The city of Atlanta sponsors an event every late spring called Screen on the Green, in which they show films for free on a giant screen in a public park.  In past years, when the event was sponsored by Turner Classic Movies and the films were classics like Casablanca, the event was said to be a relaxed atmosphere of casual drinking and lounging.  In 2008, the event got a new sponsor, Peachtree TV, whose selections have included Big Momma’s House, National Treasure, and Jurassic Park.  Then last week, the film selection was Transformers 2, and all hell broke loose.  The Atlanta Journal Constitution picks up the first-hand witness accounts, and trust me, you’ll want to read all of them:

According to witnesses, groups of marauding teens took over the event. About 15 minutes into the movie, “everyone’s attention was diverted to the back end of the event where a group fight was taking place.”

One movie-goer said free chicken sandwiches may had contributed to the brawl. [CHICKEN MADNESS!  -Ed.]

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I give Transfomers 2 a lot crap for bad visual effects, because I think part of visual effects should involve, you know, being able to tell what the hell is going on.  Nonetheless, some of the sound effects were pretty cool, and in this video, the sound editing team takes you into their process.  I recommend fast-forwarding to about 1:30 to get straight to the technical stuff and cut down on the amount of faux-profound, pretentious philosophizing you’ll have to hear.  You know, stuff like:

“Sound editing, it’s really a process of finding the soul of these characters, you know?”

That’s deep, brah.  Hey, you know those hip hop robots who couldn’t read? I was really struck by how much soul they had.  Flavuh, one might even say.

FUN FACT: Boom mike operators love Michael Bay because he signs all his emails: “BOOM! -Mike.”

[Boing Boing via /Film]

The National Academy of Boring Old Farts just released their shortlist of seven films (which they’ll eventually whittle down to three) in contention for an Oscar in Visual Effects.  The list includes:

• Avatar
• District 9
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Star Trek
• Terminator Salvation
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
• 2012

Yep, Transformers 2.  Because I guess it’s not part of a visual effects supervisor’s job to, you know, MAKE SURE YOU CAN TELL THE EFFING ROBOTS APART.  I’m not asking for high art here, I just want to be able to tell which giant robot is getting punched.  Is that so much to ask?  Now, I realize, I’m not a visual effects artist.  If you asked me to draw a turkey, I’d start by tracing my hand.  When my computer breaks down, I throw rocks at it and pee my pants.  That said, it seems to me that you could just make the robots different colors.  But maybe I just don’t understand these newfangled visual effects and their indistinguishable masses of shiny pieces of metal. Oh my God, bra, this is so gnarly I don’t even know what the hell’s happening!

Additional Facts: Every morning, Michael Bay’s visual effects team meets to blow dry his hair.

[source = THR]

Here’s video of Megan Fox on Jimmy Kimmel last week. Jimmy asks her what it’s like working with Michael Bay, and she tells this story:

“The first time I ever met him, I was 15, and I was an extra on Bad Boys 2.  We were shooting this club scene, and they brought me in, and I was wearing a stars and stripes bikini and a red cowboy hat, and six-inch heels.  And they took me to Mike and he approved it.  And they said, ‘You know, Michael, she’s 15, so you can’t sit her at the bar and she can’t have a drink in her hand.’  So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet.  At 15.  I was in tenth grade.  So that’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works.” [you can see the super short clip of her that made it into the movie after the jump]

Bottom line, this just adds to the mountain of evidence that a reality show about Michael Bay would be about 1000 times more awesome than a Michael Bay movie.  I also love how Megan Fox was already in six-inch heels and a bikini, but acts indignant about him making her get wet.  As if she thought she was going there to explain the electoral college.  “Yeah, so anyway, I’m on all fours drinking water out of the toilet, and next thing you know, guy tells me to bark like a dog.  And I’m like, what a sicko, you know?”

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The initial estimates for the weekend box office have Transformers 2 and Ice Age 3D tied with $42.5 million.  Elsewhere, Public Enemies had a solid five-day gross of $41 million, and The Hangover became the fourth movie of the year to top $200 million domestically (the fastest to $200 mil ever for an R-rated comedy).  And The Hurt Locker is still in limited release, but had the highest per-theater average ($14,000), as it should, because it’s easily the best movie out right now.

The “Transformers” sequel — produced by Paramount, DreamWorks and Hasbro — fell 61% in its second weekend for $293.5 million in cumulative boxoffice through 12 days of domestic release.
The “Transformers” sequel was filmed for a reported $200 million and carries costly backend commitments to director Michael Bay, not to mention hefty global marketing expenses. But with its worldwide boxoffice approaching $600 million, Paramount and its co-producer partners already might be treading into profitability, and a potentially leggy theatrical run and deep ancillary revenue should help the rich get richer. [THR]

Hold on, with a gross approaching $600 million it MIGHT be treading into a profitability?  First of all, even with Bay’s bazookas and tigers budget there’s no way it cost $400 million to market, especially not when he’s getting paid by GM, Audi, LG cell phones, Green Day, et. al.  The movie was essentially two hours of getting eyeball raped by Super Bowl commercials while Shia LaBeouf sped through the plot exposition like the Micro Machines guy reading the fine print on your Verizon contract (over gratuitous slo-mo shots of Megan Fox’s tits).  Secondly, Michael Bay doesn’t tread into anything. He hires an army of assistants to do it and then fines them if they let him touch the water.

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