Michael Bay apologizes for Armageddon

Maybe not:

UPDATE: Bay, 48, is claiming that the Herald reporter misused his quotes to the paper. In a statement on his website, the director writes:
One press writer has gone too far in reporting false information. He has printed the bare minimum of my statement which in effect have twisted my words and meaning. I'm not in the slightest going to apologize for the third movie in my movie career, a film called Armageddon. On the red carpet for Pain & Gain some reporters asked me what are you apologizing for, and I said what on earth are you talking about?
What I clearly said to the reporter, is I wish I had more time to edit the film, specifically the the third act. He asked me in effect what would you change if you could in your movies if you could go back. I said, I wish we had a few more weeks in the edit room on Armageddon. And still today Armageddon, is still one of the most shown movies on cable TV. And yes, I'm proud of the movie. Enough said.
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In quotes the Miami Herald article has Bay saying "I will apologize for Armageddon..." It's in the context of the film's editing, so he's not apologizing for the entire movie. The yahoo headline was misleading, not so much the actual article.
 
The Rock is really the only Bay movie I like. Even have the Blu-ray of it. Mostly because Connery totally carries that movie on charisma alone.
 
I saw the Miami Herald story Sunday, was going to post it here but got busy editing...

Bay's Pain and Gain is big news here, not just because it was filmed here, but because of the twisted/irreverent sense of humor in a story based on a real case involving dismemberment by chainsaw and axes... surviving family survivors (and law enforcement) are not laughing, to say the least...

There's no shortage of grisly crime here. Another true case involves dismemberment and decapitation, putting the parts in barrels, then not being able to agree on what to do with the barrels (guess that one could be mined for "a barrel of laughs" too).

But I know The Herald's film critic, and he doesn't get these sort of things wrong and definitely doesn't make up quotes.
Maybe Bay will also change his mind and claim his VFX Supervisor didn't have a breakdown and he didn't slow down his editing...

On the other hand, perhaps being based on a true story will help Bay in actually having a story...

Here's the quote in context:

Another atypical thing about Pain & Gain: Bay, who is known for hyperkinetic editing, still delivers the beautiful visuals, but he actually holds on shots and characters’ faces for longer than two seconds, giving you time to take them in.

“It’s really funny,” he says. “People have always given me a hard time on my editing. But if you could do a graph on my movies, you would see how my editing has slowed down over the years. Bad Boys was my first movie, and we cut that quite fast. Back then it was very new for action. Now you see a lot of that imitated. Call it what you will. Yes, critics have given me s--t about it. But when you watch the Bourne Identity movies, they are cut way faster.

“I will apologize for Armageddon, because we had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks. It was a massive undertaking. That was not fair to the movie. I would redo the entire third act if I could. But the studio literally took the movie away from us. It was terrible. My visual effects supervisor had a nervous breakdown, so I had to be in charge of that. I called James Cameron and asked ‘What do you do when you’re doing all the effects yourself?’ But the movie did fine.

“ Pain & Gain stylistically still has a poppy vibe, but often it’s just actors acting and you can just point your camera at them and let them go. And it shows Miami in a really interesting texture. It’s still glossy, but different. They gave me the key to the city, which is kind of cool, because I make Miami look good in the movie, and it gets out and travels around the world. I have a home in Miami, and what I love about this city is that it feels small town in a weird way. I grew up in L.A. and it’s way too big. Miami’s got a lot more soul. It’s one of the greatest cities in America.”

But Bay says Miami is also particularly fertile ground for bad behavior.
“Crazy stuff can happen anywhere, but this story happens to be very Miami. We’re trying to make our bodies beautiful and keep up with everyone else. But then someone like Lugo comes along and thinks, ‘I’m going to steal from that guy and live in his house and then I’m going to be a good person in the community and have a neighborhood watch and play with the kids in the neighborhood.’ And he doesn’t think anything of it. It’s so bizarre.”
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And The Herald's whole story:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/20/v-fullstory/3353317/pain-gain-revisits-a-horrific.html
 
Ya know, while I personally do not care much for Michael Bay's films, he really doesn't have doodly squat to apologize for. I looked him up on Box Office Mojo, and his films have an unadjusted domestic total gross of $1,848,173,234 with an unadjusted average of $205,352,582. His body of work has a world wide unadjusted total gross of $4,585,400,000. What I think is really pretentious is that he now wants to "Apologize" for a movie that has a lifetime domestic gross, unadjusted, of $205,352,582 and a world wide unadjusted gross of $553,709,788, as if anyone regards his films as works of cinematic art. Cinema is where art and commerce meet. Mr. Bay would probably sleep better at night if he just owned up to the fact that he has mastered the cinema of commerce and went to bed at night looking at his bank statements rather than the reviews of his movies.
 
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