Brow Beat: Slate's Culture Blog

Today's Google Trends: How Rotten Is Transformers 2?

If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)

No. 17: "Transformers 2 rotten tomatoes." The giant robot blockbuster starring Megan Fox as a beautiful woman opens today and it is, according to rottentomatoes.com, rotten (24 percent on the Tomatometer). The Awl's Choire Sicha has written a harrowing account of watching the film, which Slate's own Dana Stevens calls "loud ... long ... incoherent ... leering ... racist ... and rife with product tie-ins." Still, lukewarm reviews didn't stop Transformers from breaking the 2009 opening box-office record in the U.K. last weekend.

No. 49: "The Hurt Locker." The Hurt Locker is a different story. Opening June 26, media buzz has already crowned the film "The First Iraq War Movie That Doesn't Suck." Directed by Kathryn Bigelow ("Point Break," "K-19: The Widow Maker), The Hurt Locker follows a sweltering, Kevlar-clad bomb disposal unit as they make their way through Baghdad, circa 2004. Bigelow told The Onion A.V. Club, "I think of the film, in a way, as non-partisan. ... I think the script successfully looks at the humanity of these men and their courage, and shares with us what a day in the life of a bomb tech is."

No. 67: "Lisa Kudrow Web Therapy." When it had its online premiere last year, Lisa Kudrow's Web Therapy was hailed as a step forward in the genre Boingboing called "webcam narrative." Lisa Kudrow stars as a weirdo online shrink who consults with her patients via Webcam. The Lexus-sponsored show launched a second season this week on Hulu, but can Kudrow compete in our post-Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Internet-video world?