Blogs / Bad Astronomy

Update (July 10, 2007): Paramount has released the trailer, which is available in high-res at apple.com. Very cool.

I hate to add to what is going to be a huge and probably overwrought viral meme, but a trailer shown before "Transformers " is getting quite a buzz. It looks at first like a comedy (guy leaving town, video shot using hand-held cameras at going away party: will he find out his girlfriend is pregnant, or his best friend’s girlfriend is pregnant, or he is pregnant?), or maybe a thriller (maybe people at the party start getting killed…), but then, well, all hell breaks loose. It was an extremely well done trailer; there’s enough in it (giant explosion in downtown NYC but seen from far away! Giant pieces of debris arcing slowly in the air, raining down in the street!) to make you excited, but not enough to give you any ideas of what’s going on.

And it’s certainly designed to do things like having me write a blog entry about it.

The trailer was on YouTube but was taken down by Paramount’s request… or is this part of the marketing strategy?

See how this works? Hmmm?

Oh yeah– no title is given, just "Produced by JJ Abrams" at the end, and the release date: January 18, 2008. Rumor has it the name is "Cloverfield". Not much help, eh?

The official movie site — www.1-18-08.com — only has this image on it:

Some blogs have pirated versions of the trailer, like Four Guys and ScreenRant (I just added the latter to my feed list; it looks like a fun site). Watch it while you can.

A modicum more info can be found at Slashfilm and Movie Marketing Madness. First Showing has a much longer description of the trailer, too.

I’ll admit it looks very, very cool. I’ll watch it.

Every time a new Michael Bay movie comes out, I swear I’d rather do something better, like stick a red hot screwdriver in my eye or visit the Creation Museum. Or both.

But c’mon, giant battling alien robots!

So yeah, I went to see "Transformers" yesterday. And yes, I will in fact recommend it, bearing in mind that it is a Michael bay movie and therefore will lower your IQ several (dozen) points. But it is also totally cool.
And of course, it being a Michael Bay movie, it has some egregiously stoopid science in it. So, in order to deduct the price of my movie ticket off my taxes, I have written another famous Bad Astronomy Review! Nitipicky? Yes! Fun? Maybe. But I know that in the end, that’s 13% of my $8.00 ticket I don’t have to pay to Uncle Sam.

So I’m out driving the other night, and as I’m waiting at a traffic light, I notice something’s wrong with my windshield.

A moment’s inspection reveals the problem: my parking sticker is not there. There is a perhaps one microsecond hesitation on my brain’s part, and then: “Oh, the parking sticker? The Sonoma State University parking sticker? The Sonoma State University parking sticker that you turned in on your last day of work?”

Oh yeah, that sticker.

Hey, I live in Boulder now! I’m a full-time writer!

Little reminders like that are cool.