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How do you make a kid’s movie about talking and transforming robots into a live-action summer blockbuster? You get Steven Speilberg to produce and Michael Bay to direct the movie, that’s how you do it.

Transformers is the second movie we watch at the AMC Theaters in Cupertino Square. Does it succeed in starting a new franchise of movies about robots from the planet Cybertron? Or does it sink like a hunk of junk?

The Netfilx synopsis:

Based on the popular toys that transform from machines into giant robots, this live-action movie from Pearl Harbor director Michael Bay finds the planet Cybertron inhabitants engaging in a secret war for control of Earth's natural resources, which they desperately need for fuel. Able to disguise themselves as cars, airplanes, boats, and more, the transformers prove a tough enemy in this film starring Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, and Jon Voight.

What I Liked

The movie starts off well. The early action and battle scenes provide plenty of bang for your movie buck. The opening scenes in the desert with American troops fighting a lone Decepticon show just how tough these robots are. The movie moves at a nice pace through the first half of the film, providing a nice mix of action and information without getting too bogged down in either.

The introduction of our hero, the girl/woman he’s destined to be with, and other characters move along at a good clip. Shia LaBeouf isn’t your next action star, but you can see he has skills playing the reluctant hero. I’m sure we’ll see him in similar parts as his career grows. As the humans and the Autobots start interacting more on a personal level, the film starts to slow a bit. It almost comes to a complete halt when the Autobots go to Shia’s home to retrieve an artifact.

What I Didn’t Enjoy

The acting is passable, with the robot voices providing as much emotion as their human counterparts. I’m not a big Jon Voight fan, so his Donald Rumsfeld-type role could have been cut out as far as I’m concerned. Anthony Anderson’s computer geek character seems to be thrown into the mix out of left field. The relationship between Shai LaBeouf and Meagan Fox’s character wasn’t believable. Plus believing Megan Fox was a high school student is a big stretch.

There are almost one too many battles in this movie. When the Decepticon and Autobots finally clash, it is difficult to follow who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. And I still didn’t understand the deal with the Allspark, as explained in the film.

Final Thoughts

This loud live action-packed, CGI-filled, nonsensical plotted movie proved to be slightly successful as a new action film. I guess I could see it become a franchise, though I’m not sure where it can go from here. The crowd we saw it with seemed to love it. And it did succeed in recapturing the feeling of the afternoon cartoon I enjoyed in my youth.

Transformers: ** (out of 5)

I am playing catch-up on my movie reviews. Knocked Up is the first film Farrah and I watched at the new AMC Theaters in Cupertino Square (formerly Vallco Shopping Center).

Vallco Mall had been dying a slow death. For every open and operating store, there are almost twice as many empty spaces. The theater is meant to breathe new life into the mall, bringing in people and hopefully other businesses. I suppose the name change is meant to remove the hold stigma of what was and to mark a new beginning.

The movie box office is on the second floor between Macy’s and Sears. Once you purchase the tickets, either from the ticket booth or using one of the six self-service kiosks, you head up the escalator to the third floor and sixteen new theaters.

The theaters are nice and clean (for now) with the normal big comfy stadium chairs and wide rows. It can get a bit dark in the theaters making walking into the show an adventure. Before the previews, there is a twenty-minute feature / commercial / infomercial. This can be annoying when you are trying to talk to anyone else before the movie.

Well, onto the movie review.

The Netflix summary on Knocked Up:

A one-night stand results in an unexpected pregnancy for entertainment reporter Alison (Katherine Heigl) in Judd Apatow's romantic comedy. Determined to be a good mom and keep her career on track, Alison decides to try to make things work with the baby's father, slacker Ben (Seth Rogen). It's anything but smooth sailing as the odd couple gets acquainted, but Alison finds there's more to Ben than she originally thought. Paul Rudd also stars.

What I liked:

Going into this movie I had no expectations. I didn’t hear whether it was good or bad, and this was several weeks after it had opened. I found the movie both smart and funny. The dialogue and situations ring true to life, with all the comedic and dramatic twists and turns. I was pleasantly surprised that Seth Rogen could pull off the leading man role. Paul Rudd is golden as ever, especially during the trip to the Las Vegas scene.

Katherine Heigl and Leslie Mann put in strong performances as well. Mann’s acting chops don’t seem to be there for me, bordering on a bit amateurish, but it works for this role.

What I Didn’t Like:

The ending seemed a bit rushed to me. I wouldn’t have minded if the movie was longer just to provide a more satisfying resolution. The juvenile antics of some of the secondary characters wore thin after a while.

Final Thoughts

This is a good comedy with likable characters. Katherine Heigl does well doing light comedy, and Paul Rudd is funny as heck. I wouldn’t mind seeing where these characters end up ten years from now.

Knocked Up: **** (out of 5)

I’m sure you have noticed another change on ./Janella.com. Yes, I keep fiddling with the look, never been satisfied with one layout for too long. Every time I think I have a look I like, I tend to find an aspect that doesn’t suit my website vision.

What is the main vision?

I would like, and hope, that the website is easy to read and easy to navigate. Some day soon I will probably go back to a splash page for the opening page, similar to Miss Aniela’s home page. (I’m sure I could have picked a different example, but she takes such nice photos. Note: some photos might border NSFW items, so click at your own risk.)

For the blog, I was trying the latest version of Movable Type 4. Remember Movable Type?

Back in the day I used Movable Type to run ./Janella.com. Everything was running nice and smooth, but then Six Apart felt like charging for their product. I could still use it without paying, but it simply seemed wrong. In May of 2004, I switched to a free solution which was WordPress . WordPress has powered the site for the last three years. I heard there was a new open-source version of Movable Type out there and decided to give it a try.

Well, I liked some bits of it and didn’t like others.

Things I Liked

The templates provided with Movable Type are nice. They mirror some of the templates provided at Vox which is not surprising since Six Apart owns Vox as well. I especially like the cityscape templates created by .tiff - one of my Vox neighbors. The layouts are clean and easy on the eyes.

Notice the red “V” icon? Nice touch. Anything that encourages comments and makes it easier is a welcomed feature, especially since BossaNova, Fina, and MJ use either Vox or LiveJournal.

Things I Didn’t Like

The installation is better than before, but it still takes a little tech knowledge to do. It’s not as simple as a WordPress install - which basically requires you to create the database, upload the files to your website, access a URL, and - poof! Instant blog.

Movable Type is still something like Upload file into the cgi-bin. Make sure the *.cgi files have the right permissions. Move the mt-static files to a directory and …. Well, it can be a bit to follow. After my fourth install, I have it down pretty well.

The WordPress import of entries into Movable Type wasn’t smooth either. There was a bit of formatting problems here and there. I managed to work it out by first installing an old version of Movable Type (3.3), then installing Movable Type 4. A lot of work. I’m sure the final release of version 4 will be easier on tasks such as this.

I didn’t enjoy that generating your pages produces multiple static HTML files based on categories, years, months, etc. Why have all these files?

Editing templates, styles, and using widgets isn’t as straightforward as it is in WordPress. I had a tough time creating links in the sidebar, as well as incorporating standalone pages. These things should be easy!

My Final Thoughts

Would I use Movable Type again for the blog?

Yes. Overall it is a nice piece of software, but it has room to improve. It does a good job of handling multiple blogs - if you write on a variety of subjects. But knowing there is an alternative that is easy to use and easily has hundreds of different templates, plug-ins and widgets to customize a blog, makes it a difficult proposition to change.

My choice is still WordPress.