The Rock...

[galax]

For me is also best Bay film. The music by Hans Zimmer is fantastic. Ed Harris as General Hummel is the top; he makes you feel like you're seeing a real general, not an actor. The presence of Sean Connery on the screen is always welcome. Great.
Regards,

[STEPhon IT]

I think Transformers is Michael's best work to date. This is the total package of an artist. When the Rock came out Michael was still trying to use more of his artist muscles. I like the Rock but I don't think it's better than Transformers IMHO.

[Rocket Man]

It is without doubt Bay's greatest film--because all the action (except for the car chase scene) GROWS out of the story and characters. Nearly every action sequence comes off as a payoff that was perfectly set up by characters and plot. The action is seamlessly blended into the overall story and is entirely suspenseful.

What many action films and producers don't realize (or, being smart people, realize and simply don't care) is that ACTION itself is boring--you can provide all the spectacle you want and leave your audience bored and unmoved. Films like T2, Speed, The Rock, and The Matrix work brilliantly and are remembered and adored because they entirely justify the spectacle they offer in terms of character, plot and story.

I have a fond place in my heart for the original Bad Boys (who can forget that foot chase scene...) but, with the exception of The Rock, all of Bay's films fail the above criteria.

[LadiesMan217]

I just found this on Youtube. It's an episode from the Charlie Rose show, on June 10th 1996 when both Michael and Jerry Bruckheimer were interviewed about The Rock. Thought I'd share it - it's pretty cool seeing Michael and Jerry being interviewed together for once

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-Jv_EaBTc

[r-type]

I just found this on Youtube. It's an episode from the Charlie Rose show, on June 10th 1996 when both Michael and Jerry Bruckheimer were interviewed about The Rock. Thought I'd share it - it's pretty cool seeing Michael and Jerry being interviewed together for once

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-Jv_EaBTc

Nice. Cool video.

[AlcatrazHero07]

Lemme start out by saying The Rock is my favorite movie of all time. I can fall asleep to it and still enjoy it (in fact naps are better with the sound of the Rock in the background). But I have another point to make.

About the visual style of The Rock...
This might give you an idea of the times we live in...

I'm in college now, but I wasn't old enough to see the Rock in theaters (I was alive, but too young). The Rock wasn't my immediate favorite as it was just one of many films I devoured as a child including, Star Wars, Indiana, Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Speed, Independence Day (a couple years after its release) and most of the James Bond filmography. Watching The Rock made me want to make movies (who doesn't want to blow stuff up for a living?!). So I studied the VHS'es I had at home (i.e. the list I just recited; The Rock included) I always thought that the visual style of The Rock was the STANDARD of Hollywood. Before I knew who Michael Bay was, I thought that the visuals in The Rock were the Cream-of-the-Hollywood-Crop. I thought it was done by an age-hardened studio Director. Someone who, say, ... would look like the Jerry Bruckheimer of today (with gray hair and all).

Imagine my surprise when I found out he was only like 27 when he directed the movie. Imagine my surprise when I caught a glimpse of the skinny yet tall, young, California surfer-dude directing what I thought had to be the work of a very experienced Hollywood regular.

I had no clue that The Rock was very modern in its visual style, that the Extreme Close-Ups were "incorrect"; that whip-cuts weren't PC, that film isn't supposed to look that grainy, that the musical suite in the beginning had been phased out of Hollywood a while ago, etc. etc.

It might be because I saw Armageddon in theaters and got The Rock a couple years later. It could be all the MTV-style commercials I've seen. I grew up in a world that the critics have been ruing. But ironically, I never liked Armageddon until I saw it again a couple years ago because all I ever heard from who-knows-where (probably the TV/film critics) is how ridiculous the plot-line was and how edgy (how music-video) the direction was. When I saw it again (after seeing Bad Boys II) I LOVED it!! I make it my occassional mission to correct people's mis-recollection of the movie, as well as pointing out the fact that Nuking an incoming asteroid is indeed on the top of NASA's disaster prevention list (the drilling aspect is unknown). I say mis-recollection because after seeing it again I realized that my recollection of the film was muddled by the other asteroid movie that came out the same time and by film critics (and people who listen to them). When I thought a little harder, I recall sitting in the theaters crying when Bruce Willis died, mesmerized by the launch scene, and yearning for more as the credits began rolling. Plus, the Aerosmith song consumed my life for like a year, and I have no clue why I wound up hating it. I think the experience is the same for everyone who has forgotten that Armageddon was the GOOD asteroid movie, and Deep Impact is what we're remembering. But I digress.

My point is that the James-Cameron/Steven-Spielberg/Michael-Bay library of camera movements and framing is in my reportiore of pre-viz for everything I do from writing a script to shooting a short film (someday, I hope to make features), and even day- and night dreaming.

So for those you who were old enough to hypothesize about the day where new-age Directors resemble the birth-child of Spielberg and Bay...that day is here! Thanks mostly to pioneering edginess of The Rock! (It's not that scary is it?)

[AlcatrazHero07]

Ugh... sorry for the length.