Five Alternatives to Transformers

I saw Michael Bay's tribute to Rock'em Sock'em Robots and I was impressed by the special effects, but little else. Thinking back, I am trying to figure out what the movie was even about. A boy gets an alien robot car and it helps him land a gearhead model of a girlfriend? The U.S. Secretary of Defense needs to figure out how to stop an invasion of giant robots that can masquerade as cars? Two races of alien robots battle for dominance on the far-off planet Earth?

Because the humans are all but inconsequential in the battle between the robots, I'd say the third option is closest to the truth when it comes to the story. But Transformers is not about story, it's about special effects. It's about how Michael Bay can throw the camera around and still add a CG robot into the frame and make it seem "real." In that, Michael Bay truly does succeed.

But that's not enough for many of you. For those who prefer story to special effects, or at least more substance, allow me to suggest five other films that may be at a theater near you.

1) Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn does a much better job at saluting the U.S. military than Bay does in this story of a German-born American fighter pilot who was shot down over Laos during a secret military raid during the Vietnam War. Based on Herzog's documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Christian Bale plays Dieter Dengler as a man who won't sit back and wish he and his fellow POWs will be rescued. The escape he plans is harrowing, but it's his unflagging optimism that makes this film such an uplifting treat.

2) With Sicko, Michael Moore exercises another patriotic impulse: the right to criticize the government. Moore has always been better at pointing out problems than suggesting solutions, as this review by Kurt Loder points out, but the fact of the matter is that the healthcare system in this country is practically broken. If he can spur debate on the topic through this film and inspire others to come up with solutions, then more power (and healthcare) to everybody.

3) La Vie en Rose is the life story of the iconic French chanteuse Edith Piaf. I've enjoyed her music, but I never knew that she grew up practically on the streets and established her reputation as a bawdy nightclub singer. The movie jumps around in time, from successful post-WWII performances in New York to being raised in a brothel to her pre-war rise to fame, but what ties it together is that it always feels like Piaf herself remembering back on her life from her deathbed.

4) Keeping up with the whole French thing, Paris Je T'Aime is comprised of short films by some of the all-stars of international independent cinema, each devoted to a different neighborhood of the City of Lights. The Coen brothers make a comedy of misperception in the Paris Metro starring Steve Buscemi, Alexander Payne makes a bittersweet piece about a well-meaning American tourist, while other films are made by the likes of Gus Van Sant, Alphonso Cuarón, Wes Craven, Olivier Assayas, Tom Tykver, and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, among others. Short film collections are always hit and miss, but when this one misses it still has Paris as a backdrop.

5) Day Watch has all the bombast of Michael Bay's action filmmaking, but it hints at more of a story than Bay can pull off. Think of it as a cross between The Matrix and Highlander. Don't let the fact that it's a sequel to a film you probably didn't see (I didn't see it either) nor the fact that it's a Russian film put you off. The action speaks louder than the words, and the subtitles are used in such a creative way that Tony Scott is no doubt jealous. The only thing that didn't make sense to me not having seen the sequel was the ending, but that was a small price to pay for this much fun.

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Andy Spletzer has been enjoying the air conditioning in the movie theaters this summer.

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