"Transformers" transforming without the assistance of one particular human

The fourth Transformers movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction, opened last Friday and is already loudly smashing and stomping its way toward global domination—but without the on-screen services of Shia LaBeouf, the male lead in the first three installments. As he told MTV News in 2011, shortly before the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, "I'm not coming back to do another one. I don't think [director Michael Bay] will either. It still is a hot property, I think, especially coming out of the third one. So I imagine they'll reboot it at some point with someone else."

Just three years later, "some point" has arrived, and Michael Bay is at the helm once again. Am I the only one who thinks he told LaBeouf he wasn't interested in making a fourth Transformers just so the actor would say, "Yeah, dude, I feel the same way—a trilogy's the way to go"? LaBeouf hasn't led a quiet life off-screen, to put it mildly, making me wonder if he's a headache on the set who chalks up any and all unprofessional behavior to "performance art."

Bay's continuation of the Transformers series without LaBeouf reminds me of the Ben Folds Five song "Army" (1999), in which the protagonist joins a band after dropping out of college:

Grew a mustache and a mullet
Got a job at Chick-fil-A
Citing artistic differences
The band broke up in May
And in June reformed without me
And they got a different name
I nuked another Grandma's Apple Pie 
And hung my head in shame

If it's any comfort, Shia, apple pie is much more satisfying than any of the Transformers movies I've seen so far.

celebrity smiles

USA Weekend, the Sunday-supplement rival of Parade, has a thing for toothy celebrity grins. But in the process of showing them off, the publication's printer often manages to make the owners of those smiles look cartoonish due to heavy color saturation and a few other factors I can't quite put my finger on.

Here are four from last year. First up, Dennis Quaid (click on each picture for a closer look), who's apparently made of rubber and plastic, which probably came in handy when he filmed the 2009 G.I. Joe movie.

Leslie Mann is one of the stars of Funny People. And she is a funny person, but here she just looks funny.

Samuel L. Jackson has appeared in approximately 5,861 movies in the past two decades. That kind of schedule would stress out anyone, which is probably why Jackson looks like he's about to eat the football he's holding in the photo below. Take a half-decade vacation, Shaft 2000—you've earned it.

Hilary Swank is known for her big grin, a la Julia Roberts, but on the cover of USA Weekend hers looks smaller than the other three celebrities'. She doesn't deserve another Oscar for this particular feat, but it's impressive nonetheless.

Finally, this picture of action director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and the two Transformers movies, with a third on the way) wasn't taken for USA Weekend—it merely appeared inside the June 19-21, 2009, issue as part of an ad for M&M's. It doesn't require Bay to show a big, toothy grin either, but since it actually does portray him as a cartoon, it's worth mentioning, especially since his cinematic crimes against humanity make me fantasize about seeing him crushed under a shoe on the floor of a movie theater.