Excerpt from An Interview With Jarett Kobek by God,

Discover’d in a Dream,

on divers & sundry topics, but concerned mainly with

Michael Bay’s Transformers (2007)

God: So, Jarett, how’m I doing?

Jarett: Well, I gotta say, you know, given the fact that I’m so angry about Michael Bay’s Transformers that I’m resorting to the overly cutesy technique of posting a fake interview between myself and God, you ain’t doing so great there, pal.

God: But Jarett, why can’t you write a regular review?

Jarett: It’s like this. Transformers is possibly the stupidest film I have ever seen projected in a theatre. It’s certainly the worst. Granted, I am a man given to hyperbole & that I won’t deny, but holy holy crap, Transformers is awful. I’m so angry I can’t even put together paragraphs. You really dropped the ball, pal.

God: But can I be held responsible for the actions of man?

Jarett: Given that I was raised Roman Catholic, I’d say no, generally I believe in free will. But I’m angry enough to go Calvinist. It’s your fault, God. You let Michael Bay direct a film after Team America: World Police. You gave those Hollywood bastards the money, the drive, and the audience. It’s your fault, pal. You did this to me. I feel like I was held down and given the Ludovico Technique for two and a half hours. Where do I start? Oh, I know: let’s start with every single frame of that film screaming SOCAL GROUPTHINK SOCAL GROUPTHINK SOCAL GROUPTHINK. Hey, God, we should take a memo to future historians. If they want to distill the political, social, comedic, and dramatic thought of hack Hollywood in 2007 down to a single text, they only need watch Transformers. Where the disingenuous worship of The Troops combines with a profound discomfort at addressing, you know, actual War, where they can find a pathetically inept caricature of the sitting President (he’s from Texas and dumb), where every animated media property has to speak like a 55 year old man’s idea of a Valley Girl, and where comedy is reducible inevitably to fart jokes, piss jokes, nerds being nerdy, jocks being jocky, and a jive talking Negrobot. This film has it all.