Stephen King's short story Morality, released in the July 2009 issue of Esquire, the one featuring supermodel Bar Refaeli on the cover buck naked but for King's prose writ upon her, is now available online.

I stumbled on this a few days ago and, as I was in a hurry to get somewhere and didn't have time to read it, I merely glanced at the first paragraph. But King, damn him, sucked me in and I had to finish the story right then.

The story regards a married couple struggling in these economic times to make ends meet. Chad is a substitute teacher trying to get his first novel published. Nora is a nurse doing in home care for a retired pastor who's had a stroke. It's when said pastor George Winston, nicknamed Winnie, makes Nora a money making proposition that this tale takes off. Winnie wants to commit a major sin before he dies -- he's committed small ones in his life, of course, but has never joined the big leagues. And, since he cannot do much in his stricken state, he offers Nora $200,000 to sin for him by proxy.

That's all I can tell you without major spoilers, but if you think this brief synopsis sounds a bit like the movie Indecent Proposal, you are correct. But while Winnie's proposal is certainly indecent, the similarities end there. This isn't King's best short story (how could it be after 35 years of prolificacy?), but it did keep me entertained, surprised and riveted throughout. When I finished it, I realized I'd been reading a morality tale ... you'd think I'd have guessed that from the title.

You can read the entire story here.

I have a confession to make -- a dirty little secret, if you will: I like Michael Bay movies. Notice I did not say “films” ... I said movies. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some films of the art house variety, too, but I (unlike other stuffy critics) know when to leave my brain at the door, release my inner adolescent and enjoy a cinematic thrill ride. And Bay has been honing his thrill ride formula for a good little while now. Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon (love that one), Pearl Harbor -- the man’s got his recipe down pat. One gets the feeling that Bay overdosed on 1970’s Spielberg films (especially Jaws and Close Encounters), 1980’s Tony Scott movies (I’ll bet he LOVED Top Gun), and everything directed by James Cameron (their common motto: THINK BIG). Watching a Bay movie is a little like climbing into a brand new sports car with a super model, turning up the radio as loud as it will go and driving as fast as you can through the most dangerous area you can find. After a couple of hours you are probably ready to pull over and get out, but while the ride lasts, you feel like a kid again. Thrills, spills, romance, laughs, action, scale, and bombast. It’s easy to see why producer Spielberg hand picked Bay for 2007’s Transformers.

I’ll admit I never really got the appeal of this cartoon/toy series in the 80s -- I was a little too old by then -- and when I heard that Steven Spielberg was producing a live action version two years ago, I thought he was crazy. I was half right ... he’s crazy like a fox! That 2007 film grossed over $700 million worldwide. A sequel was inevitable.

While I am a bit late posting this review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, it has already grossed over $200 million domestic in only five days, despite garnering some of the worst reviews I have ever read. Given those opposing (but not unusual) facts, as I headed to my local IMAX theater this afternoon, my expectations were a wash. I liked (but didn’t love) the first Transformers movie -- and I assumed this would be more of the same. My mistake: this movie is MORE of the same.

The plot: irrelevant. I couldn’t explain it if I tried ... but here goes: Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is headed to college. Struggling with his clueless (but still hilarious) parents, and whether or not to take his Autobot Camaro to school (huh?), he also is having trouble expressing his feelings to his girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox, looking ever more like a young Angelina Jolie). Things go awry, however, when Sam finds a shard of the AllSpark he used to destroy Megatron in the first movie. As he is downloaded with a mind-numbing amount of alien information, Sam begins to exhibit strange behavior at the worst possible times. This starts in motion a chain of events that will see a new war between the Autobots and the Decepticons -- one that will stretch from the far reaches of space, to the ocean depths, to the Smithsonian, to the Egyptian pyramids (used here to staggeringly epic effect). The plot is actually far more complicated than this, but to try and explain more would be like trying to give a detailed report on the painted backdrop of your favorite roller coaster: it’s a little beside the point.

MEGAN FOX AND SHIA LaBEOUF

Reliable review in a nutshell: If you liked the first movie, you’ll like this one, too. If you hated the first movie ... there’s no talking to you and why are you even reading this review?

Some critics (and erstwhile prudes) have lambasted this movie for things I just didn’t get. Sexual content? Yes, the camera does ogle a couple of its female stars, but certainly no more than you would see on television after 8:00 (‘course, that’s not saying a lot these days). Remember Megan Fox’s bared midriff from the first movie, when she was looking under the hood of Sam’s car? Think that, squared. Bay has always featured beautiful (clothed) women in his movies, lit in a golden glow of fantasy. If this offends you, you should probably know better than to go to a Michael Bay movie anyway ... you may also want to steer clear of the magazine rack at your local supermarket. This movie's PG-13 rating is right on.

There have also been complaints of racial stereotypes by a couple of the Autobots, Mudflap and Skids, whose “ebonics-speak” has been (unfairly) compared to minstrel shows, Amos and Andy, and Jar Jar Binks. I didn’t get these comparisons at all. While they are obviously caricatures meant for comic relief, there is nothing hateful here. If anything, they are goodheartedly poking fun at gangbangers, not an entire race of black people. To confuse the two is to imply that all black people act, speak and think like gold-sporting, krunk-wearing, rap-listening gangbangers (no offense to them), and such an implication is far more racist than anything in this movie.

Does the movie wear out its welcome? At 2 1/2 hours, there is definitely some trimming that could have been done -- especially in the final reel -- but what is on screen is so overwhelmingly eye-popping (ginormous robots fighting atop the Egyptian pyramids), this complaint is merely like saying the roller coaster was too long.

As for the rest of the critics, whose remarks have gleefully spewed hate on Bay and this movie, I will say this: one does not go to a theater to see a movie called Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen expecting to be intellectually enlightened, subtly moved, or emotionally ... transformed. One does go expecting a mindless epic thrill ride, an old-fashoned monster movie with state-of-the-art effects, and on that level, Bay succeeds in spades. What this movie lacks in logic and coherence, it more than makes up for with spectacle and FUN. What more do you want from a summer blockbuster?

GRADE: B+

PS -- If you have the option of seeing this on an IMAX screen, do not hesitate to put down a few extra bucks. Well worth the upgrade.

Sandra Bullock returns to the rom-com genre that made her famous in The Proposal -- her first since 2002’s underrated Two Weeks Notice. While no one will ever accuse this film of overt originality, what’s lost in predictability is made up for in the sheer charisma and likability of its stars.

Sandra plays Margaret Tate, a shrewish New York book editor who, because of an expired Visa, is about to be deported back to her native Canada. Her assistant, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds - nicely sharpening his comedic chops), is a sincere-but-easily-cowed young man simply trying to climb the corporate ladder ... and get his own novel published. When the deportation bombshell is dropped by her boss, Margaret plucks from her improvisational bag of tricks the fabrication of her upcoming nuptials with Andrew. Andrew, realizing his job is on the line, agrees. While a suspicious immigration officer smells something foul (a moldy sitcom premise?), he allows them a few days to get their story straight ... I mean, take care of business. Before you can say Green Card meets Northern Exposure, Margaret and Andrew are off to his hometown in Alaska for his grandmother’s 90th birthday.

Once in Alaska, Margaret is introduced to Andrew’s parents (played ably by Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson), and his grandmother (87-year-old Betty White - who damn near steals this movie).

I’ve spoiled nothing here, this synopsis can be gleaned from the trailer, but it doesn’t take a genius to know where this story is going. I don’t mind that, as long as the getting there is something unique, or special, or fun. In this case ... it mostly is. Sandra Bullock, looking fabulous at 44, milks the second-rate script for every laugh she can get. She is also pretty fearless in scenes like the one involving a puppy, an eagle, and a cell phone ... you’ll know it when you see it. Given that she also spends a good deal of this film trying to convince her faux-fiancee’s family of a lie, there is also a little whiff of While You Were Sleeping ... but I won’t count that as a bad thing. Her utter likability is the very foundation of a film that threatens more than once to collapse under the weight of its own clichés.

Ryan Reynolds (who obviously found time to mine this screenplay for laughs when he wasn’t doing sit-ups) also brings much to the table with a funny and endearing performance. While he has done his fare share of action roles recently, between his charming (and sometimes silly) performance in this film and 2008’s Definitely, Maybe, I think he is finding his niche. His sparkling chemistry with Sandra (their 12-year-age difference is hardly noticeable) IS the heart of this film.

That said, Betty White, and this bears repeating, is such a marvel of energy and comedic timing, she saves the picture from whatever shortcomings Bullock and Reynolds can’t do on their own. Whoever is responsible for this piece of ingenious casting deserves much of the credit for this film’s success.

While I am recommending this film, some of its flaws are glaring -- and I’m not even referring to the age old premise, that can be forgiven if it is done right. Director Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses) might do well on her next project to hone up on how to stage scenes with a lot of extras. The sequences involving Margaret and Andrew’s publishing office cubicles, especially the ones at the end of the film, are staged, acted and directed so ineptly, they completely ruin the flow of the otherwise entertaining story. Rather than subtle reactions, the extras all mug shamelessly, and remind the viewer that they are watching a movie. I also could have done without the “Ramone” scenes ... every time I thought he was gone, he popped up again. I blame the director.

So ... if you are looking for an agreeable time-filler with its fair share of laughs (if not surprises), I can think of many worse ways to spend two hours than with Sandra Bullock in rom-com mode. I laughed, I smiled, and never looked at my watch. While this movie is probably not deserving of any grade over B-, due to the charisma of its stars, I’m going to raise that to a ...

MOVIE GRADE: B

Now that Watchmen has come and gone (can’t wait for that Ultimate Cut DVD), and Star Trek is still boldly going where no Trek film has gone before (over $350 million worldwide and climbing), I’m left here in the middle of 2009 with not much to look forward to save James Cameron’s Avatar in December. Transformers 2? I’ll see it, but my expectations are for more of the same. Although I must add here that the trailers for Zombieland and 2012 are, surprisingly, a wonder to behold.

However, after seeing the trailer for the Guy Ritchie directed Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson, I must say I am impressed. Some have criticized the trailer as being filled with far more Hollywood bombast than Arthur Conan Doyle ever intended for his cloaked sleuth, but I must disagree. Holmes, despite assumptions birthed by the 14 film adaptations starring Basil Rathbone in the 1940s, was, in addition to being a brilliant detective, also a chemist, violin player, swordsman, and boxer. This new adaptation looks to bring much visceral energy to the proceedings -- certainly more than we’ve ever seen from previously stuffy and stodgy portrayals.

As some have noted, Downey does not wear Holmes’ traditional deerstalker in this. Yet purists will note that said headgear was entirely an invention of the film adaptations -- Doyle never mentioned it. But this is a quibble. If Ritchie’s film can add at least as much intelligence and deductive reasoning as it looks to have heart-pounding thrills, this is bound to be one of the surprise hits of 2009. (Those who think these two attributes are mutually exclusive should check out Michael Crichton’s 1979 Victorian thriller The Great Train Robbery, starring Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, posted in its entirety on this site.)

If this movie lives up to the promise of its trailer, Robert Downey Jr. may well have another franchise to attend to inbetween his stints as Iron Man. Considering what horrors he had to come through to get to this incredible second act of his career, he is also becoming an inspiration to millions. Go Robert.

Sherlock Holmes opens on Christmas Day 2009.

You know those web videos you stumble upon every now that are so funny and bloody random they feel like a digital hallucinogen? Well, I got one here that is funny and bloody AND random. It's from a BBC3 sketch show called The Wrong Door, and regards a young couple whose relationship is on the rocks. Melanie is lovely and sweet, but is worried that her relationship with Philip is going nowhere. Philip is a dinosaur.

Prepare for a jaw-dropping good laugh.



Oh, if you're wondering how Philip and Melanie first hooked up, we got that too.