Michael Bay, take a chill pill...

Okay, I am going to fully admit that I should have written this last weekend, shortly after seeing the movie. My mind was whirring with blog thoughts as soon as I walked out of the theater. But, alas, here I am, a week later. So, here goes.

Before I say anything, I must defer to, reference, and worship two epic pieces of writing by critic Roger Ebert. Both refer to Transformers, so I'm not sending you off on a wild goose chase, and I highly recommend you take a moment to read. (You will laugh, I promise you).
His official review, and His more general blog about the film

Now, first off, I did not hate the second Transformers film the way Ebert did. Although, I don't think it's possible to hate it as much as he did. Overall, I thought it was fun, loud, probably a bit much but an overall "okay/pretty good" movie. I do recognize several points of Ebert's as highly valid - but I'll come back to this.

I've said this before with another movie, but I'm going to reiterate the point. Transformers is the kind of movie where you have to know what you're walking into. Don't expect more than you're going to get... this is an action film, designed around a TOY (Hasbro is listed with the production companies, for Pete's sake), with CGI Robots as many of the main characters, and a simple melodramatic plot to fill out the rest. It is full of action sequences, explosions, loud noises, and thumping music. This movie is not about PLOT or emotions. If you saw and liked the first Transformers film, you will probably enjoy this one as well. It will not be life-changing (and I would definitely say it's not as good as the first, which I really thought was fairly good), but overall, it was a pretty fun way to spend two and half hours.

One thing I highly admire is the increasingly accurate ability to give non-human, computerized characters a great deal of "realness." While this movie doesn't come close to, say, WALL-E, (which was incredible...) I do feel somewhat attached to characters like Bumblebee and Optimus Prime, and even the little "dog" bot from this film. Additionally, I am of the opinion that Shia LaBeouf (whose name I always have difficulty spelling) is a gifted young actor with a long career ahead of him, and I have to say, is a guy whom I highly admire. I have a few pet peeves with Megan Fox in real life, but her character was just fine for a hot girl required to run around a lot and then look lusty.

So, I would say that this is a great FUN summer movie, which is clearly destined to make loads of money. If you want to see it, go for it! Don't let reviews like Ebert's scare you away. But make sure you're not holding any high (or even low) expectations for the film. Just go and enjoy the spectacle.

Now, to address a few of the points that Ebert makes, particularly in his more general blog post (this part may be more relevant if you've seen the movie already...) Michael Bay is a bit out of control. With the first film, at least he strung together the big action sequences with a fairly interesting plot. With this one, I'd say it was the other way around. Plot pieces were just thrown in there - some scenes, like Ebert says - could easily have come from another movie. However, I don't think this movie is the pinnacle of Hollywood's big overblown CGI phase. After all, just look at the trailer for 2012, a movie from Roland Emmerich, a man who is easily competing for the title of Hollywood's biggest computer-generated-pyromaniac... (Go on, take a look - I'll wait.)

Second, YES, this movie will make a LOT of money. I mean, it did $201 million in the first five days of release, a number that is only just shy of The Dark Knight (I'm still a bit peeved that a movie like Transformers could even come CLOSE to touching The Dark Knight, but oh well.) But, I'd like to point out that the movie likely (and with good reason) cost more than $200 to make.... so they're probably just starting to earn it back. Along that line, I was a bit stunned when watching the credits to see that the film had FOUR producers AND another FOUR executive producers (including Michael Bay himself and Steven Spielburg somewhere in that list). It's hard to believe how many people it took to fund this film. But, back to my point. This film will probably continue to keep making a lot of money. I mean, all the way to Harry Potter's release soon (wait for it - SQUEEEE!), it's one of the only big Blockbusters that will potentially reach a broad summer audience on the market right now. But, really, money doesn't tell you that much. After all, worse films (*cough*Spiderman3*cough*) have made oodles of cash.

Ebert discusses in detail the way this film "assaults the senses." In all honesty, this may be an age barrier. I found the booming sound effects and soundtrack to be exhilarating, to add to the adrenaline of the movie. Along these lines, I just want to address the structure of the film. YES, there are many action sequences, not just ONE climactic scene... And YES, it is awfully long. But, honestly, for me, it just kind of hit a plateau of action, keeping the level of excitement high, carrying you along to the end. I didn't notice time dragging at all, really.

So, this is becoming a ramble now and I will wrap it up. Yes, this movie is ACTION-PACKED (it may redefine that term). Yes, it is BIG and COMMERCIAL and BLOCKBUSTER-y. And, yes, critics are NOT going to like it. But, I saw it, liked it, and will probably see more Transformers flicks if (or should I say when?) they're released. I'm not going to say you "should" or "shouldn't" see this film, but it certainly started the big summer movie season off with a BANG.

Cheers. <3>

LeakyCon: Made of Awesome

Okay. I'm going to do this. A blog about LeakyCon is in every way long overdue, but there's no time like the present, right? In all honesty, I think the time that has elapsed since that special weekend in Boston has not made the memories fade but instead has strengthened my overall impression - the impression that will stay with me into the future. It's this impression that I hope to convey to you.

But where to even START to begin? A definition, I suppose:

LeakyCon: (n) A conference put on by the staff members of the Leaky community (the hundreds of staff members and thousands of members that discuss news and ideas about the Harry Potter books and films on the Leaky Cauldron or the Leaky Lounge). The first of, hopefully, several LeakyCons took place at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel on the weekend of May 21-24, 2009 and was, in every possible way, a made-of-awesome weekend and a wild success. The second LeakyCon is scheduled for July 2011, in Orlando, Florida.

May 21-24, you might say if you know me... wasn't that the date of your high school graduation? Why, yes, I would answer, it was; a realization that came to me with a sudden burst of horror in December of 2008. I checked, re-checked, and probably triple-checked calendars and dates, but there was no way around it: I was faced with a big decision. I won't go through all the details or the whys and hows of what I chose what I did... I'll just make a long story short and tell you that I chose LeakyCon. With a hint of foreshadowing for what I hope to express in this blog post, I don't regret this decision AT ALL.

I very well could spend thousands of words breaking down everything I said, saw, heard, or did during the entire weekend in an attempt to SHOW you what made LeakyCon amazing, but I still doubt that would cover it. Instead, I'm going to break down exactly what made the weekend special into a few manageable pieces.

The conference itself: I haven't been to any other Harry Potter conferences, but I'm pretty darn sure it's safe to say that this one blew the others out of the water. From the people who were there - all the PotterCasters, the Wrockers, the VlogBrothers, Maureen Johnson, Michael Goldenburg - to the programming, to the details like the drool-worthy decorations in the Castle... the LeakyCon staff simply thought of everything. It was so very cool (in a nerdy way) to turn around at any point during the weekend and see Dumbledore buying a drink for John Green, John Noe filming for his documentary (which looks amazing, by the way), or Melissa Anelli and Hank Green dancing like maniacs.

It was incredible to hear the thoughts of a *real* Hollywood screenwriter in an intimate luncheon setting. It was SO much fun to see the vlogbrothers off a computer screen and to see PotterCast to come to life. It was fabulous to be introduced to wizard rock through live performances of the groups themselves. (I'm now an avid Ministry of Magic fan, thanks to their show). It was AMAZING beyond words to hold a real life Lily and Stag Inn discussion of Order of the Phoenix. It was surreal to casually grab lunch with Maureen Johnson, and come home to find that she had twittered a photo of ME. Every moment of the programmed weekend was special in its own way. And it didn't end when the Registration Booth closed... every moment spent with LeakyCon staff, even just hanging out, was a moment I will treasure.

That brings me to the staff: This is probably the coolest group of people on the planet, if you ask me. Leaky staff is one big family, devoted to making the world a bit better through promoting fun, acceptance, love, and diversity. The staff members I met are of all ages, backgrounds, nationalities. These are people who spend their spare time volunteering for a community, pouring hours of effort into projects, interactions, discussions, and ideas just because THEY CAN.

I had a bit of a fear walking into Leaky that I didn't wouldn't know anyone. I mean, wouldn't have anyone who knew me. But I got there and... Man, there were the L&S Staffers that I have worked with, and it was bizarre and wonderful to put faces and personalities to the screen names and typed words on a screen. And then there were all the other staffers that I have bizarre pseudo-relationships with through Twitter. I'll say again that I had a moment's fear of walking into a strange crowd, of people with pre-formed friendhsips, of being out-of-place... but I can't tell you how wrong that was. If acceptance can happen in a millisecond, walking into a group of Leaky staffers erases doubts just like that As screen names, twitter names, pictures, and faces came together, this group of people - this family - came to life before me... And this, I will always remember.

Ideologically: There are a lot of things that the Harry Potter books and - by proxy - this conference stood for that made me proud to be there. Of course, this is simply due to the nature of the books, but also to the wonderful participation of the Harry Potter Alliance, a group that takes the messages in these popular books and uses them to fight for causes in the real world. One of the reasons I find these books so powerful is the promotion of LOVE as the strongest power of all. This idea extends to the need for acceptance... and this positively permeated the entire weekend. Andrew Slack's sweet opening speech invited all LeakyCon participants to open their hearts and minds to each other, to welcome strangers into your life for a weekend, to suspend judgement or fear of being judged.

I cannot tell you how liberating this was. To let the "nerdy" or "geeky" facade fall away... To be able to show passion for something that may earn you weird looks in the "real world"... To discuss fictional characters that mean the world to you with someone else who knows how you feel... To honor the message Harry stands for and the lessons Dumbledore taught... this was quite powerful and inspiring.

Personally: Yes, I'm getting to a personal, going-to-tear-up train of thought now... One of the reasons I chose LeakyCon over graduation was that it was all about looking forward. Graduating is about celebrating past accomplishments, saying goodbyes, preparing to move onto the next chapter of your life... But when it came to Leaky, this is a community that I hope to continue being a part of, friendships I wanted to cultivate even more. It was, all in all, about the future. In a lot of ways, this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. As soon as I had this goal in mind, it was sure to come true. Through LeakyCon, I delved deeper into the fandom. I finally expanded my repertoire to include wrock, I got to know various fan"celebrities" in the HP world, I met people who are also in this community for the long-run, and I became invested in looking forward to the next LeakyCon in 2011.

I guess what I'm starting to say is that LeakyCon changed me... It helped me accept this part of who I am, to not want to hide it in college as something people will judge me for. It gave me a community to nestle into when the new world of college is scary. It gave me something to do - I hope to participate in the planning of the next conference - that feels bigger than myself.

So, on a deeply personal note, this weekend moved me. I can't even begin to explain my shock and gratitude for the beautiful surprise graduation party that my lovely L&S friends threw me. I want to thank anyone who welcomed me as someone they already knew, who congratulated me on graduating, who shared a laugh or a story or a moment of fun. I want to thank LeakyCon staff for even thinking of this conference, let alone making it happen.

Above all, I just want to thank the universe for somehow allowing me to go be a part of this weekend... because in so many ways, this was an experience I will never forget.

DFTBA. <3