Sorry for not posting more, but I just bought a house, and you know how things could be with that. In the end, I couldn’t find any college students throwing out a complete dining room set, but I came close enough.

The Hawaii blog will not be completed, as I can’t figure out a way to end it, but I’ll eventually post a few thoughts.

So the topic today is: The new Transformers movie. This was prompted by Ruben’s insightful query, and my part as the biggest Transformers dork most people care to associate with, seeing how I bathe regularly and have a steady job that doesn’t involve fries:

“What's your call on Transformers? I think it will be a complete toss-up...could be the coolest movie I've seen in a while, could be to Spider Man what Pearl Harbor was to SPR...thoughts?”

This question will be answered in two parts:

1. For those of you not born in the Carter or Reagan administrations, there already was a Transformers movie and for many of us, there will NEVER be another Transformers movie. It came out in 1986, flopped, grossing only $6 million, and yet still lives in the hearts of millions of dorks like me. How do I know this? Because it was re-released last year for it’s 20th anniversary as a 2-disc special edition. Think about this: this is a twenty year old movie that was the movie version of what was arguably a program-length toy commercial, and it was a flop, yet still got a 20th anniversary 2-disc special edition. Not only that, the soundtrack was just re-released, remastered and with more tracks. All this points to one thing: cult movie. It takes guts to try to follow up or supplant a cult movie. Sometimes, it works, like Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” or Ronald D. Moore’s new BSG. And other times, it doesn’t, like the “Rollerball” remake, Tim Burton’s "Planet of the Apes." Which brings us to my second point…

2. Michael Bay is not the man for the job. Personally I don’t know why they trumpet this so much. Every single ad has “A Michael Bay Film” on top of the title. That’s not the way to advertise a movie. The new Transformers movie is the seventh film of Michael Bay. The first six have been:

Bad Boys (pretty good)
The Rock (pretty good, but saved by the dialogue)
Armageddon (dumb, a B-movie plot with an A-movie budget)
Pearl Harbor (possibly, the biggest movie disappointment of my life, and I saw "Rocky V" in the theatre)
Bad Boys II (too dumb AND too long.How can anyone take almost three hours of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence?)
The Island (so bad, the plot was actually ripped off from a B-movie)

So for those of you keeping score at home, that's two pretty good movies, and four pretty awful movies, and the four pretty awful movies happened to be the last four films he's made. Does this raise the confidence level any? Is this supposed to comfort us Transformers fans? To hand over this franchise to the man that gave us "Pearl Harbor?" It's like seeing your favorite team sign Daunte Culpepper as the starting quarterback, and then putting him on the cover of their season ticket packages and programs. (Thanks to Ruben for finding the right crappy QB to match up) I'm confident the new movie will have plenty of 'splosions, and they'll be plenty of action, but I got a feeling I'll be terribly disappointed, like I was at "Pearl Harbor."

I'm going to approach it like I approached "Rocky Balboa," I don't want to see it, but I know I will.

Speaking of Rocky, Stallone is also doing Rambo IV, which is puzzling because Rambo III wasn't that good. But if Stallone is going to do sequels to his hits from the 80's, then why not a sequel to "Cobra?"