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re Bowie: I thought David took his stage name from the American Bowie knife and the guy it was named after. Hence, I've always used an American pronunciation, rhyming with Maui. Still, if the Thin White Duke himself says different, I'll defer to His Grace.

It's Bow-ee as in Maui because he's child was previously called Zowie. Which would make no sense if it was Zoe, which it would be if it was pronounced like the knife.

you recently said on 5 Live about how Ice Age's tendency for fragmented, interchangeable and sectional narrative structure is a perfect example of "the death of narrative cinema."

i'm about to start a film MA and would find it very interesting to hear why "the death of narrative cinema" is a bad thing in your opinion.

lastly, instead of the "death", isn't the "decline" a better word. clint eastwood is still making excellent/popular narrative cinema afterall.

(feel free to talk about master narratives, post-modernism etc)

cheers

It's pronounced "the DAME" - check with Danny Baker for the quintessential intonation.

I just had to sign up after seeing this! Awesome post. I've been watching for a few months now, ever since a friend pointed the blog out to me. Love the style, but that's not the point:
I gotta admit, I was a huge fan of both Transformers. Yes, they are rubbish, but I was able to switch off my brain and just watch the flash effects. Then again, I enjoyed "The Island" under the same metal abilities. I'm just wondering if you intend on subjecting yourself to GI Joe: Rise of Cobra? Considering it (allegedly) got the worst test scores in the history of American cinema test screening, something tells me it'll be on your list of "Worse movies than Bride Wars"!!
Cannot wait for Moon, though. Heard about it a few months back. Been following what little I've been able to find since.
Keep up the great work.

Mark, may I ask a quick question on your favourite subject - The Exorcist.

It has recently been announced that the film will get its first Blu-ray Disc release later this year, and that the version on the disc will be the new 'Version You've never Seen' (perhaps that should be changed to 'The Version You Never Saw Until the DVD Came Out)'.

It's currently unclear as to whether the original theatrical version will also be on the disc.

I've read your BFI Modern Classics book which discusses the revisions in depth but, as far as I can find, you never actually say which version you prefer.

So, which do you prefer? And should the other one be burned, or are they both equally valid for you?

Cheers.

Steve W

You can't quit reviewing films Mark, you are far too entertaining. But I do think you should get some kind of expenses, for watching films like Bride Wars.
Maybe Painkillers or a bottle of whiskey.

The way you slap that laptop around, I am sure it must be Ö÷²¥´óÐã issue.

In order for you to say at the end of the year that there were or were not 10 films worse than "Bride Wars", you have to have watched them all.

From the top 10 each week, we all know you don't do this especially if you have had one of your all too frequent "off" weeks ;-). I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy but I think you need to watch "Push" if your final list is to have any integrity, whatsoever. It's definitely in the mix. To experience the true awfulness of it, you need to be in an environment where you can not easily escape, e.g. a movie theatre and not at home where the temptation to break off, even for a moment, would be overwhelming. For me it was a bit like being at the penal colony on Tantalus V and strapped in the chair in front of the dastardly Dr Adams' neural neutralizer at full strength (I'm sure you know what I am talking about. [Star Trek Dagger of the Mind episode])

I love the explanation on the worst of all movie directors. Marx/Engels "Economic Theory" right there.

I also remember a Bowie-Concert in the early 1980's were a drunk German fan cried Bow-ieee the whole time - drunk as he was. But I could not ask him if he pronounced "Bowie" the way he did because he was drunk or because of his German (accent)

Otherwise: all things Bowie - the source of expertise today is Ricky Gervais:

"Plough a field" - is that a 'Silent Running' reference.

As for James King taking over, one could draw parallels to Ben Lyons succeeding Roger Ebert but I'm sure that would be far, far too harsh on James.

'Seven Pounds' must surely be worse than Bride Wars? I haven't seen BW but can't believe it could be worse than 7lbs?

Regarding Michael Bay, maybe you've already read that Megan Fox had the temerity to be honest about it and say...

I can't s*** on this movie because it did give me a career and open all these doors for me. But I don't want to blow smoke up people's ass. People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. And once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can be in the moment and go, "All right, I know that when he calls Action! Im either going to be running or screaming, or both".

Which is hardly defamatory but Michael Bay responded by saying

Well, that's Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she's 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, "Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it." But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn't a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in 'Armageddon'. Shia LaBeouf wasn't a big movie star before he did 'Transformers' and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from 'Bad Boys'. Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in 'Transformers'. I like to think that Ive had some luck in building actors' careers with my films.

Thrown the toys out of the pram there. Sounds like all those actors were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar before they met Michael Bay. Here's another little excerpt of an interview where Megan Fox describes how she was paid extra to have water thrown on her dancing around in a bikini in 'Bad Boys' when she was 15.

What was it like the first time you worked with him?

I was actually an extra on "Bad Boys II" (in 2003). There's a club scene, and I was one of the club kids. I was in a stars-and-stripes bikini and a cowboy hat, dancing under a waterfall.

Wait, what?

Yeah, I was still in ninth grade. I liked it at the time, because I was getting out of school. So I was like, *uck yeah, I don't care! And I got paid extra because if you allow them to put water on you, you get paid extra. I got probably $600.

How did you feel about being sexualized like that when you were 15?

I thought it was awesome. I was going to a christian high school and I wasn't a feminist yet. I hadn't sat back and analyzed society yet. I was 15! I just did what I was told to do.

Nice.

By the way I watched Underwhelmed: Rind of the Lychees last night. Not up to much, not scary or particularly engaging. I thought the one-liner when Lucian finally knobbles Victor was funny though.

"Yes you should have...but you didn't"

That's like something Ricky Gervais or my mum would come up with. :)
Also, what is it with movies and colour these days. They all seem to be shot in weird unnatural hues. I know most of the movie is at night and it's about the 'underworld' but still. I notice it in a lot of movies these days, especially the ones with lots of special effects. Does it cover up the cgi or something? Or is it me?

@ Funk le Monk - haha...great quotes

"...Nick Cage wasn't a big actor when I cast him..." That's the tragedy of Nick Cage! He was a great actor before he smelled the money and the MB-attitude ("make cash, not art")...

We all are spending too much time on bad, smelly, uninteresting movies.

The not-so-good, bad & ugly movies used to be a great genre. Today bad movies are just that: bad.

(twitter: @buckybit)

Given that 2008 produced three of the worst films in the bottom 100 of all time movies (according to IMDB) - which include "Disaster Movie" and "The Hottie and the Nottie" - then is it possible that 2009 will be a vintage year for terrible movies?
And if you are going to make such a dramatic career change then would it be worth setting your sights on a different film; I quit my daytime job because of "Bride Wars" makes your job sound dire, which, given the magnificent movies of 2008 we know isn't true!

(If you quit because of Mega Shark vs Monster Squid then I would understand; it was released in 2009 and maybe should be considered a low point in bad CGI).

I agree about Nick Cage BuckBits and I think Shia LaBeouf is going the same way. He was outstanding in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints but he's destined for blockbuster after blockbuster now. Who knows. Maybe these guys know their limitations better than we do. And to be honest, given my current financial situation, if someone offered me several million quid I'd be prepared to humiliate myself much more than appearing in a trashy Hollywood film :)

Damn, 7lbs was last year!

What is Michael Bay's best film? If there is such a thing....
And is his best film actually a good one?

What has poor James King done to have to take over if there are ten films worse than Bride Wars?

My nomination would be the Daily Mails film critic Christopher ban this filth Tookey who often flags up really terrible films with the words My Film of the week.

If I may be smug for a moment, can I say I predicted that Dr Kermode would hate Transformers 2 even more than Bride Wars way back in January!

/blogs/markkermode/2009/01/more_points_of_you_part_one.html

(Although in fairness, I also predicted he'd hate Angels And Demons (on the grounds of Dan Brown) and He's Just Not That Into You (on grounds too numerous to mention) more as well).

I wait with interest on the arrival of the "worst of 2009" chart. And to see it headed by Inglorious Basterds...

Meanwhile in the context of a replacement critic, really interested to see the not-quite-ten-year-old on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã News website's review of Harry Potter 6 ( saying the film "has plenty of everything, but maybe a bit too much kissing."

Sounds like Kermode's review of High School Musical 3. Someone's been taking notes in film studies class...

In fairness to Michael Bay at least he actually has a real name unlike McG

A new genre is born the non-acting movie!
directors who dont direct, actors that dont act! dont need a script writer, most of the work is done by the 2nd unit director and lots of people behind computer screens. The director adds pithy comments like "that robot dude isnt big enough", or "can you make them wobble more..."

Lol very true it's amazing these guys get away with calling themselves directors not to mention their the huge paycheck. I bet they are dreading the day Hollywood realises they could make similarly poor but hugely popular films just as well without them.

I have been just wondering, are people with film or film related degrees the worst people to review films?

@ xxmalxx the worst film reviewers are those a) who don't know how to write and b) have no life for reference.

@ armadilloslim haha... I catch myself admiring 2nd-unit directors a lot again.

Hollywood Directors are 'None-Creative Managers' more than anything. Chaplin, Fritz Lang, Hitchcock, Friedkin, Altman etc... at least had other qualities besides that.

You say Bowie I say Bowie lets call the whole thing off

"What is Michael Bay's best film?"

You mean what is his 'least bad' film?

For me that's probably The Island. Lots of nonsense, running about, explosions, and product placement in a place where people can't buy the products, admittedly. But as the good Dr would perhaps note, at least it was about something, even if it ultimately doesn't have too much to say about it.

There's a far better and more serious film to be made about the subject - and better films on similar themes have been made previously - but by MB's standards at least it takes a look at the topic.

Steve W

Darthpunk "In fairness to Michael Bay at least he actually has a real name unlike McG"

Haha fair play, I try really hard to think of positives for Michael Bay and I just can't. I applaud you Darthpunk for coming up with something positive, even though he is a poor man's Spielberg.

The Rock is not so bad.

If its David, then its BOW (*) - and not as Simon keeps on doing it: BAWie.

Ask - did Robin Hood every use a Baw and arrow?

(Bow according to himself)

Thank you Funk le Monk for that scarily illuminating insight into the mind of Michael Bay (and also Megan Fox). It seems we have much to thank Bay for: discovery of the major actors of this generation.

That's not all VictorVictory, there's a few articles around that allege Michael Bay made Megan Fox 'wash his Ferrari' while he filmed her as an audition for Transformers (see , which sounds like a euphemism but apparently isn't. I can't find the source article by Jason Solomons though, so I'm not sure how accurate that is.

I thought I'd better actually watch a film by Michael Bay to see what the fuss was about. Years ago, without knowing who the director was, I saw Mystery Men, which wasn't as funny as it should have been and didn't hang together very well, One of the Bad Boys films which was funny in places and Armageddon which was weak and I managed about 15 minutes of Pearl Harbour before giving up. So I watched Transformers. For the first hour or so I was enjoying it, thinking 'oh no, that means I must be a moron'. It was preposterous but funny, Spielberg-y, but then it degenerated into clumsy, overblown action sequences and for the last half an hour I was watching it out of the corner of my eye while browsing the internet to see what the film's budget could buy you. It's equal to the military budget of Panama. The last hour and a bit was just bad filmmaking; clumsy, cluttered and hard to follow visually. Lost interest. So that's okay. I'm not a secret Michael Bay fan. Ironically it's the scenes with human interaction that work the best.

I also watched Ghost Town recently which was waaaaaaaaay better than I'd feared it would be. Enjoyable and even poignant at the end...

I do think that films as long as Transformers should come with an intermission. Or maybe in this case an intercession or an intervention.

On the subject of Bowie, I believe David himself went on record as saying he pronounces it BOwie but he really does mind how anyone else pronouces it so long as they dont call him Dave.

Mark, I know you'll be providing some insight into LVT's 'Antichrist' when you review it on the Mayo show, but wondered if you'd come across this:



Convenient moral panic, anyone? Read similar piece in The Sun. Regressive piffle, surely, no matter what you think of Von Trier's work?

Also the temerity to invoke the early 70s censorship crises irked me somewhat, as did the suggestion that an "ironic" sub-genre of horror had been created with 2009's 'Drag Me to Hell'. Last time I checked Raimi released 'The Evil Dead' (a couple go to a cabin in the woods and go nuts) in 1981 and it was BANNED.

I'm glad to see that the re-release of Mishima is listed as your number one film in the UK at the moment. As it's one of my all-time favorite films, I was wondering if you could do a brief piece about it for anyone who isn't aware of it.

P.S. Where's the "Worse Than Bride Wars" charts?

I just realised that Michael Bay and Jeremy Clarkson must be the same person. They like car porn, military vehicle porn, the humour is the same and it is all rather silly. The only difference is that Top Gear is entertaining and only an hour long.

Mark, did you feel sickened when you saw Transformers 2? I did. My stomach churned and I felt on the verge of tears, which has NEVER happened to me in my life. That's how much I hated it.

Oooh and thanks for reading out my comment, Mark. I agree with you as well - both are bad.

I eagerly await your review of Harry Potter 6, as it was one of the weakest books in the series, for me.

MK it's definitely BOO-WEE, Laurence Harvey said so in The Alamo!!

Mark, a thought about your threat to retire if there are 10 worse films than 'Bride Wars' this year.

Given most films are at best medocre (and finding bad movies (or movies bad) gets easier as one gets older, especially as new ideas are in short supply, hence the endless remakes/reboots [ scary thought, in 20 years time they'll be remaking Transformers, The Island etc with worse directors than Bay! ]) why not set yourself the task of finding 10 (or even 5) really good films per year?

Movies that keep you awake after seeing them, head buzzing with thoughts; films that you immediately want to go and watch again or ones that simply put a huge grin on your face. If you can't find 10 (or 5) of those per year, then retire.

I am sorry, and a tad late in the game to say the least, but I cannot believe someone actually said they like The Island!! I am no film snob at all, perish the thought, but that film was just one gratuitous product placement after another with a very dodgy performance (specifically accent-wise) from Mr. McGregor. I am all for popcorn cinema and I have to agree that the first Transformers film was okay for what it was but The Island..Anyhoo good job Mr. Kermode and keep up the skiffle band action- Lonnie Donegan would be proud!