Movie Review: Super 8

Hello everyone! 

          OK so bear with me. This is my first movie blog. Recently a couple of buddies and I had the opportunity to see the movie Super 8. This movie was written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by the mighty Steven Spielberg, two amazing people in the film business. I really enjoyed the camera work and techniques used to film this movie. The cinematography was phenomenal! I enjoyed the fact that they made the film look old and classic. To me, I felt like I was watching a film from the 70's. Maybe it was the lens they used, I'm not sure. The music I really enjoyed and the actors played their roles very well; very believable. Ha ha, another thing that was going through my mind was the group of friends throughout the movie. They most certainly reminded me of "The Goonies" (tell me you thought of that as well). But seriously, I really enjoyed the fact that the group of kids had a passion for film and movie making. It kind of reminded me of myself and my friends back in the day. We were big film-making junkies then, and are still film-making junkies now (with a little bit of schooling and professional experience of-course).

So back to the movie. In Super 8 the deputy played by Kyle Chandler (whose name just so happens to be Deputy Jackson) in the movie was just about the only familiar face I noticed in Super 8. If you didn't get my little reference about the Deputy Jackson part, I made a feature horror film about a year ago in which I played a role with the same name and profession =P. Although Kyle Chandler was the only actor I knew, I was glad to see some unfamiliar faces in the film. The young character Joe Lamb played by the actor Joel Courtney very much reminded me of myself when I was young. Besides the movie-making interest, I enjoyed being creative collecting models and painting them. Although I was never good at paint I had a blast collecting the toys. Oh, and I also have an amazingly loving relationship with my family instead.

Here is my opinion of the pros/cons of the movie: 

---- SPOILER ALERT ---- 

Do not read the following if you have not seen the movie...

Pros

- Amazing camera work and cinematography

- Character development was very well established

- Actors were casted well

- Story line was very well thought up

- Music synced well with the movie

- Frightening and jumpy moments (least expected)

Cons

- Wasn't too crazy about the CGI or graphics

- The gigantic, ten armed, spined ,bat-looking monster/alien, looks like the monster from Cloverfield and somehow can develop and operate a technologically genetic, shape-shifting, super crazy spaceship just so happens to sneak through the city and rip out engines and washing machines with no one noticing. ( got a little detailed there ) 

- The train wreck was a bit of an overkill if you know what I mean

- Lastly the doctor who just so happened to survive a train wreck... Ill let you figure that one out

So basically the little things were a disappointing to me, but hey you cant let the little things distract you from the purpose of the movie.

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Overall, I give the movie a 8.5 out of 10 which is really good in my book!


Fun facts about the movie:
- The movie's budget range rounded to $45,000,000 and when it opened Friday It made an whopping estimate of 12.2million at the box office.
- Steven Spielberg apparently put all his ideas that he had for his older movies such as E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind into Super 8

Super 8 mm film (often simply called Super 8) is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format.

The film is nominally 8 mm wide, exactly the same as the older standard 8 mm film, and also has perforations on only one side. However, the dimensions of the perforations are smaller than those on older 8 mm film, which allowed the exposed area to be made larger. The Super 8 standard also specifically allocates the rebate opposite the perforations for an oxide stripe upon which sound can be magnetically recorded.

There are several different varieties of the film system used for shooting, but the final film in each case has the same dimensions. By far the most popular system was the Kodak system.


- sources provided by Super 8 wiki

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Well I hope you guys enjoyed my very first movie blog. Please comment! I would love to hear input and maybe some feedback on what else I should blog about.