This is what 3 Michael Bay movies do to the soul.
The above picture is from a Daily Beast article about Shia LeBeouf’s new “art” “exhibit” entitled “#IAMSORRY.” Normally, The Beef is wearing the pictured bag on his head (“the full Unknown Comic”), but writer Andrew Romano got the picture after Shia himself removed the bag.
I’ve read a couple of reviews of this thing, and I’ve learned:
- You can walk into the exhibit with one of a number of items like a whip, and Optimus Prime figure, or a bowl full of fortune-cookie like printed tweets about himself.
- You can speak to him. He’s probably not gonna answer.
- He’s actually crying under that bag. A lot. Whether it’s honest sorrow, or just good acting, is unclear.
- You’re not supposed to take pictures. Romano managed to do so because Shia didn’t stop him.
- Still no one knows what the fuck this is all for. Dumb Starbucks isn’t an option anymore.
I’ll keep this short. I don’t know what to do with this. I feel like I shouldn’t jump on the “watch a mentally unstable man self-immolate” train because I’m not even sure he’s actually gone crackers. It’s probably some long-tail project that, when it ends, will totally underwhelm. (See also: horse_ebooks and Pronunciation Book turning into… some bullshit interactive game, I guess?) But I also have no interest in whatever the hell this project ends up being.
But then there’s also the idea that there is no longer-term project; that this is it. The Clowes movie, the Twitter meltdown, the paper bag, the seagulls: it could just end here, with a former Disney star sitting at a table in an art gallery in Los Angeles wearing a grocery bag, silently crying to anyone who decides to walk in. And that, after Saturday, he just goes back to Twitter, and says, “Welp, I made my point.” And I don’t know what that point is.
Is it a critique of celebrity culture? Is it a comment on the impossibility of true originality in a postmodern world? Is it him offering himself as penance for his crimes? Is he just ripping off Joaquin Phoenix, and there’s a movie coming next year called “#IAMNOTSORRY?” Or has he gone off the reservation, and here’s how that looks? None of these sound palatable.
Despite all this, I wanna go there and ask him if working on “Even Stevens” was an enjoyable experience. Was Christy Carlson Romano a bitch? Did he ever hang out with Hilary Duff? I won’t get an answer. He’ll just cry more.
For more on what drove Shia to madness, please read this Yakmala Klassic Review of Transformers the Second.
