Rosenbush Cafe

Graphic Profanity and Adult Themes

George Carlin

He died on June 23rd of 2007, at the young age of 71, and in the process left a void that never again will be filled. I was fortunate to see him live in concert in October of 2001 and will always remember his performance and the albums (I have them all), HBO specials (have them all, too) and seeing him on Johnny Carson. There was his movie career that was not so much his milieu as the stand up routines that he polished over 14 Home Box Office Specials and his outrageous books, including Brain Droppings, that were as funny to read silently as anything his said aloud.

He was truly a hero for humor and as for the humorless, well fuck ‘em. I’ve met so many people over the years “that didn’t get it” but these same assholes have no trouble understanding the banality of the infield fly rule but were easily offended by the spot on realization that “watching golf on TV was like watching flies fuck!” His humor on cats and dogs is a priceless piece and who can ever forget his being fired in Las Vegas “…for saying the word shit in town where the big game is called crap?”

Although some would say he became too radical, politically dark and profane throughout his lifetime in entertainment he was a voice in the darkness that always brightened my life. There were many lives he touched and his albums, such as Class Clown, Occupation: Foole and On the Road defined his work and examined everything from The Seven Words routine to the dangers of performing live under the influence of cocaine and a treatise on death that was far ahead of it’s time: “Two minutes, get your shit together.” His truthful view of advertising: “If Janitor in a Drum made a douche, nobody would buy it!”

So to commerate the one year anniversary of his death I’ve included his thought-provoking interview from The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which contains graphic profanity and adult themes but is worthwhile to anyone interesting in the mind behind the humor and profound insights into human beings, our predilections for self destruction and his myriad dissections of the ordinary daily routines and language mis-usage he so deeply and keenly viewed.

While watching the DVD of his perf in the 14th special it was nice to find the documentary from the AofTAandS and that it is available for download to share with my readers.

In July, I’ll take a extra deep retrospective into his albums and what made him an unforgettable force not only in the business of comedy but in his never-ending view of the human condition and why I always wanted to send a donation to “The St. Louis Home for the Totally Fucked!”

As he revealed in his interview as Jesus Christ some years ago: “I’d never want to be part of any religion whose symbol is a man nailed too two pieces of wood, especially if it’s me!” He could make me laugh and think and then ponder the insanity behind organized religion, government and how most people are “really fucking stupid!”

George, you are truly missed but your spirit lives on in all your work and you will never be forgotten. Thanks for the many years of revelations about how most people can laugh at the irrevelance while far too many others bury their ostrich heads beneath the earth rather than accept that in the end, our planet isn’t going anywhere: “We are!”

George’s website

Still brings humor to an otherwise mundane day. It remains under my Appetizers as an Entertain Your Brain category as does the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

India-born director Mira Nair, best known for the international hit comedy-drama, Monsoon Wedding in 2001 takes on the enigmatic story of pilot Amelia Earhart.

Miss Earhart (1897-1937), was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932 becoming only the second person to accomplish such a feat since Charles Lindburgh’s legendary flight in 1927. Five years later, in an effort to be the first person to successfully circumnavigate the world, she simply vanished. According to a documentary on A&E’s Biography, “Radio contact with the U.S. Coast Guard off of Howland Island, her next stop in the Pacific, was made on several occasions, but Earhart apparently could not hear any of the coast guard’s replies.” Several searches failed to discover the plane or pilot, who presumably went down in the Pacific Ocean, but the mystery has never been solved.

The film stars two-time Oscar Winner Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, 1999; Million Dollar Baby, 2004), Richard Gere, Virginia Madsen and Ewan McGregor. Screenplay is by Oscar Winner Ronald Bass (Rain Man, 1988) who is also the film’s executive producer as is Ms. Swank.

The film is Rated PG for some sensuality, language, thematic elements and smoking. It currently does not have a release date but high profile dramas are generally placed in the late fall and early winter schedules to qualify for Academy Award nominations. It could be one of those pics in limited release in New York and LA and the go wide in January. Now that the Academy has added five additonal slots in the Best Picture category (10 noms) one has to surmise this will be one of them.

Thanks for this excerpt from the documentary which came courtesy of Winged Victory Women in Aviation

Senior Correspondent Simone de bon de Bont

By Simone de bon de Bont subtext provided by eXisTenTiaLNihLisT
there will be profanity

TUSCALOOSA, AL—The University of Alabama has proved itself incapable of providing consistent high quality education without expensive trickery, mind control altering substances introduced in classrooms through the air ducts and tenure tracks for anyone with IQs hovering near the average humanoid body temperature. The only people who get fired and forcefully retired are the regular working employees, while the high up the bladder control ladder keep their positions unscathed with the promise of eternal job security.

As Simone de Bon de Bont, Senior Correspondent at the Milo Institution for Feline Well-Being explains, “asdfzx cvgtre wq shulscars reqprhnsz job,” which translated from ancient felinese means: “Time Is Eternity; job security is fleeting.” Professor de Bont is Americatus at MIFW-B and a radical scholar whose CAT Award winning thesis, written while at the College of Catology in Toronto, Canada, posits: Sentient Beings Are Only 1/4 of the Human Equation: Fur Bearing Critters Complete the Cycle.

“Obsequiousness will only get you so far in this ever-changing world. It is very obvious to felinese scholars that verbal language is such a complicated and misused form of communication that only humankind could ever cause such confusion.”

Cous Cous LaPress, another scholar at the institute adds: “Humans are so far behind because many of them speak without thinking and therefore think they have said something important when all they are really doing is expelling carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and spitting on the children.”

Simone’s simple reply: “While euphemisms are OK the word bullshit is unparallel in providing direct deprecating reality. Is it true or false? It is bullshit. What else do you need to know? Meow.”

You are important.
Bullshit.

You are smart.
Bullshit.

I am here to help you.
Bullshit.

God is watching over you.
Bullshit.

I love you.
Bullshit.

Bullshit will survive long after humans are gone.
Bullshit, it will die within us.

ExNil

Isn’t it time for revolutionary changes in Theosophy? In the end no divine intervention will save us from drowning in bullshit. The Environmental Protection Agency should provide us with bullshit detectors that give off eardrum shattering high pitch screams but then 98.97% of the world would be deaf. The remaining tiny percentage would either already be deaf, living in the Everglades, underground or high in the Appalachian Mountains or perhaps they reside in nursing homes, prisons or wombs.

Universities and colleges thrive on revisionist history. History doesn’t so much repeat as rewrite itself and every decade somewhere someone has changed something that was once considered undeniably true and replaces it with whatever is fashionable or shabby chic at that moment. All history is tainted by the embellishment of human penmanship and while some believe the pen is mightier, nothing will ever defeat sharp serrated blades of truth thrust deep into the hearts of irrationality severing arteries of dishonesty and misanthropy.

Corruption of the mind is another subversive regime of illiterate educational cognoscenti searching for ultimate truth where none ever existed.

The Legacy of Anarchy is a mise-en-scène of sweet natured naïveté. We want freedom and rights and our voices to be heard above the shrieks of evil and yet we are still confused when we realize it must be fought for and that millions already died for it to be achieved. The dead should rise, not as bloodthirsty zombies, but as the pissed off multitudes of revolutionaries who died gallantly to confront the future generations who gave it all back.

Dictatorships are everywhere; North Korea, Iraq, Russia, the West Coast of the United States. If universities were armed they would threaten their competition with nuclear missile launches and in that respect are no different than school yard bullies terrorizing the weak for milk money. A bully before is a bully always and many grow up to become dangerous individuals; spouse abusers, child abusers, country abusers, university officials, members of the News Media and world leaders.

The UofA spends millions of dollars on construction and reconstruction (re: the Bryant-Denny Stadium gets renovated so often it’s like a bridge the allies bomb every morning after it has been rebuilt the night before by their enemies.)

Once upon a time, like in fairy tales, money was spent on the teachers and textbooks. As was recently seen when the NCAA spanked Alabama again for textbook violations it was revealed that at the highest levels no one is accountable. The school has the right to appeal, and they are, it is unfortunate that a 5 year probation that the football program came off of recently didn’t teach these leaders a damned important lesson: once tainted by corruption the school would forever be under scrutiny by the NCAA.

Rather than fire those in charge they left them alone. A few years ago everyone blamed Auburn or Tennessee for exposing Alabama. Would it be unethical to suggest Alabama exposed itself no differently than a flasher in the park on a sunny Sunday morning?

The felines, and indeed the entire animal kingdom, know more about communication and are better educated than the board of trustees at every college and university in the nation. Live in the wild, go feral and see how long civilized man survives. Forget the reality shows on television. Take away the cameras and syllogistic banter and see who really survives. I vote for the animals and insect life.

As the fall approaches, the felines will offer classes in Bullshit so perhaps the next graduating class will have an equalizer to the amount of fecal matter that will be slung at them. If the media, governments, corporations and religion, commercialism and the full gauntlet of bullshitters worldwide can teach it why not our institutions of higher learning?

The answer is simple: they can do it but they just don’t know how.

Bullshit.

Have a great weekend.

Bullshit!

Nick (Chris Evans) and Cassie (Dakota Fanning) confront Kira (Camilla Belle) in Push

NOTE: As I looked over the ticket stubs I found two movies I didn’t review this year and since my personal policy is to review every feature film I view here is one of them. I have reasonably strong psychic abilities and sat silently mouthing accurate dialogue exchanges and predicting the ending long before it arrived. (The other movie gets reviewed next week).

Reviewed by Henry B. Rosenbush

Convoluted and intentionally vague, Paul McGuigan’s follow-up to his far superior criminal revenge thriller, Lucky Number Selvin, pitts telepathic good guys and gals against another sinister government organization through the streets of Hong kong in the hyperkinetic display that is Push.

Push is not a bad movie but it isn’t particularly good either and that’s a shame. It had all the elements needed for a compelling story of paranormal espionage and a cast headed by the generally likeable Chris (Fantastic Four, Cellular) Evans as the hero and Djimon (Blood Diamond, Constantine) Hounsou as the head of Division who is the nominal villian. Camilla Belle, recently seen as Evolet in Roland Emmerich’s uneven 10,000 BC, is cast as the powerful Kira, who can control the minds of anyone, except screenwriter, David Bourla. This was only Bourla’s second screenwriting assignment after 2001’s Larceny and although there are moments where the story is unique in the end it is as ordinary as Slevin was not.

Genre fans looking for a head-exploding good time can view Scanners, David Cronenberg’s 1981 paranormal thriller which was not a critical success but as often the case, the Toronto, Canada filmmaker had a better grasp on psychic world domination themes. Even the gruesome effects, by the legendary make up effects guru, Dick Smith, hold up well along side today’s CGI carnage.

One of the failures was casting Dakota Fanning. This is the same girl so great in Tony Scott’s noirish 2004 Denzel Washington vehicle, Man on Fire. Before that high octane drama, she starred in 2000, in an early episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation the Emmy winning, Blood Drops. Fanning was cast as a 4-year-old (she was 6) whose sister and boyfriend have slaughterd her two brothers and parents because of incest and sexual abuse. The mostly silent role was particularly heart-wrenching when we learned the older sister was actually her mother because of the father. Fanning brought forth more sympathy through her eyes and expressions than had her role been dialogue driven.

As is all too often the case with child acting they grow older. I suspect Fanning will have many greater roles if she remains in the industry but after her shrill turn as Rachel in the remake of War of the Worlds I have avoided all of her movies, until Push. She has since been joined by Jaden Smith, in another needless remake, The Day the Earth Stood Still as two young actors whose characters needed corporal punishment if the filmmakers weren’t brave enough to kill them. In fairness, and with full disclosure, I would have offed Tom Cruise and his brainless son in War and the human cast in Still.

Fanning gives the film much of its PG:13 Rating by getting drunk (too good at it) and spouting far too much profanity, especially in light of the disturbing fact she is jealous of Nick’s (Evans) later involvement with the alluring Kira. He’s too old for you, Cassie, but being a Watcher, you should have known! Watchers can predict the future and is one of a myriad of paranormal psychobabble; there are Movers, which is Nick’s talent - he can move objects, but is seen early on unable to alter the trajectory of dice in a Hong Kong (where much of the film was lensed) street game.

Kira (Camilla Belle) dressed for style in Push climax

There are Bleeders - the film’s biggest migraine producers - whose screams can shatter glass, make eardrums bleed, explode fish (no kidding) and long before the predictable climax threaten to push audiences from theaters they are so loud and annoying; Stitches, Sniffers (don’t ask), Shadows, Wipers and Pushers are also among the colorful array of misfits. The Wipers, who can produce short-term tabula rasa figure into the final reel siege at a construction site where Nick battles Division Head Henry Carver (Hounsou) and a “brainwashed” Kira for a tiny piece of world domination.

You know a film is in trouble when it starts with a voiceover (by Cassie) detailing paranormal scientific experiments where Hitler was involved (shades of 1978’s The Boys From Brazil). If you can accept all the upcoming psychic mayhem was a result of the WW II experiments then perhaps you’ll get pushed, if not slightly nudged, towards cinematic enjoyment.

After the opening, Kira becomes the first survivor of a drug injection that purports to increase and control psychic powers, escapes Division headquarters and travels to Hong Kong, with a sample of the stuff, where she gets to sleep with Nick and kill off the majority of HK paranomal and normal gangsters. What more could an undemanding audience want?

Technically, the effects are cheesy with a decidedly intentional low budget exploitation feel, while the late reel fight scenes are boring. The restaurant scene is fun but one gets the sense if John Woo was helming, re: Hard Boiled, it would have been even more fun. Cinematographer Peter Sova displays nice views of Hong Kong but Nicolas Trembasiewicz’s editing is hyperactive. Production designer Francois Seguin and costume designers Nina Proctor and Laura Goldsmith earned their paychecks.

Once again Evans proves to be one of those Hollywood actors who can be good even with ridiculous material and Fanning needs to re-evaluate her career choices, unless adults are selecting her roles (she is featured in the upcoming Twilight sequel). Hounsou is a very good actor (Amistad comes to mind) who is wasted here while Belle is smart and sexy enough to warrant better roles.

This is another of those maddening affairs where you expect more, get less and leave the theater with enough unused subtext to pad a documentary on the Discovery Channel. In the end, there are so many plot holes left opened that even the Wipers cannot erase them. The final shot leaves open sequel possibilities.

Uh-huh.

A Summit Entertainment release, in association with Icon Productions, of an Infinity Features Entertainment and Icon Production; produced by Bruce Davey, William Vince and Glenn Williamson; executive producers, Gretchen Somerfield, David Bourla, Dave Valleau, Amy Gilliam, Michael Ohoven and Stan Wlodkowski; co-producers, David Richardson and Christa Vausbinder; directed by Paul McGuigan from a screenplay by David Bourla.

Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen), Peter Sova; editor, Nicolas Trembasiewicz; music, Neil Davidge; music supervisor, Liza Richardson; production designer, Francois Seguin; supervising art director, Michael Norman Wong; art director, Second Chan (Hong Kong); set decorator, Jeffrey Kong; costume designers, Nina Proctor, Laura Goldsmith; sound (Dolby Digital), Pawel Wdowczak; sound designer, Paula Fairfield; supervising sound editor, Fairfield; re-recording mixers, Richard L. Alexander, Todd Beckett; visual effects supervisor, Kent Houston; visual effects, Digiscope, Peerless Camera Co.; special effects supervisors, Mark Meddings, Bruce Law (Hong Kong); stunt coordinator, Nick Powell; assistant directors, Toby Ford (U.S.), Bosco Lam (Hong Kong); second unit director, Powell; second unit camera, Ron Hersey; casting, Tricia Wood, Deborah Aquila, Poping Auyeung (Hong Kong).

Reviewed at The Cobb Hollywood 16 Theater, Tuscaloosa, AL, March 5, 2009. MPAA Rating: PG-13: Action violence, profanity, teenage drinking. Running time: 1:51; English and Cantonese dialogue

DVD release and on Blu-Ray on July 7th with deleted scenes, Audio Commentary with Director Paul McGuigan and stars Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning (uh-oh) and The Science Behind the Fiction featurette.

Cast
Nick Gant - Chris Evans
Cassie Holmes - Dakota Fanning
Kira Hudson - Camilla Belle
Hook Waters - Cliff Curtis
Henry Carver - Djimon Hounsou
Emily Wu - Ming-Na
Pinky Stein - Nate Mooney
Xiao Lu Li
Chi Kwan Fung
Jacky Heung
Maggie Siff
Corey Stoll
Scott Michael Campbell

Young lovers: Always on the run

Reviewed By Henry B. Rosenbush

Sam Witwicky goes to college for less than a week before hell breaks lose in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen a predictably loud, wild and overlong sequel to the 2007 Michael Bay megahit.

There is plenty of offbeat humor, aimed at the college-aged crowd, including: profane transformers, humping dogs, a pot-laced-brownie munching mom, and naturally Shia LaBeouf and his impossibly hottie girl friend Megan Fox. Whether it can top the $708 million worldwide gross of its predecessor is problematic but there is plenty of robotic battles and action sequences to draw attention from its convoluted plot which threatens to become more conventional thanks to human intervention.

With “revenge” in its title this film has already laid groundwork for vengeful face offs between the Autobots and Decepticons and some late plot machinations concerning the destruction of our sun is a bit silly and anti-climatic.

Despite some uneven acting, and several annoying characters inserted mainly for laughs, much of the human cast are either extras or military; the credit scroll thanks the entire range of Armed Forces for their help, much as it did in the first film.

Based on the 1980s Hasbro Transformers action figures the movie is less about its human characters than than machines capable of transforming into a wide range of devices Stealth bombers, cars, construction machinery, ball bearings and even remote control toys. The special efffects team at Industrial, Light and Magic and literally hundreds of computer programmers worked overtime on this entry providing no end of visual delights, including a visit to the Smithsonian Institute’s Aeronautical Museum which is home to “older” Transformers who were retired in the early part of the 20th Century.

There are enough metamorphing robots battling to satiate even the most jaded action fans hungry for new thrills and even Fox, first seen in cutoff jeans stradling a motorcycle, is later upstaged by the femme nymphomaniacal Decepticon, Alice (Isabel Lucas) who is equal parts terminatrix and every horny college guy’s wet dream-cum-nightmare. The moment when she is about to “have her way” with Sam just as Mikaela arrives is funny (”This is your girlfriend?” to the reply from Mikaela, as she closed the dorm room door, “Ex.”) and immediately sexually charged as a metallic phallic tail is revealed from beneath her dress which begins strangling Sam!

It is one of several overtly sexual themes planted throughout the film. Besides two humping dogs, there is a later scene of a tiny captured Decepticon humping Mikaela’s leg which received a huge audience response. The fact that Mikaela has tortured the little bot into submission is a bizarre twist on female empowerment that Fox seemed to relish.

Film starts off 15,000 years ago and details briefly that the warring robotic races of Autobots and Decepticons had visited earth and it is revealed, through voiceover by Optimus Prime (returning Peter Cullen who was the voice in the 1980s cartoon series, too), that the good bots have buried a powerful weapon that could signal the end of the human race and earth if used.

Even a causal observer knows the Decepticons, headed by Megatron (voiced again by “Mr. Smith” from The Matrix Trilogy, Hugo Weaving) are pissed off at Sam and intend to literally pick his brain (thanks to a shard from the powerful Cube of the first film, which has filled his mind with bizarre imagery and symbols that spew forth at the most inopportune moments) to learn the whereabouts of the weapon and put an end to the humans. The fact that part of the sought after weapon is a Matrix would seem to be another in-joke, of which the film has many.

After the prologue the film drops the audience into the first of many transformation battle scenes as we learn humans and Autobots have joined to form a joint group, NEST, to rid earth of Decepticons that are hiding in plain site in countries all over the world. Returning from Transformers are US Army grunts Capt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson), now members of the elite squad. The opening battle sequence in Shanghai, China, between a heavily armed military and their Autobot support group against Demolishor and Sideways, is thrilling and a rousing begin to the film.

This sequence introduces new Autobots Arcee, Sideswipe, Jolt and the twins Skids and Mudflap. Sideswipe, Arcee and the twins killsSideways while Optimus Prime and Ironhide kill Demolishor, whose last words are a warning: The Fallen will “rise again.”

Unknown to our government is that Decepticons have pirated a a spy satelite to locate Sam and the “spark,” which is the remaining shard from the Cube destroyed in the first film, now in the possession of Mikaela Banes (Fox) while Sam tries to fit into college, which as earlier indicted only lasts long enough for an array of Decepticons to arrive and decimate much of the school, especially its library and dorms. Megatron, who is buried on the ocean’s floor is later released and returns to his home planet to report to “The Fallen” of the title, voiced by Tony Candyman Todd, who was banished from earth in the prologue and eager to return for the “Revenge.”

The first hour of the film concludes with a massive forest battle, in which Optimus Prime is “killed” leading to a Christ-like ressurection in the Egyptian desert but the film still has plenty of time left to kill before the conclusion.

A Michael Bay Film must have plenty of explosions and destruction

John Turturro returns as the manic Agent Simmons (and voice of Jetfire) retired from Section Seven to work in his mother’s deli and he makes the most of his annoying character’s vast knowledge of the alien races. We even get to see him in a G-string (don’t ask) while Fox displays some cleveage and little else after the opening cutoffs scene, although there is a cheat of the possibility of cybersex with Sam that is never resolved.

Another character the film could have done without is Sam’s roommate, Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) a computer geek who produces Kitty Calendars and believes in government conspiracies and a cover up existed in the first Transformer film. Leo is an audience surrogate, to be sure, since the midnight crowd (it was showing in six sold out theaters locally) were comprised of plenty of University of Alabama students who got plenty of their laughs from the rude lavatorial humor and college-themed lunacy, especially an early scene when Sam’s mother, Judy (Julie White, again with husband Ron, Kevin Dunn) samples some hash brownies and goes on a cross campus tear, culminating with her tackling a boy with a frisbee. After getting subdued by Ron, who is on top her, she mutters how she would do anything to get an “A,” which was met with an uproar of laughter.

A science college professor, the always annoying Rainn Wilson, delivers sexually innuendo-peppered language to his class that is distressingly funny, but again, the target audience was game.

In the end, the film is at least a half hour too long but that won’t matter because between less than stellar human perfs, the real appeal is still the transformation sequences and Bay and his collaborators have devised everything from mechanical insects to gigantic sand-sucking construction equipment robots to keep the audience happy. While all the technical credits are top-notch, much of the earlier college scene dialogue is difficult to fully understand thanks to an overly loud soundtrack.

The return of Bumblebee (Sam’s Autobot-yellow-Camaro) is a welcome site, still producing much needed robotic humor and with a playlist of songs that fit every mood.

Writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and series newcomer Ehren Kruger pepper the dialogue with plenty of suggestive and off-the-wall humor that for younger audiences is just what the franchise ordered, but older audiences searching for deeper meaning already know they didn’t stumble into Shakespeare in the Park.

A Paramount release of a DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures presentation in association with Hasbro of a di Bonaventura Pictures and Tom DeSanto/Don Murphy production. Produced by Murphy, DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Ian Bryce; executive producers, Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Brian Goldner and Mark Vahradian; co-producer, Allegra Clegg. Directed by Michael Bay from a screenplay by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, based on Hasbro’s Transformers action figures.

Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Ben Seresin; editors, Roger Barton, Thomas Muldoon, Joel Negron, Paul Rubell; music, Steve Jablonsky; production designer, Nigel Phelps; supervising art director, Jon Billington; art director, Julian Ashby, Naaman Marshall, Ben Procter; set designers, C. Scott Baker, Jann K. Engel; set decorator, Jennifer Williams; costume designer, Deborah L. Scott; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Geoffrey Patterson; supervising sound editors, Ethan Van der Ryn, Erik Aadahl; re-recording mixers, Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers; visual effects supervisor, Richard Kidd; visual effects, Industrial Light & Magic, Asylum, Digital Domain; special effects supervisor, Wayne Toth; stunt coordinators, Kenny Bates, Bob Brown; associate producer, Matthew Cohan; assistant directors, K.C. Hodenfield, Bruce Moriarty; second unit director, Bates; casting, Denise Chamian.

Reviewed at Cobb’s Hollywood 16 Theaters, June 24, 2009. MPAA Rating: PG-13: for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material and brief drug material. Running time: 2:29.

Cast
Sam Witwicky - Shia LaBeouf
Mikaela Banes - Megan Fox
Capt. Lennox - Josh Duhamel
USAF Tech Sgt. Epps - Tyrese Gibson
Agent Simmons/Voice of Jetfire - John Turturro
Leo - Ramon Rodriguez
Ron Witwicky - Kevin Dunn
College Professor - Rainn Wilson
Judy Witwicky - Julie White
Voice of Megatron - Hugo Weaving
Voice of Optimus Prime - Peter Cullen
Voice of Bumblebee - Mark Ryan
Voice of Ratchet - Robert Foxworth
Voice of Jolt - Anthony Anderson
Voice of the Fallen - Tony Todd