Michael Bay is a lot like Nickelback. The guy makes crazy money and clearly has a devoted fan base, but good luck trying to find anyone who’ll admit to enjoying one of his movies (outside of Alberta in Nickelback’s case). Nevermind that Armageddon inspired countless young men to get boners anytime they saw an animal cracker — and if we’re being honest, Teddy Grahams probably brought on something similar — none of those late-90s horn dogs will admit to tearing up when John McClane told Daredevil he was like a son to him.

But while Nickelback generally elicits nothing more than passive groans these days, it seems like most people hate Michael Bay the way Reel Talk hates Bradley Cooper. And if for no other reason than being a contrarian, I’d love to defend the guy. But I can’t. He sucks, and every time a guy like myself tries to defend consumers of the modern American blockbuster to some bearded Jason Schwartzman doppelgänger, they just hit back with the fact that those same consumers helped Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen become one of the highest-earning movies of all time.

And it’s not even worth explaining why I think he’s such a godawful director. It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to keep people from seeing his movies. In fact, it’s not even going to keep me from seeing his movie.

And that’s because Michael Bay just fucking gets it. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be any better than its two so-bad-they-should-be-good-again-but-really-they’re-just-total-shit predecessors. And yet the trailers have been incredible, and this time the robots look really pissed. Well, I still can’t tell if they look pissed or not because they’re mostly just indecipherable hunks of metal, but the mega-robot guy (the leader, I think) said we kept a secret. And we all know robots hate secrets. Secrets make robots want to fight, apparently on the moon.

You see that, all of a sudden I’ve forgotten the two insufferable Transformers movies, and I’m thinking about how awesome 3-D fighting robots are. Michael Bay wins. I’m going to give him my 16 fucking dollars — because why the hell would I want to watch a two-dimensional robot fight? I’m not an idiot.

In other news about rich people, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts are re-teaming for Larry Crowne. It’s not a sequel to Charlie Wilson’s War, which is too bad for all the people who love that movie. Mainly my mom. Here’s what it is: It’s a movie about Tom Hanks being a bit crap and getting fired from Wal-Mart and then going back to college and everyone loving him because he’s Hanks. It looks like he also finds the time to seduce Julia Roberts.

Neither of these two are even trying anymore. They’re so firmly established as Hollywood royalty that they’ve stopped challenging themselves and just take roles where they get to hang out with their other super-rich friends and laugh at us mere earthlings for paying to watch them do it.

I don’t actually have any problem with either Hanks or Roberts. In fact, they both seem like lovely people and their movie looks perfectly harmless. I’m just mad at myself for buying a ticket for a midnight showing of the Transformers movie.

Also opening this weekend is Monte Carlo, and it’s hard to believe this movie exists. It stars Selena Gomez, who looks a bit like a way-too-young-for-me-to-say-she’s-attractive muppet, and two of the girls from Gossip Girl, Blair and Juliet. Last time we saw them together Blair banished Juliet from the Upper East Side for convincing everyone Serena was using drugs again by roofie-ing her and leaving her in a cheap hotel room in Brooklyn. It’s good to see they’ve worked it out. Also, if you look at Katie Cassidy’s IMDb profile she’s biting a ruby for some reason. I just thought you should know.

Cars 2 opened big despite critics claiming it was going to kill Pixar’s reputation. That remains to be seen.