Two images from the best movie of 2008?

I was about to just take the day off and simply catch up on "The Wire" and "Friday Night Lights" on my DVR (which still seems like a magical device to me), when I came across theses images from Spike Lee's new war epic at the great Froggy film site Cinempire.com.

And maybe "Miracle at St. Anna" won't be the best movie of 2008, but with the way it's shaping shape it should indeed be the flick that brings Spike the awards season acclaim he's deserved since at least "Do the Right Thing."

In the photo above (which I think gets a little bigger if you click on it), I believe the four main stars are, from left, Omar Benson Miller, Michael Ealy, Derek Luke (hearty huzzah!) and Laz Alonso (please correct me if I'm somehow wrong about this.) Also in the ensemble cast of this flick, set for release in October, are Spike regular John Turturro, James Gandolfini and D.B. Sweeney, and possibly (according to the great Blackfilm.com, John Leguizamo and Joseph Gordon Levitt (huzzah again!).

The story, based on the novel "Buffalo Soldiers" by James McBride, is about four black American soldiers who get trapped in a Tuscan village during WWII. The only other thing I know for sure about this is that Mr. Luke only got the lead role after Wesley Sniples was forced to drop out, which I can only call a case of trading up. Peace out.

Transformers: I just have three questions

The following is an actual transcript from the Telegraph newsroom:

Travis Fain (author of the often-insane Lucid Idiocy blog): So, I saw "Transformers."
Me: What did you think?
T-Fain: "F***in awesome."

Now, we do sometimes have conservations with more heft and less profanity, but I really don't think there's any other way to sum up quite what Michael Bay has accomplished here. It might just be the loudest movie I've ever seen, and quite possibly the perfect summer blockbuster.

I was beginning to think that that was a dead art. Look at what we've been subjected to so far this summer; Spidey 3: boring and, much worse, wussy; Pirates 3: boring, boring and more boring until the final hour of battling pirates; Shrek 3: Meh. Bay, however, has managed to craft a movie that was surprisingly funny, never boring and just a whole lot of mindless fun.

Even if I wanted to criticize him, which I don't, he's pretty much rendered all such efforts moot by having a character in his movie declare: "This is a hundred times cooler than Armageddon." Now that's chutzpah.

But, even if I can't bring myself to critique this work of high art, I did have three questions that maybe the few people who bother to read this can help me out with.

1. Does it make me either sexist or racist if I can't bring myself to believe that the future of the Earth depends on the computer-hacking skills of Rachel Taylor and Anthony Anderson?

I might be more willing to believe that Taylor's blond bombshell was indeed a scientist of this caliber if they didn't take the time to so perfectly moisten her lips before each scene (and don't even try to tell me I'm the only person who noticed that!) As for Anthony Anderson, I love the guy. Ever since "Hustle and Flow" I've just smiled every time he's appeared on screen, and he's very funny here. But Mr. Anderson has made his trademark being a big goof, not exactly the kind of guy you'd call when the world was about to end.

2. (OK, from here on out I have to concede that I know next to nothing about Transformers, the toys or the TV series. I'm certainly not mocking anyone who did or still does; it just wasn't my thing.)

Did anyone else think, when John Turturro first appeared, that he was going to turn into a giant Decepticon? There was just this look in his eyes that made me think, even though he was clearly having fun, that he was more than a little robotic.

3. And finally, only one question of logic, which should really have no place in a movie like this and will probably just manage to make me look stupid. But bear with me anyway.

If both the Autobots and the Decepticons are from space, how is it that the Decepticons all seem to speak in something that vaguely resembles Chinese? There's surely an answer to this in all the Transformers lore I have somehow managed to miss out on.

But really, does it matter anyway? Michael Bay has crafted a nearly perfect ball of popcorn, and for that I can really only say thanks.