Hey folks, Harry here... Today - in many places, SUPER 8 started unrolling and playing for audiences around the world - and about 30 minutes ago I received the following review of SUPER 8. For me, he gets it, the way I get the movie. The movie plays like something to imagine along with. It feels made for me and I'll be damned to look that gift horse in the mouth - when it did exactly what I wanted it to. We're not all children of the 70s here though... there's kids from the 80s, 90s and 00s. Believe it or not, we've also got kids on this site from the 40's, 50's and 60's too. So, I'm gonna post Bubba Geek's review - and in the Talk Back below - chime in about SUPER 8. Watch out for spoilers in the Talk Back if you haven't seen the film yet, but if you have... dig in and talk back... How'd SUPER 8 feel to you?
JJ Abrams wrote a prescription for me. It’s called Super 8 and it’s just what I needed.
In Super 8, J Abrams creates a scary monster of a film with a heart fashioned out of the 80’s great movies from Steven Spielberg. It is a heart that beats loud as hell and bleeds pure geeky goodness.
Super 8 is beautiful. We saw it in IMAX and the picture was clear as air, the sound loud enough to feel it in your chest. It hit me on every level. It held nothing back while pulling me in to a story in set in 1979 with characters straight from my junior high yearbook. I don’t want to spoil a thing here. Like most people, I went in knowing little about the movie other than the tidbits from the trailers.
BTW- the folks who market films these days need to pay attention to how Super 8 was marketed. No one wants to see the cliffs notes version of a film in the trailer. They’re called teasers for a reason! Just give a little bit. Instead of a full page of details, just give a haiku.
Anyway, I was born in Nov 1971. So I was ten when E.T. came out in summer of 1982. I remember seeing the movie, feeling tingly inside when E.T. was near death, the wave of emotion when he said goodbye to Eliot. I remember watching Close Encounters, Jaws, Indiana Jones and just feeling the same kind of thing; People I cared for in a supernatural event movie. There were ingredients in these movies that were from the same shakers; spectacle surrounded by humanity. Oh, there are lens flares, of course. There is the real overlapping dialogue, the friendships that feel like they were forged ages ago, the mystery and adventure. But most of all, the little touches – the small moments that happen that make it all the more real. Specifics? Okay, Jaws is an easy one. The moment when Chief Brody has at the dinner table after being slapped by the grieving mom of the boy killed by the shark. It was a hell of a day, he feels like shit, but can’t bear to share his feelings with his wife. His son is at the table with him, impersonating him. They trade ugly faces and he asks his son for a kiss. Why, the son asks. Because I need it, Brody says. Perfect. And every interaction Brody has with Hooper is superb.
Why do I call Super 8 a prescription? Well, I am turning 40 this year and believe I am going through some sort of man-o-pause. My body is reacting to stress from work, bills, and the basic downward spiral of civilization these days. The economy sucks, we’re fighting too many wars, everyone hates America and everything is made in Japan while here in America jobs are scarce and the rich get greedier, fatter and richer. I know there is more good in this world but the media rarely touches on it. You have to dig for the goodness. You have to work at happiness. Besides the negative aspects of the world, movies, for me anyway, just have lost those ingredients that I listed above. Except all Pixar films!! Love them all!!
I watched Super 8 with my family tonight and I loved seeing their reactions – their jumps, their fright, their smiles and giggles.
Tonight I felt the same way watching Super 8 as I did watching those films in the 80’s. The emotion, sense of adventure, the thrill, spectacle and laughs were all there for me. And I believe no other movie coming out this summer will ever come close to giving me goosebumps as Super 8 did. No other movie will make me pine for the days of the early 80’s, when I was at that awkward age 10-14, when your friends were just a bike ride away, Saturday morning cartoons rocked, MAD magazine was in its prime and life was so innocent, so fresh and new. Life was mint.
Thank you, JJ Abrams, for the gift of Super 8.
