First, Attack the Block got a date: July 29. Well, that’s only in select cities apparently, but fortunately my city is one of those cities.
Now, Attack the Block has a wonderfully long redband trailer. It’s entirely possible I’ll see this movie like five times this summer.
So far, various screenings of the film have people going crazy for it. I can’t wait!
I’ll keep this short, because it’s a busy week writing-wise, but I really did want to write briefly about seeing Super 8.
I loved this movie. It certainly wasn’t perfect, without spoiling things I’ll just mention that parts at the end were a bit overdrawn, and there were some key moments in which there was emotional growth that made no sense based on the events in the movie. Those things will probably keep the movie from finishing the year as my favorite film of 2011. Still, I really did love it.
It was so beautifully reminiscent, as an homage should be, of Spielberg’s work in the late 70s and 80s. Close Encounters and ET, with a bit of The Goonies (which was co-written by Spielberg) thrown in for good measure. Youthful yearning for adventure, rooted in a deep desire for community, feelings that were aroused by movies like ET when I was young, came rushing back into me. That’s actually a likely part of my disappointment with parts of the end of the film, a comparison to ET will often leave a film lacking, because I think ET has one of the most perfectly crafted final acts in the history of film.
A few of my favorite elements of Super 8 were:
1. Satisfying contents in the mystery box. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard tell many times of a talk Abrams has given when he discusses his ability to create an atmosphere of mystery and anticipation and wonder. He talks of the mystery box, and how our anticipation of what might be in the box is always more satisfying than what is actually in the box. I was reminded the other day (by the lovely and talented Rebecca Canlis) of a really good example of a mystery box with really disappointing contents : Signs. I still like Signs much more than most people, but those aliens were so lame and disappointing. In large part, that was because the CG wasn’t prepared for what M. Night wanted to do with aliens, but it’s come a long way since then. The alien in this was really awesome looking and imaginative.
2. Amazing young cast. Finding young actors who don’t suck is really, really hard. Directing them well is just as hard. This movie has got the goods. The kids played off of each other really naturally, they were likable, they cared for one another in believable ways, and Elle Fanning was nothing short of a revelation.
3. It reminded me of falling in love with movies. One reviewer who had a snippet on a commercial I saw for the movie mentioned something along the lines of Super 8 having everything that made us love movies to begin with. I whole-heartedly agree. The scope, the relationships, the sense of adventure, the impossible seeming truly possible… Super 8 really did remind me why I fell in love with movies in the first place. Sure, that love is deeper and richer now. I love movies for different reasons than I did when I was 11 and could imagine nothing better than going to the movie theater, or renting six movies from Blockbuster and watching them all within like 30 hours (Okay, so, minus the Blockbuster part, I still can’t imagine anything better than that). In Super 8, Abrams offers the world exactly what Spielberg was once the master of, a well-crafted adventure story full of delight, wonder, friendship, and young love.
This movie was just silly. Perhaps it was intentionally trying to embrace the sci-fi B-movie vibe. If it was, they nailed it: bored acting, half-assed story, the waste of a great premise. Also, for some reason, when getting close to the black hole it turns out black holes are actually big magma storms. That is, until they went through the hole, then there was some sort of twist ending where they decided to get philosophical/theological and enter heaven and hell territory. Weird.
The good part, unlike the robots in Silent Running, the robots in The Black Hole were enjoyable for the most part. They were just as impractical, or almost, but they talked, which at least added a bit of charm.
This trailer is actually all gameplay footage?!?
In the spirit of Tracy Jordan, I’m going to take this game behind the middle school and get it pregnant.
New trailer for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark says, ‘Just kidding, be afraid of the dark.’
Here’s how my life works: If Guillermo del Toro tells me to watch something, I’m doing it. Especially if that thing is a child-centered scary movie.
Well, they can’t all be winners. This review has spoilers, so if you ever plan on watching this one you should look away.
The story of a guy who works on a space station designed to house forest ecosystems since there are no longer any trees and such on earth. The call comes from earth that orders the destruction of all the tree space stations. So, our guy goes rogue to save his forest from being nuked.
This movie is pretty awful.
The acting was terrible, which wasn’t helped by terrible writing. The dialogue was so bad that it felt like it was improvised by people who had merely a passing knowledge of the english language. No one involved in making this movie seemed to have much desire to pay attention to peripheral things like science, logic, or realistic human motivations.
The movie did have one thing going for it. There was a scene early on with literally the fattest squirrel I have ever seen. It was massively fat. His belly dragged on the ground when he ran. I’m not kidding, this was a fat fucking squirrel.
Bruce Dern’s performance is apparently praised by some, but in my opinion it was terrible. His attempts at playing intense and passionate came across as insane, unstable, and sulky. He didn’t ever feel like a hero saving something worthwhile, he felt more like an ecoterrorist bent on doing whatever he needs to do to save the trees without really ever sharing a compelling reason as to why. You’d think it would have been fairly simple to come up with compelling reasons for trees to exist… you’d think wrong. The best arguments he ever makes, check that, the only reasons he ever gives are that melons taste good, and it’s really sad for little girls to grow up in a world where they will never hold a leaf. Also, the events of the film make it impossible for the forest on his space freighter to ever go back to reforest earth, thus the killing and such that he does are done just to save the forest based on principle and an inability to let go, as opposed to any actual future good. He kills three men, and later himself, so that the forest will exist out in deep space, with no way to track or find it at a later date.
It also bothers me that when they designed the robots, no one seemed interested in something even remotely plausible. If you look at the way they operate, they use as much energy as possible, don’t function based on even a layman’s understanding of how computers or mechanics work (even a 1971 computer), and a very loose grasp of physics would make it clear that they would never be capable of completing any of the jobs they do in the movie. Couldn’t they have just asked a robotic engineer or two what robots might look like in the future? As industrial design goes, they get a great big F. Seriously though, I’d challenge you to come up with less efficient robots, and I bet you’d be hard pressed.
They also never explain why these man made eco-systems would exist in space. The only reason we have is that the story wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Why not build them in the desert? On the ocean? Under the ocean? Anywhere cheaper than outer fucking space? Meh. Also, no reason is given as to why they suddenly decide to destroy the forests.
I could keep going on for a while about dumb shit in this movie, but I’ve made my point, so let that be enough.
