photographs Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Michael Bay's Transformers hits DVD today (check out our review), and Paramount is celebrating by turning one of the film's stars loose in Los Angeles. No, unfortunately it's not Megan Fox. Standing at the West Hollywood Gateway shopping center (at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and La Brea), surrounded by shops like Target and Jamba Juice, stands Bumblebee. It's an actual prop from the film, it stands 18 feet tall, and it weighs 8,200 pounds. The robot had to be assembled and set up by a forklift and a ten-ton crane. Bumblebee will be standing guard there through this Sunday, October 21st.

I went over this morning to snap some pictures. As I rounded the corner, I was expecting a madhouse -- people pointing to the skies and screaming, running in terror, etc. Or at least, y'know, looking in its general direction! But then I remembered I was in West Hollywood. You need more than an 18 foot-tall robot to stand out in West Hollywood. I could have strolled through the shopping center buck naked and juggling infants, and still wouldn't have been given a second look. Transvestites, Transsexuals, Transformers, it's just another day in Hollywood. Still, I thought the display was pretty sweet, and snapped some photographs for those of you who can't make it to L.A. Check 'em out, won't you?

Side note -- while picking up the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers DVD at the Best Buy there, I bumped into none other than actor Peter Weller! Was he just picking up some headphones...or was he there to pitch a Robocop Vs. Transformers flick to Bumblebee? I report, you decide.

Well, if you are going to sit down and watch a documentary about how the world is slowly going to hell in a hand basket, you might as well get to look at some pretty pictures along the way. It worked for Werner Herzog in his film Lessons Of Darkness about the Iraqi oil fires during Desert Storm, so it might work again with Manufactured Landscapes.

Variety announced that US distribution rights for the documentary film have been purchased by Zeitgeist Films. The film is directed by Jennifer Baichwal, and is about the environmental impact of the new industrial revolution in China. The film uses Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and his photographs of the construction of China's Three Gorges Dam project as a commentary on industrial pollution. This is Baichwal's second project with Zeitgeist Films; her first was about the author Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky). Burtynsky is an award-winning artist known for his large-scale photographs of landscapes that might appear beautiful, but are of some of the worst ecological danger zones -- and they are amazing photographs, inspiring competing feelings of admiration and horror.

Unlike a documentary like An Inconvenient Truth, which handles environmental subject matter in more conventionally informative way, Manufactured Landscapes is a little more abstract. The question is, will audiences still get the message?

Remember how we reported that, though Steven Soderbergh's Che isn't officially set to begin filming until months (and months, and months) from now, he was going to do a bit of shooting at the UN in early 2006? Well, despite the fact that the screenplay is far from completed, they're here - and so are the photographers. And, as a result, Just Jared has our first collection of photographs of Benicio Del Toro in costume as the film's title character.

What do you think? Apart from begin a little porkier than I thought Guevara was in 1964 (the year he visited the UN), del Toro looks incredible - in the picture I've included with this post, the resemblance is almost scary.