Super 8

[rsadelle]

Short version: Really good. Made me cry. Too much lens flare.

Slightly longer version: I'm not up to making these connect, so have them as bullet points.

• For the most part, I loved the look of this movie. The camerawork was beautiful from the very first scene, and I loved the way the camera moved around the action. The flaw in the cinematography is J.J. Abrams' overfondness for lens flare. Everything else about this movie is something that could have come straight out of the late 70s/early 80s, except the lens flare, which is really going to date it. It might have worked if it were a signal that the alien is near, but it's not that focused an effect.


• I can sum up this movie in seven words: The alien is a metaphor for grief. It's actually a really interesting storytelling device, especially since I didn't realize it until almost the end of the movie. For people who have seen it twice, does knowing that change how you see it?


• norwich36 had a lot more to say about the gender politics of the movie than I could articulate out of one viewing, but I found Alice's relationship with her father interesting. I couldn't tell, for a while, if he was supposed to be physically - or sexually - abusing her in addition to being an alcoholic. The fact that he isn't is one of the ways you can tell this is a very 70s/80s movie.


• I found it interesting that the kids are mostly either unknowns or movie actors, and the adults are mostly TV actors.

Comments

[trcunning.livejournal.com]

I found it interesting that the kids are mostly either unknowns or movie actors, and the adults are mostly TV actors.
I thought it was interesting that Elle Fanning (Alice) was the only girl in the group and also the most famous of the kids, and Kyle Chandler (the dad) was the most famous of the adults. So even though Joe was played by an unknown (Joel Courtney) the people with the most important relationships to him were the most well known actors.

[rsadelle]

Huh, that's true. It's such an interesting way to cast a movie!

[trcunning.livejournal.com]

I liked it, that they'd cast it that way, because it let me see Joe as a blank slate and a self-insert. Like it or not, when you recognize an actor it influences how you view the character. I see Elle, I know Alice is important. I see Kyle, I know he never plays a bad guy.

It's a bit like the problem with older Law & Orders. If I see an actor I know than I know that, 90% of the time, they're the killer.

[rsadelle]

That's a good point about him being a blank slate. I figure J.J. Abrams just painted himself onto the kid. (The bullet point I managed to forget in this post is the fact that I literally woke up in the middle of the night thinking, "J.J. Abrams, like J.K. Rowling, is working out the death of his mother." I have yet to fact-check this, so my theory is shot if his mother's alive.)

Ha! That's a general problem with crime shows. The guest star is often the killer. And if not, the killer is the the guest star's character's parent/child/partner/sibling.