By Jason Apuzzo. I just wanted LFM readers to know that due to some exciting new developments in my non-Libertas career, I won’t presently have time to review Super 8. I will try to catch up with the film at some point down the line, and will otherwise attempt to be back up and running normally next week.
In the meantime, feel free to comment below to register your own reactions to the film.
Posted on June 11th, 2011 12:20pm.
I can’t count the issues this movie has so let me give you the one positive . It mostly gets the look of the seventies right.
First, excessive and continuous lens flare as a cinematography technique tends to get tedious after about the first five minutes. Second, when characters continually go through train wrecks, car wrecks, bus wrecks, gun fire and generally massive explosions they tend to get little more than just scratches and dirt on their faces. Third, I was shocked to see once again our military portrayed as evil, stupid torturing murderers. Fourth, if We just took the time to “understand” why the fifty foot, four armed, massively strong alien was so pissed at us then said alien wouldn’t feel compelled to be so aggressive towards us. Fifth, unless the special effects department for Super 8 is the same as the one for the Transformers movies (Come to think of it, Spielberg produces both) then some of the Transformers facially resemble, the creature from this movie. Sixth……well the hell with it…just go rent Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T.. That way you can see a real director, directing real scripts that were actually imaginative and when they were released, cinematic events. Do not wast time with this hack who thinks he’s the next coming of Stephen Spielberg. Jason, I know you have your issues with Christopher Nolan but J.J. Abrams really gets to me.
Actually the trailer looked like a throwback to Close Encounters and other past Spielberg Sci-fi movies. Thanks for keeping me from wasting my time on this film.
Overall I enjoyed it, mostly because of the interactions and relationships between the kids. The film got a little surreal for me right off the bat. I live in Cincinnati and my dad’s family is from the Montgomery county area. And my last name is Lamb.
Will not see it based on Kurt Schlichter’s review in Big Hollywood; as also outlined by johngaltjkt, above.
I really liked it, but I doubt you will, Jason. It really does turn the Air Force into villains, and you’ll probably be too angry about that to appreciate the rest of it. I was pretty irritated by that aspect, too, but I thought for awhile they were going to go further down the road of villainy than they did, so it could have been worse.
Otherwise, I found it to be a very sincere, heartfelt, and character-driven attempt to recreate the Spielberg-Amblin-Lucas-type classics of the late-70s/early-80s. I really cared about the characters and what happened to them, and I found the ending, which eschews large battle set-pieces to focus on character and emotion, to be rather beautiful (though it did teeter on the edge of hokey). There is a clear sense of nostalgia for small-town/suburban America and the freedom and friendships of childhood. Though there is one scene of a town-meeting where fear of Soviets is mocked pretty stupidly, on the whole the film has great affection for the small-town types, granting heroism to the local sheriff and compassion and humanity to sex-obsessed teenagers and blue-collar millworkers alike. There is a clear joy in movie-making and story-telling shown here, and however many plot flaws and annoying little details there are (and there are a few), I think this makes up for it. This film brings back memories, and I feel pretty defensive of it, to tell the truth. Please consider it carefully before you trash it. 🙂