László Kovács and Easy Rider! The new guy who is obsessed with Dennis Hopper will back me up on this.

The middle school romance and the making of the movie were actually quite nice. Really anything that wasn't running around "action sequences" which is about as exciting to me as brushing one's teeth. Quite a shame, it could have been something much more special.

Still, if you're going to make a movie with a nauseating amount of CGI action, this is definitely the best way to do it. Like, in the sense that there was stuff to actually like. I guess it just depends which way you look at it.

Off topic, but have you read John Turturro's Random Roles at the AVClub? His description of Hopper's directing style warms the cockles of my heart.

Thanks for that, being the "new guy who is obsessed with Dennis Hopper" according to Tom's post.


lol.

The one spot in particular they really bothered me was at the gas station. for no particular reason, the majority of the picture is dark sky but there are ridiculous blue flares all over the screen. it was just distracting and pointless.

but then again, my wife leaned over shortly after that scene and whispered "I love how he made all those light things on the screne!"

I saw this tonight, in pretty much ideal conditions- on a blanket, at the drive in, on a nice balmy evening. It moved well, as I think everything I've seen from Abrams did, but I felt as though the emotional arc and the monster movie stuff weren't well integrated, and the monster aspects gave you just enough information to feel full of holes-

None of them are really questions that matter, but essentially I felt like the characterization of the monster didn't quite work- it's viewpoint wasn't clear, but we had too much information about what was going on to feel like it was purely alien.

That said, I thought the kids' performances were great, particularly the leads- the backstory with the mother was executed a little clumsily at times, but the actors managed to sell it pretty well, and the relationship between them seemed very sweet and genuine. I'll be sad if this winds up being on my top ten for the year, but it's a nicely ambitious idea for a summer blockbuster and I'd be happy to see more movies work this hard at achieving real characters and a well-realized environment before blowing shit up.

Looking at the date of the last post in this thread has made me realise how late I am to the game with this one!, No wonder I had to travel a bit further afield to see this film at a decent time! Anyway, I saw Super 8 at the weekend and really enjoyed it. Children make the best adventure film protagonists! There's something about the fact it's young film nerds running around and dodging falling train parts during that absurdly cinematic train crash scene earlier on makes it all so much more enjoyable.

I also enjoyed the fact that two vital exposition scenes feature them watching home movies (the scene with Alice and Joe in his bedroom, and discovery of lab footage later on). The fact they are using the real life chaos (not REAL real life of course) as sets for their own film made me think about how much films such as Hiroshi Shimizu's 'Children Of The Beehive' and Jacques Tourneur's 'Berlin Express' were greatly improved by their authentic war torn backdrops (I'm in no way comparing the kids' finished film to those two of course!)

Agreed on the general dislike for lens flare. However, the screen captures from Close Encounters definitely helped put it into context, and alleviate that dislike a bit.

Japan's coverart looks better, except they are kind of spoiling the ending with it.

Jeez. Not too much better. Why is it so hard to make a good cover for this?

I wouldn't say so, it's pretty generic. I'd agree with the idea they haven't found a really good poster/image for this yet, but I like the one mfunk linked to best of all so far. If they pushed the idea further and really just did it up as a dummy kodak box instead of just kinda sorta doing it, I'd be happy. Too esoteric for mass consumption I suppose, so you get this half-measure.

If only there was a thread to discuss terrible covers...

Well, in all fairness, I think that thread exists because most of the films discussed in it don't have a thread dedicated to them.

How dare someone discuss the home video release of Super 8 in the thread for Super 8!

I'm wondering if it's an attempted riff on the old Kodak 8mm packaging.

You're wondering?

The reason I mentioned the other thread is that we've already had this exact discussion

Touché

Well, to the people who picked it up, looks like that bright yellow is just the slipcase. Inside artwork is nearer the original posters.