Michael Bay’s uber-masculine, testosterone-fueled action cinema has long been the butt of many jokes. Even folks who have worked with the director (hello, Megan Fox) have joined in the mudslinging this year.
Now James Cameron’s right-hand musical man James Horner is getting on the action. While it’s a sideways diss, the composer suggests that someone like Michael Bay would never understand the heart, story or “soul” (as the LAT’imes puts it) of the impending mega-million dollar space aliens epic, “Avatar.”
LAT: It’s interesting, too, that small moments become so key when a movie gets as big as this one. The machinery of the movie is so big that without successful small moments and human emotion, it could turn into a video game. JH: Absolutely. Yes, that’s right. And, not to mention names, but if it was Michael Bay making this movie we wouldn’t be having this conversation. These things, [heart, story, soul], wouldn’t matter or they certainly wouldn’t matter as much. Jim knows the importance of it not just becoming mecha. Jim knows that a movie can become swamped in just unbelievable imagery and that it becomes hollow. Jim won’t allow that and my job is to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Meanwhile, despite James Cameron’s pretty nauseating self seriousness (and repeated anecdotes to every media outlet he talks to) about his blue alien film, and the studio’s insistence that the film is going blow our collective minds and change the way we watch movies, it seems “Avatar” is the film to mock this year which puts in similar company as the “Transformers” director.
A plethora of mashed up trailers, comics and general derision has flooded online, but now and then there is one we just have to share with one, that of course, ironically stars Michael Bay. Still, as cynical as we may sound, we won’t be counting out, “Avatar” just yet. Press screenings start next week, so we should know the final results, and whether there actually are elements like heart, story and soul therein, very soon.