Drowned in the Lake Erie of Somebody Else's Dreams
Super 8 (2011)
directed by J. J. Abrams
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at AMC Waterfront 22
J. J. Abrams grew up in Los Angeles. His parents are producers. I'm sure that, like anyone, Abrams enjoys the idea of a childhood different from his own, and the rolling hills of Ohio - green with winter grass - might be the physical retreat that a kid from the desert imagines. I remember visiting Ohio from Texas, to see the towns my mother's family moved away from, and the late, low light of summer made me think all at once of my youth. I was only a teenager, but I imagined a younger version of me, on a bike like a member of the neighborhood gang in E. T. - a movie, of course, that takes place in Southern California.
Spielberg himself has been making good money off of the misguided nostalgia of sentimental moviegoers ever since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There's a moment (there's always a moment) in Super 8 when Joe, Charles, Cary, and Alice sprint through a neighborhood in the middle of a military firefight. It's a dynamic shot that follows the specific shape of that unique West Virginia topography - a shot to fuel the imagination of a pre-adolescent dreamer watching the movie someplace else and far away.
But the laughable/insulting CGI alien - always leading with their roaring mouths, ever since the cave troll in Fellowship of the Ring - needs some sort of resolution, and Abrams is simply one more director who needs a better project to work on. Still, if I can say it for Terrence Malick, I'll say it for Abrams: at least he brought along some kids. Somewhere, the buck-toothed wonder with a backpack full of firecrackers in Super 8 stole away with Young Jack to make something disposable and impermanent together.
directed by J. J. Abrams
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at AMC Waterfront 22
J. J. Abrams grew up in Los Angeles. His parents are producers. I'm sure that, like anyone, Abrams enjoys the idea of a childhood different from his own, and the rolling hills of Ohio - green with winter grass - might be the physical retreat that a kid from the desert imagines. I remember visiting Ohio from Texas, to see the towns my mother's family moved away from, and the late, low light of summer made me think all at once of my youth. I was only a teenager, but I imagined a younger version of me, on a bike like a member of the neighborhood gang in E. T. - a movie, of course, that takes place in Southern California.
Spielberg himself has been making good money off of the misguided nostalgia of sentimental moviegoers ever since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There's a moment (there's always a moment) in Super 8 when Joe, Charles, Cary, and Alice sprint through a neighborhood in the middle of a military firefight. It's a dynamic shot that follows the specific shape of that unique West Virginia topography - a shot to fuel the imagination of a pre-adolescent dreamer watching the movie someplace else and far away.
But the laughable/insulting CGI alien - always leading with their roaring mouths, ever since the cave troll in Fellowship of the Ring - needs some sort of resolution, and Abrams is simply one more director who needs a better project to work on. Still, if I can say it for Terrence Malick, I'll say it for Abrams: at least he brought along some kids. Somewhere, the buck-toothed wonder with a backpack full of firecrackers in Super 8 stole away with Young Jack to make something disposable and impermanent together.
posted by NPK at 4:44 AM
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