“Hey guys, let’s change the format again.”

“Sounds good. No one watches the show anyway.”

And so begins another weird week On the Lot, as Adrianna Costa gets another chance to embarrass our educational system with her complete illiteracy. She announces that Michael Bay(!!!!!!) is our guest judge and Bay obliges while Costa gives a full boilerplate promotional schpiel about Transformers.

So here’s how the show works. This week. Five films, each about three minutes in length, and one of the five contestants will be eliminated. The filmmakers are allowed to make films in whatever genre or style they want, and they have five days to do it.

1. Sam Friedlander - “Broken Pipe Dreams”

First up is Sam, who was my favorite last week and who, I regret to learn, is one of those asinine ‘Lazy Monday’ guys. Is there anything lazier than riding an SNL Digital Short to 15 seconds of fame on Youtube? (Besides blogging about On the fucking Lot?)

Sam’s film is called “Broken Pipe Dreams” and it’s something about a guy who loses an engagement ring down a toilet, and there’s some sort of past trauma about toilets, and okay, let’s just be honest - this movie is crap. Ill-advised, mildly incoherent crap. And despite Carrie and Garry’s nods of lobotomized yuks, Michael Bay totally calls him on it: “I cared more about the fish than the guy. Your editing was slack.” D+.

2. Trever James, Actor Turned Director - “Teri”

Begins with hijinks music, goes down from there. Some offputtingly flat compositions and tired camerawork in service of one of short film’s biggest cliches - a blind date/fantasy movie wherein a guy imagines what his blind date will be like. Halfway through James gives up and starts making boob jokes. By the end, it becomes clear that the entire thing has been nothing more than a chance for James to disparage any sort of woman who doesn’t conform to his standards of beauty, juxtaposing these ‘crazy’, ‘abnormal’ types with a giggly, soft-spoken girl-next-door type, the real Teri. F+.

3. Hilary Scott - “The First Time I Met the Finkelsteins”

Okay, so the Jew stuff is pretty offensive, but I’m more interested in what the judges had to say: all three of them criticized Scott’s use of tight claustrophobic hand-held camerawork. But that was the best thing about the film! Finally, a filmmaker who knows how to use the camera to convey the story she’s trying to tell. Now, don’t get me wrong, the story she’s trying to tell is like the worst third-rate Curb Your Enthusiasm knockoff imaginable, but hey, at least she’s trying. C.

4. Adam Bearded Guy - “Dough: The Musical”

As a parody of musicals, it’s not really informed that well by what musicals feel, sound, or look like. But it’s mildly amusing in a sort of half-funny way. And of course the judges (specifically Garry) didn’t get it, complaining about how the romantic pair didn’t seem to have much chemistry - they aren’t supposed to! Ho hum. C+.

5. Shalani Kantayya - “Laughing Out Loud: A Comic Journey”

Oh God. Mawkish faux-documentary bathroom-break stuff about a gay Indian stand-up and how he learned how to ‘be himself’ - not really a movie in any sense as much as a bumper clip for a reality show or a sports program (Carrie called her out here, but made it sound like a compliment), but honestly - this is the most idiotic cinema. And the contestants, when polled, all seemed to love it. And so did Michael Bay, saying that it was the most ‘visual’ of the night’s films. Visual. Visual. God help us all. D-.

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