"...Dreamworks the ultimate Trojan horse."

Wow. I never thought of it in those terms, but yeah... Could be.

I am surprised the Robin Williams movie took in that much, considering all the neg reviews, the woeful premise and the off-putting trailers.

Man of the Year could have been so much better -- but turned out to be a toothless tiger. And this from the dir who was so satirical with Wag the Dog. Dunno why he pulled his punches on the Robin Williams vehicle.

Any idea how Man of the Year's opening w/end compares with License to Wed?

Of course factors such as which w/end they each came out and what they were against have to be taken into account. Just wondering...

I rec Night Listener, even if it does shape up to be almost identical to a recent (?) Law and Order plot (prob copied from Maupin's book).

Also, do you have any theories as to why the soccer girl movie Gracie did such poor biz?

Man of the Year opened to about $12 during Oscar season last year, so release dates are even a bit comparable (i.e., opened as counter-programming). And I thought Man suffered the same plight as Head of State as far as being too politically palatable. Why hire Chris Rock or Barry Levinson if you're just going to make a bland comedy? Get Cuba Gooding Jr. and Dennis Dugan and save yourself a bunch of money. Studios don't want to frighten anyone off, while conveniently forgetting the massive box office take of blatantly political flicks like Borat and Fahrenheit 9/11.

As for Gracie... no stars, no marketing push, and- judging by the trailer- a familiar story, plus it gets lost in the summer shuffle. If Picturehouse releases it in September, touts it being 'based on a true story' and 'staring Oscar-nominee Elizabeth Shue', I bet they get $15-$20 million instead of the $3 it pulled in. Like I said, I'm really skeptical of counter-programming against summer blockbusters, especially of you can't generate good word of mouth (sneak previews would have been especially helpful as well).

On an unrelated note, I'd love to hear reactions to Transformers, too.

Transformers was fine entertainment. Definitely skewed towards a young audience (tweens).

Big 'wow' factor, especially with the speccy spfx. One jaw-dropping moment, in particular, was a scene late into the movie when a gold-coloured Decepticon (the evil robots) appeared to be rollerblading down the freeway in pursuit of the good guys.

Really impressive how seamlessly the animation blended with the live action.

The part that left a really nasty taste in my mouth was how blatantly pro-war it all was. Military might and efficiency plus zero body count (as opposed to the grim and harsh reality). I even turned to my guy at one stage and said (obviously ironically) "I wanna enlist!"

That definitely seemed to be what Bay was going for above all else.

Ugh!