secret agent guy in the first flick. Bumblebee patiently deals with them all.) Like Darth Maul to Palpatine, Megatron grovels before The Fallen, who sits in a robot rocking chair and gripes about how kids these days won’t get off his lawn. So he’s going to blow up the earth. They run into the robot equivalent of Gimli, who is an ancient Decepticon-Turned-Autobot who saves them all the trouble of figuring out the code in Sam’s brain by teleporting them to the Middle East (so why did the first 90 minutes matter?) where Petra and Giza, the locations of The Matrix and the weapon, happen to be about a fifteen minute run through the sand from one another. LAME. The bad bots turn on the machine. The soldiers dump Wormy Liberal Guy in the middle of the desert so they can go help in the battle. Rednecks everywhere wave Confederate Flags and holler with glee. Sam uses pixie dust from his socks to bring Optimus Back to life, and Gimli-Bot commits suicide so Optimus can use his parts to heal. Optimus Prime pays tribute to Flight 93 (Glam line: “Let’s Roll!”) and kills The Fallen really, really fast. The Day Is Saved. Hot Girlfriend is happy because what this was really about was getting her boyfriend to say “I Love You.” The Racial Sterotype Twins shout “Lawdy, Lawdy! We sho’ love killin’ dem Decepticons fo’ Massah Optimus!”

The End.

Okay, so the story is ridiculous and the only way we know that the characters are acting is when the camera gets all spinny around them to show that it’s really intense now. But plenty of shit blows up and it’s hard to be unhappy about that. My only really major beef with the flick is the title. You really shouldn’t call a movie Revenge of the Fallen when The Fallen doesn’t actually get revenge. In The Empire Strikes Back, the Empire actually struck back and that heartbreaking image of Luke and Leia staring out into space together is one of the many reasons it’s my favorite of the Star Wars trilogy. As Matrix 2-esque as it would have been, I could have dealt with Optimus Prime still being dead at the end of the flick, with his illustrious return in Transformers 3 coming in a more satisfying fashion than being reanimated with the spare parts from Robo-Gimli and an Autobot defibrillator.

I wasn’t dissatisfied — this is an enjoyable movie where plenty of things go asplode. But next time, Michael Bay, puhlease at least make it clear which robots are Autobots and which are Decepticons. As much as I crave maximum destruction, it really does me no good if I can’t even tell who’s winning. And Michael Bay really should have learned from the mistakes of George Lucas (crappy characterization can’t be compensated for with special effects) and Stanley Kubrick (movie timelines shouldn’t span 19,000 years). Optimus never should have died in the first place, but at least when they brought him back he was himself and not that Rodimus guy. Man, I hate that guy.

At least I got to see my sexy car onscreen. And for Zarquon’s sake, don’t you ever murder Optimus Prime again.

Curse you, Esquire, for taunting me so. Where is my baby?? WHERE IS MY BABY???

Today at work we’re having an open house to celebrate our awesome new digs. They asked me to put together the music. EEP!

I used to DJ a lot of dances in high school (you know, back before everything got so ridiculously formal and commercial) and my giant bible of CDs was an expensive but worthwhile investment. A friend and I would tag team so we could spin and dance, and we had strict rules. Requests trump prepared playlists, period. If you pick a stinker and it clears the floor, swallow your pride and change it ASAP. Play three or four fast songs and then throw in a slow dance, but pick slow songs shorter than four minutes long. (Anybody remember the social agony of trying to make small talk through the long version of November Rain?) In fact, as a general rule, try to change up what’s going on often. Perfect dance songs are two and a half minutes long, three tops. And first and foremost, don’t play the stuff you like if it isn’t what the crowd wants to hear.

This is a little different — I need to provide ambient happy sound for people in a way that stimulates good vibes and friendly conversation and a general hum of energy, but I can’t pick songs that are too noisy or obtrusive. They need to be there to contribute to the background but not actually draw attention. Even trickier, I won’t be there to make adjustments as I’ve got a plane to catch later on. So let’s get the constraints . . . hmm humm hrmmmm . . .

Genres: Electronica, Classic Rock, Blues, Funk, Soul, Indie, Shibuya-kei, and just a dash of New Wave and Glam for flavor.
Constraints: Must be happy and energetic but not attention-grabbing. No screaming, no foul language, no overtly sexual language. Must be able to last several hours without requiring attention or a second thought. Not too many of any one artist so we can just hit random and let her rip.

So here’s what we ended up with:

Can’t Take My Eyes Off You — Muse
Hungry Like the Wolf — Duran Duran
Short Skirt Long Jacket — Cake
Drive My Car — The Beatles
Modern Guilt — Beck
Rock The Casbah — The Clash
Help Me, Rhonda — The Beach Boys
That’s Too Bad (Byron Jam) — Donavon Frankenreiter
Viva La Vida — Coldplay
Such Great Heights — The Postal Service
Wonderful Night (feat Lateef) — Fatboy Slim
Different Colors — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Nothing Better — The Postal Service
Good Vibrations — The Beach Boys
My Mustang Ford — Chuck Berry
Dance the Night Away — Van Halen
Susie Q — Creedence Clearwater Revival
Here It Goes Again — Ok Go
Ramble Tamble — Creedence Clearwater Revival
Human — The Killers
Que Onda Guero — Beck
Higher And Higher — Jackie Wilson
Middle of Nowhere — Hot Hot Heat
And The Beat Goes On — The All Seeing I
Journey Of The Sorcerer — Eagles
Clark Gable — The Postal Service
Black Tambourine — Beck
Code Monkey — Jonathan Coulton
Up Around The Bend — Creedence Clearwater Revival
E-Pro — Beck
Numa Numa — O-Zone
Twiggy Twiggy — Pizzicato Five
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough — Marvin Gaye
Runaway — Jamiroquai
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da — The Beatles
One Way or Another — Blondie
Let’s Stay Together — Al Green
Canned Heat — Jamiroquai
Electric Lady Land — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Move By Yourself — Donavon Frankenreiter
You Must Learn All Night Long (Dauerfisch Remix) — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Sudden Stars — Stereolab
We Will Become Silhouettes — The Postal Service
Bobby Dazzler — Sons Of Silence
Sweet Pea — Amos Lee
Mustang Sally — The Commitments
September — Fantastic Plastic Machine
Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp — Mercury Rev
Frank Sinatra — Cake
Something Happened To Me Yesterday — The Rolling Stones
Brown Sugar — The Rolling Stones
Robot Rock — Daft Punk
All Summer Long — The Beach Boys
Coconut — Harry Nilsson
Bandages — Hot Hot Heat
Love and Wonder (Club Edit) — DJ Earworm
Love Like Rockets — Angels and Airwaves

Spirit in the Sky — Norman Greenbaum
Life Is a Highway — Rascal Flatts
Chapel of Love — The Ronettes
Pretty Good Year — Tori Amos
Mr. Brightside — The Killers
Losing My Religion — REM
My Immortal — Evanescence
Positively 4th Street — Bob Dylan
God’s Gonna Cut You Down — Johnny Cash
Wasted Time — Eagles
Spare Me the Details — The Offspring
When The Levee Breaks — Led Zeppelin
Janie’s Got a Gun — Aerosmith
Immigrant Song — Led Zeppelin
Crash And Burn — Savage Garden
One Day I’ll Fly Away — Nicole Kidman
Say Goodbye — Dave Matthews Band
The River — Garth Brooks
The Dark End of the Street — The Commitments
The Man Comes Around — Johnny Cash
The Middle — Jimmy Eat World
Hatredcopter — Dethklok
Go Your Own Way — Fleetwood Mac
Take a Bow — Muse
Walk On — U2
Free And Easy (Down The Road I Go) — Dierks Bentley
I Believe In A Thing Called Love — The Darkness
Drive — Incubus
Did You Miss Me Today — Sliotar

It’s been 13 delicious years since physicist Alan Sokal hammered the nails into the coffin of literary theory. And, too few people know this tale. This is a bit of history that deserves retelling, because anything that makes snobs look like morons, is, IMNSHO, awesome. The short version goes like this:

Physicist Alan Sokal decided to try an experiment that could expose the pretentiousness of academic journals. His hypothesis was that it was possible to get an article “liberally salted with nonsense” published if “(a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.” But what field to turn to? Ah, yes. Literary Theory. He scribbled up a big pile of rubbish called “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” filled it with obtuse prattling about how quantum gravity has progressive political implications, and submitted it to Social Text, a journal put out by Duke University. The same day that the article appeared in Lingua Franca announcing that the article was a joke, written deliberately to show that if you made something sound fancy-schmancy and gave it a pretentious title, nobody in academia would notice that the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes. Red-faced Postmodernists everywhere responded by clenching their buttocks even tighter so the stick inside wouldn’t fall out and saying, “Yeah, well, you just don’t get what critical theory is about, do you?” Which just made them look even sillier.

In short, it’s the most radtacular thing ever written. This document was to the pretentious ivory tower academic establishment what A Modest Proposal was to eighteenth-century British politics. It proved that academia in general and English professors in particular are full of two things: hot air and themselves.

One of the best aspects of this prank was that anybody who jumped to the defense of postmodern intellectualism just looked like an even more out-of-touch snob than ever before. Mathematician Gabriel Stolzenberg took the bait most thoroughly, writing essay after essay attempting to refute the criticisms of Sokal and his veritable army of people Fed Up With Pretentious Bullshitting. The argument went like this:

Sokal: Your philosophy is designed to make you sound fancy and smart but is actually just full of crap.

Stolzenberg: You just didn’t understand what you were reading.

Sokal: With all your education, you should have been able to clearly explain yourself. Or maybe you just write in an obtuse manner so that people who don’t understand you will be intimidated into going along with whatever you say.

Stolzenberg: That’s just the petulant whining of someone who lacks the academic understanding and intellectual capacity to truly understand modern critical theory.

Sokal: Pretentious wanker.

Stolzenberg: You just don’t understand philosophy, so your criticism is meaningless. Just like everything else in the universe.

Sokal: QED. Wanker.

Sokal would go on in 1998 to publish Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science, and I hope someday to read the sequel Super-Fabulous Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Intellect.