Andrew Nicholson

I was sad to hear Michael Jackson died this week. Although I did not have tickets for any of the O2 shows (they seemed to have sold out in minutes as far as I could see) but I was hoping he would do well and give a new generation an insight as to the excitement of watching him perform live. Whether or not he could have pulled those shows off well I am not sure but I certainly was hoping he would make a come back. I had always been disappointed with the lack of new Michael Jackson music since History/Blood on the Dancefloor and although Invincible (2001) features some great tracks (Unbreakable / 2000 Watts / You Rock my World) it seemed to lack the creativity and productivity which I am sure he was capable of. I guess I was a bit of a fan of Michael in the 90s as I had bought all his cds and was always looking forward to seeing his new music videos.

I was lucky enough to have seen Michael Jackson perform live on Monday September 30th 1996 in the Amsterdam Arena. It was the second of a three night stand there. He came back for a further two nights in 1997. He toured all throughout Europe for around a year I believe without doing any shows in the USA. I am guessing that had to do with the bad press he was starting to get in the mid 90s. What I personally remember really well from the show I attended was the excitement of watching him perform, the amazing dancemoves, the custome changes, the great use of the huge screens, waving of the Dutch flag by MJ and especially the marvellous CGI style introduction (quite ahead of its time back then) played on the big screens which was customised for each city on the tour after which Micheal Jackson stood still on stage for minutes to the huge roar of the crowd. The concert introduction from that tour can be found in various YouTube clips online and I have posted one of the better quality ones here.

I found a couple of instrumental MJ tracks I did years back on a tape which belonged to my nan. I cannot fully remember the list of equipment I used to record these tracks but I think I did these using a Technics KN1000 keyboard along with the Yamaha MU100R sound canvas and a 4 track taperecorder. I used a lot of sequencing back then so the songs are more mechanical sounding than anything else I’ve done but I thought it would still be interesting to make some mp3s out of them and post them online to share. The date of the tape is 31st of October 1997 and thus the tracks must have been recorded before then. So from the vaults as a little homage to Michael Jackson here are “We are the world” and “Will you be there”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Oh my god. Words fail to describe this awful, awful, awful mess of what cannot really be called a “movie” in my opinion.
And me actually having an appreciation for the MTV – popcorn style movies which Michael Bay is famous for doing (I loved “The Rock”, “Bad Boys I” and especially “Armageddon”) I can ONLY conlcude this one sucks big time. Possibly one of the worst cinema experiences I have ever had (no joke). I just wanted it to end after about 45 minutes in… I definitely would have walked out of the cinema if I had been there alone or if I was with someone else who didn’t like it.

The first Transformers movie would never be in my top 100 films or let alone top 1000 probably but at least it had originality, some interesting ideas and funny bits. I actually remember seeing the Transformers car chase mid way through and thinking it was excellent. The 2nd installment is just ridiculous. 150 minutes of explosions, CGI, empty and uninteresting characters who all pretty much do nothing, plot lines which move far too fast, no single shot that lasts longer than 1 second, Megan Fox (hugely overrated imo) running around for no reason in a slinky top, terrible humour, irritating characters which are unnecessary to the film (Shia’s parents), absolutely NO character development, etc. etc. And believe me I actually wanted to like this film and would have forgiven some of these cliches to an extent but 150 minutes of constant CGI really does not make a movie I think. There is NO heart in this, NO passion for making a movie which harnasses human values to any extent, instead it spits in the face of decency and it makes a Britney Spears musicvideo look like an opus. The “script” must have been 1 single A4 sheet????

Definitely the worst thing I have EVER seen that has had the names “Michael Bay” and “Steven Spielberg” associated with it. I have forgiven them both for “Bad Boys II”, “Pearl Harbour”, “1941″ and “Amistad”. How in God’s name do they get away with making something like this????

Extremely disappointed…. I cannot believe Paramount and Dreamworks have commissioned Transformers 3. I can only conclude they have NO dignity whatsoever and I have lost a LOT of respect for Spielberg on this one too.

A colleague at work pointed out this review by Mark Kermode from a radio show he does on five live. He starts talking about the movie about 17.30 minutes into the broadcast. He makes a lot of good and valid points; this is simply not good enough for a summer blockbuster movie which costs $200 million to produce. Indeed making an action flick based around robots with plenty of CGI is fine and the first installment is perfectly acceptable, but this one is just not. Outrageous.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode.shtml

What a Rubbish film, utter garbage in my opinion. How dare Michael Bay took a pun at Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” when he makes a movie that sucks about a thousand times more than that one even if it was just meant as a joke! (http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/05/08/michael-bay-says-indiana-jones-4-is-gonna-suck/ ).

Like Mark says in his review: I hated it.

SCORE: 1/10