So! Megan Fox was promoting Jennifer's Body, the new Diablo Cody monster whatever movie. Wonderland magazine asks her about Transformers 2, and she goes off the reservation on Michael Bay:

God, I really wish I could go loose on this one. He's like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he's a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he's not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he's so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it's endearing to watch him.

Now, while Megan Fox is trying to cement her reputation as a ridiculously inaccessible super rad badass post-femme hottie goddess rockbitch (or whatever Diablo Cody would call it) by basically calling Michael Bay a small-dicked boy with big explosive toys, a bunch of Michael Bay crewmembers—Or fanboys! Or both!—posted a letter on a Michael Bay message board. They write:

Megan has the press fooled...we have never understood why Megan was always such – the grump of the set?

...When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we've had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it's very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) easily another 45 minutes in the chair

Yes! Written like true techies. She's got a tat? Call her trailer trash! And again:

Megan says that Transformers was an unsafe set? Come on Megan, we know it is a bit more strenuous then the playground at the trailer park, but you don't insult one of the very best stunt and physical effects teams in the business! Not one person got hurt!

And who is the real Megan Fox? She is very different than the academy nominee and winning actors we've all worked around. She's as about ungracious a person as you can ever fathom.

Yeah, well, we imagine that's the case with everyone. What say you of franchise star Shia LaDouche? Exactly. Furthermore!

The press certainly doesn't know her most famous line. On our first day in Egypt, the Egyptian government wouldn't let us shoot because of a permit problem as the actors got ready in make up at the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael tried to make the best of it; he wanted to take the cast and crew on a private tour of the famous Giza pyramids. God hold us witness, Megan said, "I can't believe Michael is fucking forcing us to go to the fucking pyramids!" I guess this is the "Hitler guy" she is referring to.

Okay, that's just funny. So! Word of the letter leaks out. Sister Jez gets to it, Michael K at D-Listed gets to it with his own analysis:

The letter is supposed to make you want to run for president of the I HATE MEGAN FOX fan club, but it actually makes me kind of like her stupid ass for a quick minute. I mean, she's dumb, she's a slut and she's a bitch. The dumb slutty bitch is my kind! It's like we were separated at the free clinic!

God, he's a poet. And for a moment, this struggle of two work cultures—the "talent" culture, and the "techie" culture, this ages-long Hollywood battle over the value of diva actors and the work they do and the class struggles that exist between them—it hung in the air, dangling over the edge of becoming an all-out war, like an Autobot teetering on the precipice of a cliff, about to fall into the Grand Canyon, when Michael Bay, the great negotiator, stepped in. The letter was removed from the site! Forget for a moment that D Listed has it up, Just Jared still has it, and Google has it cached, and read into the great peacemaking the Michael Bay doth purport, on his site:

I don't condone the crew letter to Megan. And I don't condone Megan's outlandish quotes. But her crazy quips are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter I still love working with her, and I know we still get along. I even expect more crazy quotes from her on Transformers 3.

Michael

Genius. This is the man who brought us Armegeddon; he's a natrual crowdpleaser and one hell of a moneymaker, at heart. You think he'd do anything but leave open the possibility of more cast and crew infighting and insanity?

Winner: Michael Bay.
Losers: Classless Tech Crew Who Can't Write A Letter Very Well, With Exception To The Egypt Anecdote.
Push: Megan Fox. Yes, probably an asshole, but an honest, funny one. Like, sometimes, you're in Egypt, you just don't want to see the fuckin' pyramids, you know? Someone get me a mango lassi while we wait for these robots to get gassed. I've got my wonderful freaky thumbs to look at.

• For the second year in a row, Paramount and Warner Brothers led the summer box office derby, fueled by Transformers 2 and Star Trek for Paramount and Harry Potter and The Hangover for Warners. Universal landed at the bottom of the heap with a string of disappointments including Bruno, Land of the Lost and Funny People. Variety cautions, however, "Market share and profitability don't necessarily go hand in hand, since market share doesn't account for how much a studio has spent on production and marketing." Meaning just because they took in a fortune, doesn't meed they made a dime. [Variety]

• The Hollywood Reporter credits this year's four percent uptick in receipts to the higher ticket prices Hollywood conned America into paying for 3-D movies. [Hollywood Reporter]

• A tepid last weekend of the summer box office race was again won by last weekend's winner, Final Destination 3-D which took the crown with a paltry 15.4 million. To no one's shock, this weekend's releases Gamer and All About Steve both failed to catch fire. [Box Office Mojo]

• The Telluride Festival closed with strong reviews for at least a pair of films. Last year, the festival first brought Slumdog Millionaire to the world. This year, Jason Reitman's Up In the Air and Tolstoy biopic The Last Station won strong reviews. [Variety]

Paramount/DreamWorks, the studios behind the franchise, set the movie to premier in 2011. The director said he wants more time, and maybe take some time off. Maybe our hulking iron behemoth will get his creative juices flowing.

The gigantic machine has treads because driving it to its home in a German open-air coal mine was cheaper than having to ship the behemoth there. Couldn't they have just attached rockets and had it fly there like Optimus Prime? Bay will show them how!

More pictures and stats here.

In Nick de Semlyen's review of the film for Empire, he notes that in the climatic Bad Robot vs. Good Robot feat. Shia LaBeouf battle, there's an anatomical wink and nod that really goes balls to the wall:

A notable moment occurs during the dementedly frenetic final act of Transformers 2. A robot-on-robot fracas is unfolding around Egypt's Giza Necropolis, with Devastator, an especially massive mechanoid comprised of several construction vehicles, set on clawing its way to the peak of a pyramid. As it lumbers up the dusty colossus, a shot tilts up to its mid-section, revealing two wrecking balls dangling down. Yes, Michael Bay, the man who brought us cyber-micturition in this movie's predecessor, has one-upped himself: Decepticon testicles.

Beautiful. Way to class up the proceedings, Bay old boy.

Slashfilm has the details on Bay's party, meant to help the United Way: it will be held at on Saturday, December 27th at Bay’s Miami Beach home. Tickets are $250 per person, but for $500, VIPs can join Bay on a private rooftop lounge alongside Megan Fox, the clone of Scarlett Johansson, and probably a Dodge Viper, just because. Following the reception, "all guests will be invited to an after-party" so that Bay can get his swerve on at home without Miami blue-hairs swanning around.

Yes, we posted about this not simply to solicit eyewitness accounts from party crashers but mostly so that we could run the shirtless Bay photo again. So what? It's Christmas. Be nice. FUCK!

• Party With Michael Bay at His Miami Beach House [Slashfilm]

• Friday the 13th [Trailer Addict]

Boomp3.com

Partially inspired by a recent late night viewing of the 1983 comedy Doctor Detroit and a string of doctor visits, hunky & quirky action hero Shia LaBeouf has started to practice medicine. While the Transformers star hasn’t visited a medical school, LaBeouf believes that he’s done enough research to perform simple house calls. LaBeouf said, “I’m not diagnosing major diseases, but if you got the sniffles or a headache, I’m the dude to call. My bubby has the best chicken soup recipe in the world. It’ll cure whatever ails you.”

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Back in NY Reginald has put together an elaborate plan to confront the director during the last weeks of shooting, in Egypt.

"Note- The Riddle of the Sfinks

1- Fly to Egypt as a Tourist (check passport validity)
2- Pay for extra suitcase (pack all Transformers "ideas" notebooks)
3- Arrange for stay with Nubian Brethren
4- Get Limo Driver to set
5- Pose as Prince Alli Ben Satchbone and ask to see "persons in charge"
6- Discuss with Bay Soundwave's viability, Starscream's alt mode and possible use of [Frank] Welker as voice actor
7- Offer Egyptian funding if changes are made- he can try to collect later
8- Return Limo and head back to plane"

Now that the Egypt plan is revealed hopefully Don or someone can put up proper defenses.

And this even doesn't include the illuminating IM conversations with Bay's webmaster ("Also I know that if Bay kept my Hamburger eating scene I would upstage Shia- THAT's the reason I got denied, you knows it Nelson"). We'd say we'll bring you the latest as it happens, but who are we kidding? That's what Michael Bay's Twitter feed is for.

• Reg Brown — The Further Adventures [DonMurphy.net]

“Well, that year my boyfriend broke up with me, and I decided—oh man; sorry, Mommy!—that I was in love with this girl that worked at the Body Shop [a strip club on Sunset Boulevard]. I decided that I was going to get her to love me back, and I went out of my way to create a relationship with this girl, a stripper named Nikita. I was there all the time—I would go there by myself. I bought her things—perfume, body spray, girlie stuff. I turned into a weird middle-aged married man. I felt like I had this need to save Nikita. I’d get lap dances so I could get to know her, and I’d give her what I thought were great little sound bites of inspiration—like You can do it, you’re better than this! I didn’t want her to be there.”

...It’s at this point that Fox becomes self-conscious—she seems, for the first time, to have recalled that she’s supposed to be on guard about her personal life—and she starts talking less about Nikita and more about how people are going to judge her for saying she had a relationship with a Russian stripper. “I don’t want it to come off as a Lindsay Lohan vibe. You know?” she says. Then, with greater concern: “Are you going to push an ‘Is she a lesbian’ angle? Oh man, you are going to do that to me.…”

Why, how could Fox imagine that GQ (which titled its article "Megan Fox Was a Teenage Lesbian") would do such a thing? Have a little faith, Megan — and next time, try Jumbo's Clown Room. The drinks are cheaper, and trust us: the strippers are way easier to save (or at least to coerce into a 3am meal of Fred 62's "Mac Daddy & Cheese Balls").

• MEGAN FOX WAS A TEENAGE LESBIAN! [GQ]

Boomp3.com

In addition to catching an eyeful of Megan Fox upon his return to the Transformers set, Shia LaBeouf also received a very thorough and meticulous ass buffing with an industrial strength feather duster. In the midst of his ass buffing, LaBeouf said, "Michael Bay really knows how to make an actor feel welcomed. At first, it's a weird sensation, but after awhile, it feels like a tiny kitten delightfully romping in a dewy meadow." Although, the first shot of the day was delayed for a couple of moments when the crew realized that LaBeouf enjoyed his buffing a bit too much.

[Photo Credit: X17]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Boomp3.com

Taking a break from his campaign to play the Riddler in the next Batman film, Brian Austin Green went to lunch with his gal pal, Megan Fox. During the meal, Green wondered why the Transformers star was lugging around a giant backpack with her instead of her purse. Fox then confessed that the recent earthquakes made her afraid of losing her most valuable possessions, so now she's started carrying them around with her. She then proceeded to list out the contents of the backpack to a shocked Brian Austin Green. It includes: a makeup bag, two designer sweat suits, flip flops, books on Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, a laptop, Michael Bay's ego, a ton of scripts, running shoes, an assistant, four different sets of sunglasses, two Blackberry batteries, a lead paper weight, Mad Men season one on DVD and some tadpoles she caught down by the river. Green was rather impressed by Fox's ability to carry on all that weight, but was still a wee bit weirded out by the backpack.

[Photo Credit: INF Daily]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

“You’re gonna see — that’s gonna go away,” Bay said. “That’s fresh news… He was not drunk. He was drinking hours and hours before.”

“I spoke to him yesterday in the hospital,” Bay said. “His two fingers are pretty mashed, but we’re figuring out a way to shoot around it, kind of write it in the story.”

In a strange twist, Bay said he had a conversation with the 22-year-old actor about safety, days before his crash.

“We had a little heart to heart the week before when he bought a brand new motorcycle and I [said] ‘Dude! You cannot ride that motorcycle! If you crash, you put 1,500 people out of work,’” the director recounted. “He said, ‘Ok, I won’t ride it, I won’t ride it, I’ll just drive my truck.’”

Despite the incident on Sunday, Bay said LaBeouf has his head on his shoulders.

“The kid really has his head together and you know, he’s only 22,” Bay said. “He’s doing a great job on this movie. He’s really matured since the last one and I love working with him.”

The future of several billion-dollar franchises teetering on his bony shoulders, it's a testament to LaBeouf's unwavering professionalism that his trusted motivation-locator ("She's like the hottest chick ever, so you're thinking, like, 'I really want to do this chick!' Got it? Annnnd....ACTION!") would so ardently defend him. Still, should Bay not find a justifiable way to incorporate Shia's injuries into the sequel's plot, we have no doubt local spondylitis fundraiser and aspiring Bayian repertory player Nate of TransformNate.com would be happy to lend an unmashed hand, filling in as Shia's finger-double for Bumblebee-steering or Megan Fox-goosing close-ups.

• Transformers’ Director Michael Bay: Shia LaBeouf ‘Was Not Drunk’ During Crash [Access Hollywood]

According to Fox News, Fox blames her recent dramatic weight loss on a role in Jennifer's Body, a comedic horror film penned by bloggy-inclined Oscar winner Diablo Cody in which Fox plays a "possessed cheerleader." But master fauxter Bay, demanding as ever, has forced Fox to stuff herself silly with late night binges in order to bulk up for Transformers 2: More Shit Blows Up! And as for poor Anne Hathaway? Not only has she allegedly dropped almost 30 pounds in the few weeks since thieving ex-boyfriend Rafaello Follieri finally got nailed, but she's also said to be "throwing herself" into work on Bride Wars, that glee-filled set where disguising her hatred for co-star Kate Hudson has become close to impossible. But hey, at least now Anne can come out the winner in those infamous skirt size comparisons she and Hudson indulge in every time the cameras stop rolling!

[Photo credits: X17, Wireimage, Getty]

• SCARY SKINNY MEGAN FOX STOPPED EATING, FORCED TO GAIN WEIGHT [Fox News]
• HEARTBROKEN ANNE HATHAWAY DROPS 'TWO STONE' AFTER SPLIT FROM JAILED BUSINESSMAN [Daily Mail]

EXT. A HIGHWAY — DAY ...

The Batmobile races off into the distance. Finally, BATMAN catches up to the JOKER's zeppelin.

JOKER
Howdy, Batman. Got time for a little... prank?

JOKER unleashes an all-out barrage of missiles, like the biggest fucking missiles you will ever see. BATMAN shoots his own back, and they all collide into each other in the middle of the highway releasing a violent explosion, and then, an explosion within that explosion, this time in slow motion, with tanks flying out of it.

Both BATMAN and JOKER eject from their vehicles, shooting themselves into helcopters. they they unleash even bigger missiles, which whizz past both of the helicopters, destroying the highway on the ground below. The action's not over yet, though, because in the distance there are still five more highways and, on top of them, a bridge.

And you know what? While we can't vouch for how Ledger's penultimate performance might have fared in the Bay biosphere (regardless of this joke script's authenticity), at this point we can't deny we'd mind living in the parallel universe where this script would not only be written, but this movie would be made.

• Christopher Nolan's 'Knight' vision [LAT]
• >
• 'The Dark Knight' [Variety]
• Michael Bay's Rejected 'The Dark Knight' Script [Spill via TOH]

• Shootout [AMC]

I created this web page with one objective in mind: to be cast in a roll in the upcoming movie 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'.

I am aware of the difficult process of film making and what steps are taken to fill roles in such an epic film, so let me say this; I am not looking for a lead part but simply a credited role, big or small. I am also not looking for any hand-outs, but more so an opportunity to work and succeed.

So Nate is not all that different from anyone else walking around the streets of Los Angeles: He's a guy with a dream. Nate therefore has harnessed the power of the internets to broadcast his hopes of taking part in Giant Fucking Robot movie history—a tactic which could very well win him the recently vacated role of Man Eating Hamburger. And if, along the way, Nate might be able to help some spondylitic children, well, then—hey. Why not pay it forward? We'll see Nate, Michael, Optimus, and the rest of you at Happy's Thursday night!

• TransformNate.com

I'm contacting my lawyer because I can't believe that you got to this lower level dude...I really can't. I wasn't even in PHILLY or PA today and you type all this stuff? Like WTF? Are you the one acting crazy because I have too much proof to show how wrong you and the haters are.

You should feel ashamed of yourself and I never though I sat [sic] that to you...and you let little brown-nosing geeks convince you of lies...this is very sad. Really...

I'd never bother to contact my lawyer if it wasn't serious but now it is. I'm not bluffing...I do have one and he is one of my mentors...I'm gonna make a call.

To which an exasperated Murphy responded, "I am not sure I have said anything bad about you other than the fact that it was a shame you screwed up your part by being self destructive and posting here when told not to. It is a shame." And to which we respond: This is the advance buzz on Transformers 2? "Man Eating Hamburger" gets shitcanned and Shia LeBeouf is videotaped in an epithet-spewing slapfight? Really? What we wouldn't give right now for a leaked shot of a motor home-turned-thundering agent of death, or Megan Fox in pasties — anything.

• DonMurphy.Net

I took a glance at the clothing racks for SHIA and MEGAN too. I think I saw some really cool clothes for some character, then I saw MILITARY UNIFORMS then other clothing that the main characters were wearing. I like the jacket that SHIA is going to wear, it looks like something I would buy.

Whatever, right? Even Murphy himself shrugged: "Reg didn't sign [a non-disclosure agreement] to be on here ... If you think Reg is gonna have access to anything meaningful except a PB&J sandwich you're as confused as he seems to be." But then Brown tried to corner Michael Bay.

Apparently that constituted something akin to the Watergate break-in for the denizens of DonMurphy.net, where rumors flew almost within minutes:

I heard that Hedge was told by the casting people to STFU and not post if he wanted to be used. I heard that his guest spot was pushed from yesterday to today. I was told that it basically was like a burger ad- Hedge is eating a huge ass burger with the works when a robot comes smashing down next to him. He looks, has no reaction and goes to finish the burger. I heard that he tried to get a minute with Bay alone today at noon eastern time to "Learn him some Transformers."

Not long afterward, color came our way that made the picture a sort of sad, slanted masterpiece:

Bay had a plate of pasta and was headed to his trailer with his script supervisor to discuss the afternoon's work. Hedgehog approached him saying "Michael" like they were Bros. Michael turned and shot him a look. Ian Bryce (producer) and his assistant blocked Hedge. Can we help you? they asked. No said Hedge, I need to learn Michael about Transformers while I am here. Ian signalled for two set security guards who escorted him off, screaming "But I'm a Don Murphy STOOOOOGE". He was paid his two days wages, returned his wardrobe and left. Many threats were repeated, along with "I never liked Bay's dumbass shit anyways."

Now that is a martyr. Keep fighting the good fight, Mr. Brown, hamburger bit parts be damned.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• DonMurphy.net