TRANFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

Time wasting is an art that I have cultivated for a long time. It guided me, at some point, to watch Transformers, the 2007 movie. I remember that is was a box office success, and that many critics were surprised that they actually liked it. Indeed, it was not such a bad movie. With such terrible premise (giant robots that come to Earth and desguise themselves as cars, trucks and planes) and background (plastic toys that became a rudimentary animation series and a comic strip), it turn out to be fun, as far as your frontal lobe was basking in the sun somewhere else.

Once I forgave the premise, I mildly enjoy the action, the touches of humour, Megan Fox... but could not get over a couple of things. The first one may not be important for this kind of movie: besides Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, I could not recognise the robots. The fact that they were essentially big grey piles of metal changing shapes and moving around a lot did not help at all. But, as I said, that may not have been important. For the conosseurs, that must have not been a problem; probably they could recognise each robot by almost invisible features. For other people, lost in the action and the music, knowing that the good robots had blue eyes and the bad ones had red eyes was likely enough.

The second thing was, at least for me, more difficult to accept. The thing is, Michael Bay is, at best, a mediocre director, and usually he is a bad one. Everything in the movie followed a by-the numbers structure that seemed assembled, well, in a plastic-toy factory. You see, at the beginning there si some suspense and anticipation. Then things are revealed. The music soars when it has to soar. There is an underdog (portraid with a certain natural charisma by Shia LaBeouf) and a girl that is absurdly sexy. The complications are predictable and, well, simple. The comic relief is delivered in the precise moment it should be delivered. In other words, there is nothing original, surprising, human about the movie. We are supposed to care about the couple, but Megan Fox is a mannequin (and acts like one) without any depth, and LaBeouff, in spite of his intensity, is just a collection of mannerisms. We are supposed to care about humankind, but we see very little of it. We are supposed to care about the good robots and we can barely distinguish them. It is like caring about talking fridges.

Then, the second movie, Revenge of the fallen, came. It was a mess. Everybody, including LaBeouff and Bay, critisised it (shameless, those two). Why, because on top of all the faults of the first movie, the plot was very convoluted and confusing. There were more, and bigger, robots; more people and more action, the music was louder, the jokes more frequent. But those were only distractions, so you would not notice how simple and stupid everything was.

So, the third movie is, in a way, a return to the roots: a more straightforward plot with clearer good and bad guys. Critics and public seem to think so: although in Rotten Tomatoes and the IMDB the ratings are lower than the first movie’s, they are definetely higher than the second’s. Indeed, the movie is a bit like the first, with the same strengths (is there a noun for a quality that is not particularly strong?) and the same weaknesses, but given the fact that the movie lasts not a lot less than three hours, there had to be more excesses. LeBeouff returns, of course, in his mumbling intense verborreic mode. Megan Fox is gone, replaced by more of the same, a model that barely acts, but moves around in short dresses and protrudes her lips in a way that even Angelina Jolie would found shameful. More robots, more damage, louder music, more characters... Actually, the movie includes a few more improbabilites as excuses to bring back familiar faces, like John Turturro’s and Tyrese Gibson, and then populates the screen with the likes of Francis McDormand, John Malkovich, Patrick Dempsey and Alan Tudyk, in some cases only to have more mouths to attach jokes to. Obviously, character development or psychological depth are utterly absent.

The producers even manage to include a kind of agressive product placement: not only the good guys transform mostly into GM products, but the bad guys seem to have a predilection for Mercedes. In the end, this only shows that the movie seems to have one goal: sell as much as it can. And, perhaps, prepare the field for the next installment.

What happened in the federal elections?

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional political analyst. I do not read all the news and only seldom watch the TV news. This is only my opinion.

Why? Why did the political landscape in Canada change so much? Why did the Conservative Party and the NDP go up, and the Liberals and the BQ go down so dramatically? There are many reasons, and a thousand analyses in the press will cover them all. But to me there are two important factors that have substantially contributed to the results of yesterday’s elections. The first one is that the traditional asset of the Liberal Party, being in the middle of the road, became a liability. When both the Conservatives and the NDP did not seem so “extreme” for some tastes anymore, the Liberal got squished. It did not help, either, having a couple of not very charismatic leaders (Dion and Ignatieff) and platforms that seemed lost in times of crisis. At least the Conservatives and the NDP (and, of course, the Green Party) seemed to have clear agendas, which meant you either agreed with them or not. With the Liberals it was unclear what they really wanted and what they would do with the power. In more stable times, that is actually an attractive proposal, not to rock the boat. But just emerging from a recession, decisive action and clear direction toward the economy and social spending are what people want.
I feel sorry for Ignatieff. He was mercilessly attacked, and I would think he is an intelligent and honest man. In addition, being uncharismatic is something you could also say about Steven Harper. But not having a lot of charisma added to a fussy political platform is a bad combination. With Harper, people may think he is robotic, emotionally uninvolved, monotonous in his discourse, but nobody doubts he is a very good strategist and his ideas and political direction are very clear. You either like him or not (or perhaps love him or hate him) but you cannot ignore him. Furthermore, he was in power. Once you are in power, you are visible, more in what you do and say than in your image. Ignatieff did not have the benefit of showing what he could (or not) do. He had to rely on his image to get to people, and being a somewhat aloof intellectual was not the road to political fame. His history did not help either, having lived outside of Canada for a long time, and calling himself a liberal, but having supported some Bush policies, like the Iraq war.
Jack Layton, on the other hand, is quick, funny and charismatic. You may not like his ideas, but you cannot disregard him as a murky blob in the political spectrum. In a difficult economic time, he embodies very clearly Harper’s political opposite: if Harper’s recipe is to strengthen the economy through reducing government spending (especially cutting social spending) and creating an attractive field for private investment (lowering taxes and offering an advantageous legal framework), Layton proposes strengthening social services and support networks. It is easier to decide between one and the other, instead of trying to find out exactly where the liberals stand.
The second reason for the results is local politics. I believe that the fact that the liberals have dominated the provincial political landscape of the two more populated provinces in Canada (Ontario and Quebec) in the last few years works as a disadvantage for them. It is true that provincial and federal politics are very different, but I think people make some connection between the two of them. If they feel the premier has not responded to the people’s needs, it is more difficult to trust a federal government that, at least in principle, belongs to the same party. Both McGuinty and Charest are in quite a low point in terms of popularity in their provinces. People think they have not responded as they should have to counteract the effects of the recession. And the fact that the Conservatives have not recently had a premier in any of the most populous province (with the exception of Alberta, where both the economy and the political views are at odds with the rest of Canada) has given them a sort of political carte blanche. They have not had to fight any political perception at the provincial level, they have not had to justify why the premier of their party did this or did not do that.
And what about the Bloc Québécois? I think they are in a very difficult position, with an agenda that only interests one province. Still, why did they not get more seats in Quebec? Well, perhaps of the second reason, the provincial politics, but with a twist. The federal candidates actually are provincial ones: they only come from Quebec, and their platform only affects Quebec. And although they are not in power in the province, their MPs have not delivered from the federal level. The same problems, the same complains, are present among the voters every election. Even people who would like Quebec to separate may think: “Well, if we are going to play the federal game, at least we should get some results from the party,” which has not happened in a way that meet people’s expectations. On top of that, their main point, the separation of Quebec, seems to be dormant. The BQ itself does not seem to believe in it so fiercely anymore. They do not mention it as often, they do not propose a lot of things that require the separation to work, they do not offer unique solutions to the problems of the province that would be better served by separating from Canada.
I think this neglect is on purpose. Of course, the most obvious reason would seem that the political moment is not propitious to debate that subject, but I also think they do not think it is the best moment for the separation to actually take place. With a stronger Canadian economy and currency than the American counterparts, is it not wise to stay in Canada instead of hoping to get a privileged partnership with United States?