If he just added a little depth and nuance, he could have done Pearl Harbor so much better. "What if Titanic, but on a national level of shock and tragedy... but we win at the end... at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and the foundations of American society and the way of life shaken... and since its the beginnings of the war, our heroes don't even know if they will make it out alive. "
I like what another reviewer said better: "The movie claims to borrow from great historical dramas, but really it borrows from Top Gun, Titanic, and Saving Private Ryan".
There was this romantic pop ballad that came out with Pearl Harbor that I would constantly confuse with the one from Titanic. When I saw a wisecrack video about Pearl Harbor was Michael bay remaking titanic with bombs and guns I was like, "I never saw titanic but somehow I remember always knowing this to be true"
The Vatican has standing orders to stop that from happening, for the end times would truly be upon us. Consider this line from the Book of Revelations: "Unto man a robot did fall, and then the firmament was rent with red fire and blue light. And lo, a man did utter to the Lord, 'One quarter mile at a time do I live my life.' And when that man drove that robot, woe unto all God's children." I'm pretty sure that's an exact quote.
lol clearly Pearl Harbor happened in the Antarctic during April and May. How else can you explain the 40+ day long sunset? you can't experience that in the south pacific tropics!
Now we've seen Chris McQuarrie direct MI:Rogue Nation and MI: Fallout, Miller do Mad Max:Fury Road and Chad Stahelski on the John Wick movies, wonder if Spielberg would still say he has the best eye for action.
"These characters are real people who died, and Bay is having the time of his life blowing them up." That's such a coldly cynical takeaway, but you're not wrong. Were I to direct films, I admit I would take a lot of visual inspiration from Bay. He has a knack for making everything on screen interesting as Hell to look at, and the way he mixes that with scores and sound design always makes me giddy like a little kid.
Pain & Gain is still, to this day, one of my biggest guilty pleasures. Michael Bay's directing style actually compliments the skewed motivations and world view of the main characters. The writing and performances are what make the movie but having Bay as the director, whether he was self aware or not, was kind of an interesting choice.
I think it's self-aware, in a way that honestly only he could pull off. It's like how The Wolf of Wall Street makes you love Jordan Belfort, before making you realize he actually hurt people and he's a piece of shit, but cracked up to 11. The movie basically never stops pointing out how horrific their actions were, but continues to be enjoyable. It seems like a very intentional choice to make the audience uncomfortable, and in my opinion a film succeeds when it pulls emotion out of you.
One of the lesser reasons Bay gets so much blockbuster work is that he never forgot his low-budget roots. Every production is done to military precision, with a lower budget and body count than other big time directors which is a pretty big thing for producers picking a director for their potential multi-million dollar boondoggle
Yep. He pretty much always goes under the budget was given by even under $10-20 million. He saves them money and gives them bigger profits as a result.
@@gonk4509 In way, yes. Both of the videos talk about Bay in a way that movie critics talk about art in general, but with different focus. Or maybe it is just a quote from the movies that will appear in part 2. Sometimes a plate is just a plate and sometimes it is an explosion of flavors
Knowing he also did commercials gives me a much better understanding of why his style was so prevalent at the time. Also I actually really like Pain and Gain when I didn't expect to!
adarsh sirsat He does. His movies are usually written by several people. He usually does uncredited rewrites to add some of his "Bay-ness" to the material, but it's not like he writes everything himself.
I honestly think that better scripts would do NOTHING to change the basic nature of a Michael Bay film, because Bay is so utterly focused on the imagery and surface-level gloss. His filming style steps all over dialogue and performances. He'd just end up burying everything good about the script under the typical pile of Bay-isms. (Like the classic example of how all of Megan Fox's character-establishing dialogue in Transformers 1 is delivered while Bay camerafucks her body, so no one hears her talk.) It would be like Ken Russell's Altered States. Russel was another director not known for his taste or restraint, but he was given a wordy Paddy Chayefsy script to work with. So he just had the actors rush through the dialogue as fast as possible, or even deliver it as overlapping parallel arguments, just to get through those scenes more quickly. It was incomprehensible. He basically made his movie *despite* the script, and that's how Bay would treat a good script too.
Michael Bay could have a script written by Ernest Hemingway himself but he's gonna put his style and sensibilities ahead.He stopped caring about scripts a long time ago
One of the writters and head of the story from armagedon was jj abrams, and he didn't want the movie to be an action film he wanted to do satirical political comedy about the gobervermant dealing with natural dissasters, so insted in hire profesionals to deal with the problems they hire dumb oil workers to save money, thats why most of the science of the movie didn't make jack shit of scense because he wanted to do a dr strangelove/robocop type of satire (hell they even reference it) . It just michael bay fetish for action scenes and crow pandering writters that add that stupid ben affleck storyline that killed the orinal, and more interesting, visión of the movie
As much as I love "Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are," I had no idea it had a music video, much less it was done by the Bay. Such an awesome pull!
I'll admit, I'm never gonna be sold on him, but your videos have given me a lot of great insight into his skill as a filmmaker that I never knew about and even pointed out merits in his approach. These videos are wonderful.
Patrick, thank you for this video! As a big Michael Bay fan, I really appreciate essays about this legend. Especially when they don't just bash him but see Bay's potential. You the man!
Credit where it's due. If he can shoot something in practical FX he will will (CGI is supposed to be a ladder, not a crutch.) And he is who I would go to for advice about explosions. Now, I am going to watch your thing and see if my two positives are highlighted.
Hell, Fincher barely even had to grow up. I mean, Seven is still one of the best nonfiction serial killer movies ever made, and the restraint Fincher uses in showing the grisly details is really impressive. Sure, he graduated to doing Zodiac and Mindhunters, but that was a pretty small step up from where he started. (Yeah, I'm pretending Seven is his first movie, but does anyone really see Alien3 as being "a David Fincher film"? He was jobbing when he directed it, and had very little control over... anything, really, aside from the cinematography and performances.)
Fincher never really grew up. Aside from Alien 3 (which he was basically forced to do), all of his films deal with complicated, adult subject matter. Even Fight Club and The Social Network, despite the satirical nature and PG-13 rating/millennial targeting respectively, are still very complex films. Spielberg, meanwhile, seems to be caught between not growing up and growing up. His optimism remains, and there are plenty of movies of his that still have only childlike innocence (most recently Ready Player One), but he also does more adult content and does it really well. The only problem I see is that he’s lost an identity of sorts: you’re basically getting two Spielbergs in his current career state. Though to be fair, it’s really hard to blend serious content with blockbuster filmmaking; AFAIK Christopher Nolan is the only director who has built a career off of perfecting it.
Mine too. But then I thought about it a minute and realized that yeah, actually.... he is an auteur. You don't have to be making particularly high brow cinema to have an established style/storytelling method that makes a casual observer look at the film and say "yup, that's definitely this director". Bay fits the bill. He wouldn't be my first pick if I were trying to describe/show auteur theory (modern directors, I'd probably pick Tarantino), but that isn't the point of the video.
This was fantastic! I had no idea about Bay and Fincher's history together, or about the behind-the-scenes epiphany that he had while making Pearl Harbour. Plus the opening sketch did a top-notch job recreating Bay's aesthetic. I can't wait for Part 2!
oh wow i often watch movie review's and director roundtable's and stuff and i have to say the content ive found on this channel is some of the best in depth brutality honest reviews, descriptions and discussions on movies ive ever wtched. Subscibed
Michael Bay is my favorite director of all time. He's the main person who got me interested in film in the first place, and I never really understood why people hate him as much as they do. His visual style is next to none.
Man I saw Bumblebee twice and enjoyed it way more than all the Bayformers movies put together. I don't know what his obsession is with obnoxious hate-able characters, among many things, but those drag down the movies.
You lost me when you said you think Michael Bay would be the first to admit he wasn't the right director for Pearl Harbor. He would never admit he was wrong. There are things I like about Michael Bay, but I really love longer takes and less camera shake. The dojo fight sequence in The Matrix is the high water mark for me. The John Wick movies are excellent as well. Fast cuts and handheld-style shots are the thorn in my side. Great video. I love this kind of thing, and appreciate the time and planning you put into making this.
Can't wait for part two! Recently, I've realized that Bay is one of my favorite directors and the look of his movies is something I aspire to. This helps me understand him more.
The genuine irony of this opening is that you can't help it. You made a short action sequence that was actually good. The spatial geography was clear, and the action made sense. I thought this was supposed to be an imitation of Bay. You got the color palette. But the rest was just too coherent.
*_Where one Transformer starts and the other ends_* The scene you used as an example immediately after is what I saw at a theater once. I thought it was just me at that point in time while in the theater who had trouble making sense of what was on the screen. I was visually confused trying to sort out Optimus & whoever he was fighting.
Pearl Harbor prompted Roger Ebert to write the most scathingly funny review I have ever read, "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle."
Ok I've got to the Quantum of Solace car chase moment and I have to pause to write this. I have very few memories of Quantum of Solace. But one enduring one is me telling my friends just how much I disliked that scene in the lobby afterwards. I said "They we're trying to convey a sense of confusion, but I just ended up confused." I was younger then. RUclips video essays weren't a thing, I was less cine-literate so I didn't know why. But I knew that scene was terrible. The next time I felt that way was Transformers. This is the first time I've seen this scene mentioned (sorry if you've done it before, I'm watching these in random order) and to see it linked in with Bay is a great. Thanks for validating teenage me.
I have a soft spot for Michael Bay. Sure, his movies can be really dumb at times and Transformers feels like a franchise not suited for him (even he felt disinterested in working on them) but there are a few diamonds in the rough. I still enjoy Pain & Gain, The Rock, The Island, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, and the Bad Boys movies even to this day. Sure, everyone likes to point the finger at the guy who "ruined" Transformers, much like how Joel Schumacher was mocked for Batman & Robin, despite the fact that he made several decent movies prior _and_ since that film, Falling Down and Phone Booth are prime examples of this. I'm not saying Michael Bay is the best director or a genius or anything like that, I just don't consider him the worst director out there.
These are very compelling arguments about how Micheal Bay is an Auteur in the original sense of the word, with clear esthetic, key ideas and a recognizible hand. Problem is, that's not the critique: the critique is that his art sucks. In an era where movies and generally art tends to be indutrialized, grinded into small, same size, digestable bits, I can understand people watching at Bay and say: "Hey, at least he's unique, he is what I think an artist should be, he has a view and stick to it. What he does is artistic and only his own." But let's not forget that something being "true" art doesn't forbit said art to be bad. Techinically, philosophically and intellectually. And that's the case for Bay. Disclaimer: I understand perfectly well the "people" that I mentioned have probably an understanding of movies and visual art that is miles ahead of me, I just like the "Bay-ssue" cause it underlines a key concept in art, and a lot of interesting comments and opinion usually comes out of it.
Yeah, I have to agree. The video is excellent, and there's no value in being pompous or sneering about "low-brow" entertainment - but genuinely, of all the directors I've ever heard included in conversations about auteurs (even those who have *extremely* distinct visual styles and over-dependence on certain flourishes or tropes) no other comes anywhere close to being so utterly devoid of nuance across every project (very nearly every scene) of their career. Van Gogh's work includes over a dozen paintings of sunflowers - but he wouldn't be remembered as a master if they were the only thing he was able to paint...
@@kthemaster1999 Oh, somebody did bad chattychatty about your favourite kid show and now you are bubu? Here, take a bandaid and go back to mammy, she'll take care of you...
"The Avengers" is basically a Michael Bay film filtered through Joss Whedon's wit and affinity for the source material, plus a little short 'n sharp character development (well..VERY short 'n sharp...almost like a Michael Bay fil *hey wait a minute* )
Michael Bay never stopped directing commercials. All of his movies are a series of shots aiming for maximum effect without any meaning, substance or personality to back it up. To bad he always chooses scripts that don't deliver those missing ingredients. "The Island" probably came the closest and for all of it's flaws, it's probably the closest Bay ever got to making a "good movie".
Given that this video discusses the more technical aspects of Bay's filmmaking, probably not. It's a lot harder to fake an understanding of this stuff than it is with writing.
While I’m not a fan of his films, I do appreciate that he has his own style when it comes to film making. I can easily point them out from other films even if I’ve never seen the film before.
Actually i find Bay's action sequences quite easy to follow. Yes the cutting is rapid but the shot order clearly follows logical screen direction. In the example of the BB2 car chase witness how the cutaways and wider shots of the Hero car speeding by correspond to the close-ups of either Smith (in the driver's seat facing frame left) or Lawrence (passenger seat facing frame right). The camera even careens across the front of the car from one side to the other before cutting to the close-ups on the relevant side. In terms of spatial coherence this is way easier to follow than say a Nolan action scene where the unimaginative choice of shots, messy staging, rythmically-challenged editing and incoherent screen direction all add up to an illogical jumble (I still to this day cannot really figure out what's happening in the climactic building Swat siege of TDK). Furthermore Bay's sequences are structured with very clear dramatic beats even if they often use heavyhanded slow motion for emphasis. They only time I have found Bay's action scenes confusing are in the Transformers films and this is because the robots are 'overdesigned' with too much mechanical detail making the robotic character hard to decipher. Bay is an exceptional action filmmaker. Any filmmaker who has ever shot action scenes can appreciate the amount of hard work and creativity it takes to deliver what he does. Granted this might be the only thing he really does well as a filmmaker or perhaps it's all he actually cares about. Also I think Olivier Megaton's work on Taken 2&3 should be blamed on Mr Just-shoot-it-with-multiple-cameras-and-let-my editor-figure-it-out Paul Greengrass.
I don't really see much of a difference between TDK climax and Bay's filmmaking, like honestly dude "messy staging"? Michael Bay cannibalizes every tool he has by using them every time he can without intention besides "it looks cool", he's not imaginative at all. His spacial coherence is that he doesn't have one...ever. On BB2 we know there is a car and Smith and Lawrance are in the car, everything else explodes around them (the one in the shanty town doesn't count since he was ripping off Police Story's first ten minutes). In TDK, Batman is in the building the Joker is on the top floor and everything else is a big question mark
@@tomstonemale I totally agree with you in respect to what I see as Micheal Bay's aesthetic rational - namely that his only artistic ambition underlying every shot is truly, as you say "to make things looks cool". He doesn't pretend to have any deeper artistic motives. His films are undeniably shallow and crass and from all evidence it's by design. My point is that visually the way he constructs sequences is pretty straightforward and actually easy to follow while at the same time being eye candy. This defines directors with a background in advertising - it's all about looking great and hammering home 1 idea at a time for 30 seconds. Which he does with not only visual imagination but also with clarity. It's all showmanship with no substance absolutely - but make no mistake it's done with a lot of hard work and thought.
Desaturated color palettes, excessive slow-mo, buff male bods, philosophical dialogue that doesn't always translate to the action- there's your Synder auteur cliches
Synder is more of a conflicted artist, he's mom was a painter and you can see his inspiration but the probelm he pretends to care about character but he doesnt, thats where watchmen MoS and BvS and probably JL fell apart.......but if its pure action hr is one of the best like 300 or he's every action scene
@@devils.advocate2444 Yeah, the only reason 300 works at all is because he is pretty much running straight off the Frank Miller graphic novel script, and like Snyder, Miller only shits out a passable script for 300 because he's cribbing virtually every line of it directly from Herodotus.
Govt image: full of corruption, manipulations, unfair policy makers, vote over people Military: actually fight for the country's safety (in one way or another) At least this is how i see it lol
If Michael Bay was given a good script for his films they would be amazing. The worst problem Ive seen with most of his movies is that they are written subpar. But in terms of spectacle and the use of practical effects embedded within the CGI make a lot of his movies feel well put together but written poorly
Josh Bowman He had a good scrip with pearl harbor, but as said in the video, it was not Bay style. He place his own creative style above the script of his writer and he would rather die than change himself. Movie making is NOT a factory procedure where you can interchange steps and tools to create an exactly as imagined result. It isn’t as simple as good director + good writer= good film. Movie making is an collaborative endevour that everyone in the crew, from the director to the random VFX guy, put their own creative touch on. The director usually has the largest says but that is not enough. I remeber Tarantino once said that, and i rephrase, a director’s job is not to make his vision come true, it is to decribe his vision to others so they can create for him. Micheal Bay is not a bad director because he has no style or vision, he’s a bad director because he put his above those of others.
@@lingeringsnowleaf3829 I don't think Pearl Harbor script is good. It has some very fundamental problems. Affleck's character is a mess, and the last act with the Doolittle raid should have never been there. I would also say that Bay is pretty much guilty of most of his "bad script" problems. For one of the Transformers (I believe it was 4th) the writer explicitly said that writing for Michael Bay was "different", and that he actually didn't care about logic all that much. You also have Revenge of the Fallen, which Bay mostly wrote. That's probably the purest "Michael Bay movie" ever made.
Transformers was my favourite childhood movie, so i have this man to thank for making me who I am today. Let it be known I wont see Bumblebee unless they #ReleaseTheBayCut.
I'm confused. Are you talking about the '80s film or the 2007 film? I mean, I enjoyed the 2007 film, but I would be interested in knowing where you stand on it.
Great essay! Can't wait for part two. I'm sick of hearing about old hacks like Kubrick and Kurosawa and Tarkovsky and Welles -- but when are you going to pay homage to the god Roland Emmerich? And yes, I am trolling. Still, great essay!
I don't mind the Micheal Bay movies. Because they are often a perfect summary of American culture. It's all about money (capitalism), ads (the way he films and the excessive product placement), selling with sex (the hot women in his movies), the fight scenes without any blood (reminds me of American cartoons where people do crazy things, but no one ever bleeds). And there are a bunch of other stuff I could come up with if I took a little longer to think about. Edit: Ah the explosions. How could I forget the explosions. :P
Michael Bay is a great cinematographer. He can tell amazing stories visually. As far as character development or story progression though, he is weak. Very weak. He seems to lack the ability to tell in-depth stories with characters that can be related to. I think because he doesn’t understand characters on a deeper level. It doesn’t make him a bad director, but it does mean he has limits to his craft.
I was always pretty indifferent to Bay. There was just nothing he did that made me angry like Snyder or Shyamalan. I just thought he was a bit immature, and I liked some of his movies, even the tmnt ones.
Bay has made Three good films...The Rock (which does have some problems, like incoherent action editing), The Island (very underrated, dorky but fun) and 13 Hours...outside of that, Crap!!!!!...Added to that, he has a terrible feel for dialogue and he directs actors poorly (one can name the number of solid acting talents COMPLETELY WASTED on Several dozen hands...)...Plus, apparently, he’s a nasty, sexist, racist asshole!
To do Bay you need that slow mo like Bad Boys 2 good video i loved it i love Bay movies. That one puckered my butt hole lol love that line in Bad Boys 2
I do like these videos, but I would really really like to hear your opinion on his usage of IMAX and IMAX 3D. The first Transformers is the best, and the third one is the worst.
Transformers 5 is one of his most focused and steady cameraworks throughout his entire filmography. He used a lot of big heavy IMAX 3-D cameras as you say but it is impossible doing «shaky-cam» with those massive rigs. I think you confuse it with how it is edited. The editing is what should get you mad, since they change aspect ratio continiously. The editing also cut a lot of scenes haphazerdly, which makes it look rushed. If he would have released the uncut 3hr original version of TLK, I think that would have looked more like Pearl Harbor, with steadier and lenger shots without the rapid editing.
US Armed Forces, Megan Fox and Huge Explosions. Oh yeah truly inspiring. For any humorless Idiot out there who don’t get this comment...It’s called Sarcasm.
Haven't liked some of the recent videos, but this was absolutely freaking fantastic Patrick. Already knew a lot about Bay, still found a lot to learn here. This director case study style of video felt as thoughtful and full of substance as the Every Frame a Painting videos - but different and even better in some aspects. From Bay to Spielberg, Gordon Willis to John Williams, more filmmaker case study style videos like this would be amazing.
There is something freeing about just admitting that you make movies to be spectacle instead of a thoughtful piece of art. I think to a certain extent Nolan kind of does this too, except he is also capable of delivering a decent story at the same time. Interstellar's plot wasn't the best, but that is one of my favourite movies of all time. It has a kickass score and visuals like nothing else.
This is a great analysis and also blew my mind because I bought that Herzog tshirt in a thrift store like 12 years ago and have never seen another person wearing it. It’s like, one of my 5 go to tshirts
I'm glad I decided to watch this in my car after getting back from work. Had I gone up into my apartment, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten noise complaints about how hard I was laughing when you turned it into Blue Flame Special. I don't like most of his movies as wholes, but digging into what he does well and how that brings in viewers is fascinating.
Also, I would compare Bay to Steve Perry, at least for the "maximum impact at all times" bit. When you first hear him, he sounds so soulful. And then you realize that he pretty much only sounds like that, and suddenly it seems much more limited than you thought.
There's a clear pattern here, especially with the first three. Each one, on the script level, seems to be nothing special - another lethal weapon knockoff, another die hard knockoff, another big disaster movie - but in each case, Bay elevates each one with his considerable skill and unique style. I'm willing to bet that if any other director had taken on those projects, the finished films would've been completely forgettable and thus forgotten.
Also, I know I’m commenting a lot, but damn I love this channel!! I’m not even a film guy. Like I doubt I’ll ever make any kind of cool video, it’s just not my thing. I’m a musician, but I really find all of this stuff fascinating, and I really love watching these videos. You even inspire me to get more creative in songwriting. Your passion and love for the art just makes all of this perfect. Truly, I’m a big fan man. Keep up the great work!
I remember my two unique Bay experience... The first one was BTS footage of cars crashing on a bridge and the whole thing was an action movie by itself without any editing or music, director was Bay. I was so pumped about it, I watched all Bad Boys movies and I am still searching for those scenes. Second time was Transformers 3, sitting in the audience thinking seriously "If we were to mute all characters, then dub them with dialog that makes sense while not changing a single visual, this could be the greatest action movie ever made". I still like The Rock, The Island and Armageddon.
this video is awesome Patrick! I like Michael Bay's directing style. it's entertaining and to the point. The only time that I've really come to think about filmmaking from a different perspective is from hearing the insights of video essayists like yourself. With that being said, David Fincher or now a director like Edgar Wright and on the other side of the spectrum, Michael Bay, can coexist. And based on this video, I believe that we're in agreement on that. Great work Patrick!
I ate the whole plate!
Sorry, wrong channel.
Bumblebee, stop lubricating the man.
See how I glitter!
KnG has good taste in movie nerds.
I’m fine
Thanks, I hate it.
"What if Titanic, but we win at the end?" That is just too perfect!
If he just added a little depth and nuance, he could have done Pearl Harbor so much better.
"What if Titanic, but on a national level of shock and tragedy... but we win at the end... at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and the foundations of American society and the way of life shaken... and since its the beginnings of the war, our heroes don't even know if they will make it out alive. "
I like what another reviewer said better: "The movie claims to borrow from great historical dramas, but really it borrows from Top Gun, Titanic, and Saving Private Ryan".
There was this romantic pop ballad that came out with Pearl Harbor that I would constantly confuse with the one from Titanic. When I saw a wisecrack video about Pearl Harbor was Michael bay remaking titanic with bombs and guns I was like, "I never saw titanic but somehow I remember always knowing this to be true"
@@HiDefHDMusic There You'll Be, by Faith Hill, I think. To be honest I actually like that song, sappy romantic schlock that it is 😋
Omega Soypreme yeah that’s it hahaha everytime I try to remember “My Heart will go on” I think of that one instead lol
How has Michael Bay never become involved in the Fast & Furious franchise?
The Vatican has standing orders to stop that from happening, for the end times would truly be upon us. Consider this line from the Book of Revelations: "Unto man a robot did fall, and then the firmament was rent with red fire and blue light. And lo, a man did utter to the Lord, 'One quarter mile at a time do I live my life.' And when that man drove that robot, woe unto all God's children." I'm pretty sure that's an exact quote.
samringwald ok this is amazing
They’re doing just fine without him, thank you.
@@samringwald I didn't believe in God until today.
He missed his chance when the movies were still shit. I don't think they'd want him at this point now that they're actually decent.
"where the sun is perpetually setting"
This is such a great line and it really encapsulates Bay's visual too
The sun perpetually setting is somewhat an 80's aesthetic.
“Where the sun is perpetually setting” LOL true
lol clearly Pearl Harbor happened in the Antarctic during April and May. How else can you explain the 40+ day long sunset? you can't experience that in the south pacific tropics!
omg it was so quick i thought i was the only who laughed at that looool
@@afrosymphony8207 I laughed when he said it in the video, and I laughed again when I read this comment.
"Michael Bay is one of the greatest action directors. He has the best eye in Hollywood." - Steven Spielberg /2008/
Wow.
Well that was before the Transformers Sequels so
Now we've seen Chris McQuarrie direct MI:Rogue Nation and MI: Fallout, Miller do Mad Max:Fury Road and Chad Stahelski on the John Wick movies, wonder if Spielberg would still say he has the best eye for action.
@@jamesward3859 The Transformers sequels are action-packed and loaded with beautiful visuals. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say......
Did Michael Bay take the picture in your profile
"These characters are real people who died, and Bay is having the time of his life blowing them up."
That's such a coldly cynical takeaway, but you're not wrong.
Were I to direct films, I admit I would take a lot of visual inspiration from Bay. He has a knack for making everything on screen interesting as Hell to look at, and the way he mixes that with scores and sound design always makes me giddy like a little kid.
The key is to take the best of what Bay does and then forget the rest.
@@TheGeorgeD13 I think the key is to put it in the right context. There are stories which lend themselves to Bay and stories which don't.
I'm dying at "what if Titanic, but we win at the end"
Pain & Gain is still, to this day, one of my biggest guilty pleasures. Michael Bay's directing style actually compliments the skewed motivations and world view of the main characters. The writing and performances are what make the movie but having Bay as the director, whether he was self aware or not, was kind of an interesting choice.
not you same here pain and gain and that's my Boy are my two guilty pleasure films
He spent years trying to get the movie done. The first time I remember him talking about Pain & Gain was right after the first Transformers.
P&G is a movie made entirely out of the weird comedy bits from his other films and I have no idea how it came together so perfectly
Pain & Gain is way better than it has any right to be.
I think it's self-aware, in a way that honestly only he could pull off. It's like how The Wolf of Wall Street makes you love Jordan Belfort, before making you realize he actually hurt people and he's a piece of shit, but cracked up to 11. The movie basically never stops pointing out how horrific their actions were, but continues to be enjoyable. It seems like a very intentional choice to make the audience uncomfortable, and in my opinion a film succeeds when it pulls emotion out of you.
One of the lesser reasons Bay gets so much blockbuster work is that he never forgot his low-budget roots. Every production is done to military precision, with a lower budget and body count than other big time directors which is a pretty big thing for producers picking a director for their potential multi-million dollar boondoggle
Yep. He pretty much always goes under the budget was given by even under $10-20 million. He saves them money and gives them bigger profits as a result.
Hey mom, we found the one guy that paid to see Transformers!
18:20 ' I think the movie falls apart when they go into space'.
Best. Criticism. Ever.
Can't wait for part 2 where we eat the whole plate
Platy News
Lindsay Ellis reference?
@@gonk4509 In way, yes. Both of the videos talk about Bay in a way that movie critics talk about art in general, but with different focus. Or maybe it is just a quote from the movies that will appear in part 2. Sometimes a plate is just a plate and sometimes it is an explosion of flavors
"Yea the new Transformers is going to suck, but you're going to see it anyway."
-Michael Bay
Bay is one of my favorite visual stylists. My favorite signature shot of his has to be the angle tilt.
Knowing he also did commercials gives me a much better understanding of why his style was so prevalent at the time.
Also I actually really like Pain and Gain when I didn't expect to!
That intro was superb, your skits get more and more streamlined every time.
this didn’t age too well.
20:28 "it was like watching an Italian speak without his hands" LOL 😂
You’re really one upping yourself with this one Patrick. This is a masterclass of a deconstructionist video essay. Can’t wait for part 2!!
You must be 10 years old
The patrick's videos are just so dumb
Yup, he is a visual genius. Just gotta hire a script writter.
adarsh sirsat
He does. His movies are usually written by several people.
He usually does uncredited rewrites to add some of his "Bay-ness" to the material, but it's not like he writes everything himself.
He needs a good editor more than anything
I honestly think that better scripts would do NOTHING to change the basic nature of a Michael Bay film, because Bay is so utterly focused on the imagery and surface-level gloss. His filming style steps all over dialogue and performances. He'd just end up burying everything good about the script under the typical pile of Bay-isms. (Like the classic example of how all of Megan Fox's character-establishing dialogue in Transformers 1 is delivered while Bay camerafucks her body, so no one hears her talk.)
It would be like Ken Russell's Altered States. Russel was another director not known for his taste or restraint, but he was given a wordy Paddy Chayefsy script to work with. So he just had the actors rush through the dialogue as fast as possible, or even deliver it as overlapping parallel arguments, just to get through those scenes more quickly. It was incomprehensible. He basically made his movie *despite* the script, and that's how Bay would treat a good script too.
Michael Bay could have a script written by Ernest Hemingway himself but he's gonna put his style and sensibilities ahead.He stopped caring about scripts a long time ago
One of the writters and head of the story from armagedon was jj abrams, and he didn't want the movie to be an action film he wanted to do satirical political comedy about the gobervermant dealing with natural dissasters, so insted in hire profesionals to deal with the problems they hire dumb oil workers to save money, thats why most of the science of the movie didn't make jack shit of scense because he wanted to do a dr strangelove/robocop type of satire (hell they even reference it) . It just michael bay fetish for action scenes and crow pandering writters that add that stupid ben affleck storyline that killed the orinal, and more interesting, visión of the movie
As much as I love "Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are," I had no idea it had a music video, much less it was done by the Bay. Such an awesome pull!
I'll admit, I'm never gonna be sold on him, but your videos have given me a lot of great insight into his skill as a filmmaker that I never knew about and even pointed out merits in his approach. These videos are wonderful.
One minute into this video and I'm already completely thrilled by this video essay/ world-saving mission.
*America
One minute in and I'm already annoyed by the Bay style. I take him seriously. So serious that I avoid his films. Although I like big blockbusters.
Patrick, thank you for this video! As a big Michael Bay fan, I really appreciate essays about this legend. Especially when they don't just bash him but see Bay's potential. You the man!
Me too bro a big Nolan and bay fan
Credit where it's due. If he can shoot something in practical FX he will will (CGI is supposed to be a ladder, not a crutch.) And he is who I would go to for advice about explosions. Now, I am going to watch your thing and see if my two positives are highlighted.
Pearl Harbor is the most important entry in his filmography and is also the only film to include Josh Hartnett?
Coincidence? I think NOT!
The production design in your videos is damn near flawless. God damn gg
I never noticed that Michael bay never grew up while Spielberg and fincher did.
Hell, Fincher barely even had to grow up. I mean, Seven is still one of the best nonfiction serial killer movies ever made, and the restraint Fincher uses in showing the grisly details is really impressive. Sure, he graduated to doing Zodiac and Mindhunters, but that was a pretty small step up from where he started.
(Yeah, I'm pretending Seven is his first movie, but does anyone really see Alien3 as being "a David Fincher film"? He was jobbing when he directed it, and had very little control over... anything, really, aside from the cinematography and performances.)
In the good timeline, Michael Bay grew up and Spielberg never did.
@@jasonblalock4429 Zodiac is a massive step up from se7en
Bay tried, but learned being an adult isn't how he wants to be.
Fincher never really grew up. Aside from Alien 3 (which he was basically forced to do), all of his films deal with complicated, adult subject matter. Even Fight Club and The Social Network, despite the satirical nature and PG-13 rating/millennial targeting respectively, are still very complex films. Spielberg, meanwhile, seems to be caught between not growing up and growing up. His optimism remains, and there are plenty of movies of his that still have only childlike innocence (most recently Ready Player One), but he also does more adult content and does it really well. The only problem I see is that he’s lost an identity of sorts: you’re basically getting two Spielbergs in his current career state. Though to be fair, it’s really hard to blend serious content with blockbuster filmmaking; AFAIK Christopher Nolan is the only director who has built a career off of perfecting it.
"Are you serious" is the first thought I had while clicking on this video
Watch Epic Rap Battles: Spielberg v Hitchcock .... Bay speaks the truth about movies
Mine too. But then I thought about it a minute and realized that yeah, actually.... he is an auteur. You don't have to be making particularly high brow cinema to have an established style/storytelling method that makes a casual observer look at the film and say "yup, that's definitely this director". Bay fits the bill. He wouldn't be my first pick if I were trying to describe/show auteur theory (modern directors, I'd probably pick Tarantino), but that isn't the point of the video.
Even as someone who can't stand Armageddon I actually agree that he's an auteur.
@@taragwendolyn
>i'd probably pick Tarantino
of course you would
@@TheXabl0 that's the commercialization of what's *supposed* to be a form of art for you....😑🤭
This was fantastic! I had no idea about Bay and Fincher's history together, or about the behind-the-scenes epiphany that he had while making Pearl Harbour. Plus the opening sketch did a top-notch job recreating Bay's aesthetic. I can't wait for Part 2!
Bay was distinctly Bay from the very Bay-ginning. You're welcome.
*_EXPLOSATHON!_*
Finally! A critic who actually has something to day. Thank you.
This was awesome - cannot wait for part two!
Welp. I guess Michael Bay and I have at least one thing in common: worshipping David Fincher.
same
"Judgment Bay" hahahahaha. OfMG this is so creative lololol. Love it.
Oh boy, 25 minutes of Patrick! This is gonna be sweet.
*twenty five minutes flies by*
WHERE IN THE HELL DID THOSE MINUTES GO!?!
oh wow i often watch movie review's and director roundtable's and stuff and i have to say the content ive found on this channel is some of the best in depth brutality honest reviews, descriptions and discussions on movies ive ever wtched. Subscibed
Michael Bay is my favorite director of all time. He's the main person who got me interested in film in the first place, and I never really understood why people hate him as much as they do. His visual style is next to none.
I'm with you on that.
Man I saw Bumblebee twice and enjoyed it way more than all the Bayformers movies put together. I don't know what his obsession is with obnoxious hate-able characters, among many things, but those drag down the movies.
You lost me when you said you think Michael Bay would be the first to admit he wasn't the right director for Pearl Harbor. He would never admit he was wrong.
There are things I like about Michael Bay, but I really love longer takes and less camera shake. The dojo fight sequence in The Matrix is the high water mark for me. The John Wick movies are excellent as well. Fast cuts and handheld-style shots are the thorn in my side.
Great video. I love this kind of thing, and appreciate the time and planning you put into making this.
Can't wait for part two! Recently, I've realized that Bay is one of my favorite directors and the look of his movies is something I aspire to. This helps me understand him more.
The genuine irony of this opening is that you can't help it. You made a short action sequence that was actually good. The spatial geography was clear, and the action made sense.
I thought this was supposed to be an imitation of Bay. You got the color palette. But the rest was just too coherent.
*_Where one Transformer starts and the other ends_*
The scene you used as an example immediately after is what I saw at a theater once. I thought it was just me at that point in time while in the theater who had trouble making sense of what was on the screen. I was visually confused trying to sort out Optimus & whoever he was fighting.
Link to part 2?
"Last person we recruited...mysteriously died."
Whoah, was that a reference to Tony Zhou?
Pearl Harbor prompted Roger Ebert to write the most scathingly funny review I have ever read, "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle."
Ok I've got to the Quantum of Solace car chase moment and I have to pause to write this.
I have very few memories of Quantum of Solace. But one enduring one is me telling my friends just how much I disliked that scene in the lobby afterwards. I said "They we're trying to convey a sense of confusion, but I just ended up confused."
I was younger then. RUclips video essays weren't a thing, I was less cine-literate so I didn't know why. But I knew that scene was terrible. The next time I felt that way was Transformers. This is the first time I've seen this scene mentioned (sorry if you've done it before, I'm watching these in random order) and to see it linked in with Bay is a great. Thanks for validating teenage me.
I have a soft spot for Michael Bay. Sure, his movies can be really dumb at times and Transformers feels like a franchise not suited for him (even he felt disinterested in working on them) but there are a few diamonds in the rough. I still enjoy Pain & Gain, The Rock, The Island, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, and the Bad Boys movies even to this day.
Sure, everyone likes to point the finger at the guy who "ruined" Transformers, much like how Joel Schumacher was mocked for Batman & Robin, despite the fact that he made several decent movies prior _and_ since that film, Falling Down and Phone Booth are prime examples of this.
I'm not saying Michael Bay is the best director or a genius or anything like that, I just don't consider him the worst director out there.
I think Pain & Gain and especially 13 HOURS were his best movies actually.
The Island was good, but just a reboot of Logans Run.
I feel like Michael Bay gets way too much hate.
I am 100% with you on that.
Yeah, I like most of Michael Bay's movies (even the ones other people think are bad, like the Transformers). I think he's overhated.
i like his movies
If I were a 12 year old boy I'd probably think Michael Bay is the greatest film director of all time.
OMG ! You've got Andy Lau as a patron.
Classy if it's THE Andy Lau.
Whose influence ISN’T at least partially Steven Spielberg?
Really awesome. Anybody can fawn over a great director or hate on a problematic one. Love this approach of yours.
These are very compelling arguments about how Micheal Bay is an Auteur in the original sense of the word, with clear esthetic, key ideas and a recognizible hand.
Problem is, that's not the critique: the critique is that his art sucks.
In an era where movies and generally art tends to be indutrialized, grinded into small, same size, digestable bits, I can understand people watching at Bay and say: "Hey, at least he's unique, he is what I think an artist should be, he has a view and stick to it. What he does is artistic and only his own."
But let's not forget that something being "true" art doesn't forbit said art to be bad. Techinically, philosophically and intellectually. And that's the case for Bay.
Disclaimer: I understand perfectly well the "people" that I mentioned have probably an understanding of movies and visual art that is miles ahead of me, I just like the "Bay-ssue" cause it underlines a key concept in art, and a lot of interesting comments and opinion usually comes out of it.
Yeah, I have to agree.
The video is excellent, and there's no value in being pompous or sneering about "low-brow" entertainment - but genuinely, of all the directors I've ever heard included in conversations about auteurs (even those who have *extremely* distinct visual styles and over-dependence on certain flourishes or tropes) no other comes anywhere close to being so utterly devoid of nuance across every project (very nearly every scene) of their career.
Van Gogh's work includes over a dozen paintings of sunflowers - but he wouldn't be remembered as a master if they were the only thing he was able to paint...
Ok virgin
@@kthemaster1999 Oh, somebody did bad chattychatty about your favourite kid show and now you are bubu? Here, take a bandaid and go back to mammy, she'll take care of you...
👏👏👏👏👏👏
@@kthemaster1999 Literally nothing wrong with that but okay I guess. Troll away!
"The Avengers" is basically a Michael Bay film filtered through Joss Whedon's wit and affinity for the source material, plus a little short 'n sharp character development (well..VERY short 'n sharp...almost like a Michael Bay fil *hey wait a minute* )
Dougie !
Michael Bay never stopped directing commercials. All of his movies are a series of shots aiming for maximum effect without any meaning, substance or personality to back it up.
To bad he always chooses scripts that don't deliver those missing ingredients. "The Island" probably came the closest and for all of it's flaws, it's probably the closest Bay ever got to making a "good movie".
Nah, Pain & Gain is a legitimately good film
And _The Island_ was really just a ripoff of the low-budget '70s film _Clonus_ (aka _Parts: The Clonus Horror_ as most MST3K fans remember it).
Patrick grew up as a true american auteur
wrong channel, and even if it were on the right channel it would be a dead meme
@@poisondamage2182 tell that to Zod's snapped neck
İ.
When someone praises a critically bashed director, I must know why.
Is mauler gonna make 5hourlong stream about this?
Given that Patrick was being elitist to those who care about tight plot.
Given that this video discusses the more technical aspects of Bay's filmmaking, probably not. It's a lot harder to fake an understanding of this stuff than it is with writing.
Sure, why not?
While I’m not a fan of his films, I do appreciate that he has his own style when it comes to film making. I can easily point them out from other films even if I’ve never seen the film before.
Actually i find Bay's action sequences quite easy to follow. Yes the cutting is rapid but the shot order clearly follows logical screen direction. In the example of the BB2 car chase witness how the cutaways and wider shots of the Hero car speeding by correspond to the close-ups of either Smith (in the driver's seat facing frame left) or Lawrence (passenger seat facing frame right). The camera even careens across the front of the car from one side to the other before cutting to the close-ups on the relevant side. In terms of spatial coherence this is way easier to follow than say a Nolan action scene where the unimaginative choice of shots, messy staging, rythmically-challenged editing and incoherent screen direction all add up to an illogical jumble (I still to this day cannot really figure out what's happening in the climactic building Swat siege of TDK). Furthermore Bay's sequences are structured with very clear dramatic beats even if they often use heavyhanded slow motion for emphasis.
They only time I have found Bay's action scenes confusing are in the Transformers films and this is because the robots are 'overdesigned' with too much mechanical detail making the robotic character hard to decipher.
Bay is an exceptional action filmmaker. Any filmmaker who has ever shot action scenes can appreciate the amount of hard work and creativity it takes to deliver what he does. Granted this might be the only thing he really does well as a filmmaker or perhaps it's all he actually cares about.
Also I think Olivier Megaton's work on Taken 2&3 should be blamed on Mr Just-shoot-it-with-multiple-cameras-and-let-my editor-figure-it-out Paul Greengrass.
I don't really see much of a difference between TDK climax and Bay's filmmaking, like honestly dude "messy staging"? Michael Bay cannibalizes every tool he has by using them every time he can without intention besides "it looks cool", he's not imaginative at all. His spacial coherence is that he doesn't have one...ever. On BB2 we know there is a car and Smith and Lawrance are in the car, everything else explodes around them (the one in the shanty town doesn't count since he was ripping off Police Story's first ten minutes). In TDK, Batman is in the building the Joker is on the top floor and everything else is a big question mark
@@tomstonemale I totally agree with you in respect to what I see as Micheal Bay's aesthetic rational - namely that his only artistic ambition underlying every shot is truly, as you say "to make things looks cool". He doesn't pretend to have any deeper artistic motives. His films are undeniably shallow and crass and from all evidence it's by design. My point is that visually the way he constructs sequences is pretty straightforward and actually easy to follow while at the same time being eye candy. This defines directors with a background in advertising - it's all about looking great and hammering home 1 idea at a time for 30 seconds. Which he does with not only visual imagination but also with clarity. It's all showmanship with no substance absolutely - but make no mistake it's done with a lot of hard work and thought.
I'VE HEARD MICHAEL BAY ONLY READS SCRIPTS IF EVERYTHING'S WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS
God i love how much effort you put into your videos
*How about a challenge.*
*Do Zack Synder, I dare you.*
Desaturated color palettes, excessive slow-mo, buff male bods, philosophical dialogue that doesn't always translate to the action- there's your Synder auteur cliches
@@benwasserman8223 Don't forget mimicking Ayn Rand and Watchmen.
Synder is more of a conflicted artist, he's mom was a painter and you can see his inspiration but the probelm he pretends to care about character but he doesnt, thats where watchmen MoS and BvS and probably JL fell apart.......but if its pure action hr is one of the best like 300 or he's every action scene
@@devils.advocate2444 Yeah, the only reason 300 works at all is because he is pretty much running straight off the Frank Miller graphic novel script, and like Snyder, Miller only shits out a passable script for 300 because he's cribbing virtually every line of it directly from Herodotus.
I actually think he's a talented visual artist, he should just never write his movies.
Heck yes, Josh Hartnett.
Ain’t this dude seen The Whole Plate?
How can you hate the government but love the military
Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan: "We're not here to do the decent thing, we're here to follow fucking orders!"
Far right-wing anarchism.
Govt image: full of corruption, manipulations, unfair policy makers, vote over people
Military: actually fight for the country's safety (in one way or another)
At least this is how i see it lol
If Michael Bay was given a good script for his films they would be amazing. The worst problem Ive seen with most of his movies is that they are written subpar. But in terms of spectacle and the use of practical effects embedded within the CGI make a lot of his movies feel well put together but written poorly
Josh Bowman He had a good scrip with pearl harbor, but as said in the video, it was not Bay style. He place his own creative style above the script of his writer and he would rather die than change himself. Movie making is NOT a factory procedure where you can interchange steps and tools to create an exactly as imagined result. It isn’t as simple as good director + good writer= good film. Movie making is an collaborative endevour that everyone in the crew, from the director to the random VFX guy, put their own creative touch on. The director usually has the largest says but that is not enough. I remeber Tarantino once said that, and i rephrase, a director’s job is not to make his vision come true, it is to decribe his vision to others so they can create for him. Micheal Bay is not a bad director because he has no style or vision, he’s a bad director because he put his above those of others.
Pain and Gain is great.
Duane Villines it’s decent but im not sure great is the word to describe it. If it great then what about Alien or Seven?
@@lingeringsnowleaf3829 I don't think Pearl Harbor script is good. It has some very fundamental problems. Affleck's character is a mess, and the last act with the Doolittle raid should have never been there.
I would also say that Bay is pretty much guilty of most of his "bad script" problems. For one of the Transformers (I believe it was 4th) the writer explicitly said that writing for Michael Bay was "different", and that he actually didn't care about logic all that much. You also have Revenge of the Fallen, which Bay mostly wrote. That's probably the purest "Michael Bay movie" ever made.
+Malcador the Sigillite alien is great, seven is good
I like Michael Bay movies as a guilty pleasure.
The Island was good, Pain & Gain was good, 13 Hours was good and The Rock was fucking awesome.
I love those movies, too.
Transformers was my favourite childhood movie, so i have this man to thank for making me who I am today.
Let it be known I wont see Bumblebee unless they #ReleaseTheBayCut.
How old are you then? 14?
I'm confused. Are you talking about the '80s film or the 2007 film? I mean, I enjoyed the 2007 film, but I would be interested in knowing where you stand on it.
And to think my favorite childhood movie was Up in Smoke (my dad's favorite)
@@octopus8420 Well... I also grew up with the Bay Transformers movies, and I'm 21...
@@YTRingoster 2007? Could have sworn it started around 2011
it's so dense, every single image has so many things going on
Great essay! Can't wait for part two. I'm sick of hearing about old hacks like Kubrick and Kurosawa and Tarkovsky and Welles -- but when are you going to pay homage to the god Roland Emmerich? And yes, I am trolling.
Still, great essay!
I don't mind the Micheal Bay movies. Because they are often a perfect summary of American culture. It's all about money (capitalism), ads (the way he films and the excessive product placement), selling with sex (the hot women in his movies), the fight scenes without any blood (reminds me of American cartoons where people do crazy things, but no one ever bleeds). And there are a bunch of other stuff I could come up with if I took a little longer to think about.
Edit: Ah the explosions. How could I forget the explosions. :P
Argh, that cliffhanger ending!
Michael Bay is a great cinematographer. He can tell amazing stories visually. As far as character development or story progression though, he is weak. Very weak. He seems to lack the ability to tell in-depth stories with characters that can be related to. I think because he doesn’t understand characters on a deeper level. It doesn’t make him a bad director, but it does mean he has limits to his craft.
I was always pretty indifferent to Bay. There was just nothing he did that made me angry like Snyder or Shyamalan. I just thought he was a bit immature, and I liked some of his movies, even the tmnt ones.
Bay has made Three good films...The Rock (which does have some problems, like incoherent action editing), The Island (very underrated, dorky but fun) and 13 Hours...outside of that, Crap!!!!!...Added to that, he has a terrible feel for dialogue and he directs actors poorly (one can name the number of solid acting talents COMPLETELY WASTED on Several dozen hands...)...Plus, apparently, he’s a nasty, sexist, racist asshole!
Please do Zack Snyder next
Making dark movies
Well, there are 2 types
Dark in a Tim Burton-esque way.
And Dark in a Zack Snyder way, where every protagonist is miserable.
To do Bay you need that slow mo like Bad Boys 2 good video i loved it i love Bay movies. That one puckered my butt hole lol love that line in Bad Boys 2
So when he filmed Transformers: The Last Knight in IMAX 3D with shaky cam, I shouldn't get mad at him?
Seriously what kind of dumbass thinks filming a 3D movie with shaky cam is a good idea?
I do like these videos, but I would really really like to hear your opinion on his usage of IMAX and IMAX 3D.
The first Transformers is the best, and the third one is the worst.
The camera work is pretty fucking steady in Transformers 5.
Transformers 5 is one of his most focused and steady cameraworks throughout his entire filmography. He used a lot of big heavy IMAX 3-D cameras as you say but it is impossible doing «shaky-cam» with those massive rigs. I think you confuse it with how it is edited. The editing is what should get you mad, since they change aspect ratio continiously. The editing also cut a lot of scenes haphazerdly, which makes it look rushed. If he would have released the uncut 3hr original version of TLK, I think that would have looked more like Pearl Harbor, with steadier and lenger shots without the rapid editing.
US Armed Forces, Megan Fox and Huge Explosions. Oh yeah truly inspiring.
For any humorless Idiot out there who don’t get this comment...It’s called Sarcasm.
I didn't even watch the video yet and I already want to say something: Michael Bay is a better director than Zack Snyder.
Don't @ me.
Matheus Gramigna i don't like either but i for sure dislike snyder more. sucker punch was a train wreck
I used to hate Michael Bay. But I've come to appreciate his style, specially when there isn't CGI everywhere. The Rock was amazing.
Haven't liked some of the recent videos, but this was absolutely freaking fantastic Patrick. Already knew a lot about Bay, still found a lot to learn here. This director case study style of video felt as thoughtful and full of substance as the Every Frame a Painting videos - but different and even better in some aspects. From Bay to Spielberg, Gordon Willis to John Williams, more filmmaker case study style videos like this would be amazing.
There is something freeing about just admitting that you make movies to be spectacle instead of a thoughtful piece of art. I think to a certain extent Nolan kind of does this too, except he is also capable of delivering a decent story at the same time. Interstellar's plot wasn't the best, but that is one of my favourite movies of all time. It has a kickass score and visuals like nothing else.
Love this Channel. Binge watching everything!
This is a great analysis and also blew my mind because I bought that Herzog tshirt in a thrift store like 12 years ago and have never seen another person wearing it. It’s like, one of my 5 go to tshirts
I'm glad I decided to watch this in my car after getting back from work. Had I gone up into my apartment, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten noise complaints about how hard I was laughing when you turned it into Blue Flame Special.
I don't like most of his movies as wholes, but digging into what he does well and how that brings in viewers is fascinating.
Also, I would compare Bay to Steve Perry, at least for the "maximum impact at all times" bit. When you first hear him, he sounds so soulful. And then you realize that he pretty much only sounds like that, and suddenly it seems much more limited than you thought.
There's a clear pattern here, especially with the first three. Each one, on the script level, seems to be nothing special - another lethal weapon knockoff, another die hard knockoff, another big disaster movie - but in each case, Bay elevates each one with his considerable skill and unique style. I'm willing to bet that if any other director had taken on those projects, the finished films would've been completely forgettable and thus forgotten.
Also, I know I’m commenting a lot, but damn I love this channel!! I’m not even a film guy. Like I doubt I’ll ever make any kind of cool video, it’s just not my thing. I’m a musician, but I really find all of this stuff fascinating, and I really love watching these videos. You even inspire me to get more creative in songwriting. Your passion and love for the art just makes all of this perfect. Truly, I’m a big fan man. Keep up the great work!
I remember my two unique Bay experience... The first one was BTS footage of cars crashing on a bridge and the whole thing was an action movie by itself without any editing or music, director was Bay. I was so pumped about it, I watched all Bad Boys movies and I am still searching for those scenes.
Second time was Transformers 3, sitting in the audience thinking seriously "If we were to mute all characters, then dub them with dialog that makes sense while not changing a single visual, this could be the greatest action movie ever made".
I still like The Rock, The Island and Armageddon.
Your Channel is by far the best Channel about Movies
Love how Patrick in most of his appearances, has the camera in a low angle shot.
you continue to impress me, keep it up man
Bay will always be my favorite film director! Ever since Bad Boys.
sold after the first lense flair. subscribed at the end of the video.
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this video is awesome Patrick! I like Michael Bay's directing style. it's entertaining and to the point. The only time that I've really come to think about filmmaking from a different perspective is from hearing the insights of video essayists like yourself. With that being said, David Fincher or now a director like Edgar Wright and on the other side of the spectrum, Michael Bay, can coexist. And based on this video, I believe that we're in agreement on that. Great work Patrick!
thanks to bay my childhood was awesome
"Bay is best when using big exterior locations where the sun is perpetually setting."
That was hilarious 😂
@00:46 woah, I always thought your last name was Williams...never once realized it was Willems until that MiB said it out loud