Analyzing the analyzer- Mychael Foster

"Super 8"

Scott, A.O. “Hey, Guys, Let’s Make a Monster Flick” Rev. of Super 8, dir. J.J Abrams Refn. The New York Times 9 June 2001

Turan, Kenneth. “Movie Review: Super 8” Rev. of Super 8, dir. J.J Abrams Refn. The Los Angeles Times 9 June 2011

Ebert, Roger. “Super 8" Rev. of Super 8, dir. J.J Abrams Refn. Roger Ebert 8 June 2011

Theme and Intention

"Themes of childlike resistance to authority and intergalactic compassion are evident here, as they were in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.” The visual and emotional poetry of those films, however, never quite blossoms, despite having been copied out carefully, line by line." Scott

"It is a requirement of these films that adults be largely absent. The kids get involved up to their necks, but the grown-ups seem slow to realize strange things are happening." Ebert

"Very much like Rob Reiner's "Stand by Me," "Super 8" lives and dies by having those six 14-year-old kids as a group protagonist." Turan

Separate Elements and their Relationship to the Whole

"Mr. Abrams is good at those, and at balancing big effects with smaller-scale, real-world touches. Somehow, though, while he admires the seat-of-the-pants spirit of his fledgling cineastes, he is too careful and dutiful a filmmaker to embrace it." Scott

"He uses his camera to accumulate emotion. He has the rural town locations right." Ebert

Objective Evaluation of the Film

"Set in the 1970s, it opens with its 12-year-old hero, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), helping his intense friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) make an 8mm zombie movie for a local film festival. This of course must be done in secret, not so much because parents would forbid it, but because it's fun to operate with stealth. Besotted by stories of other young directors (no doubt including Spielberg), they scout locations, improvise costumes and energetically apply zombie makeup." Ebert

"The main character in Mr. Abrams’s film is not Charles but his best friend, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), who serves as makeup artist on “The Case,” a zombie picture Charles hopes to enter in a regional film festival. Joe’s mother was recently killed in an accident at the steel mill, a loss that shadows both the boy’s relationship with his father (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff’s deputy, and with Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), whose father (Ron Eldard) seems to have had something to do with the death." Scott

Subjective Evaluation of the Film

"But "Super 8's" elements do not jell into a satisfying whole." Turan

"During the first hour of "Super 8," I was elated by how good it was. It was like seeing a lost early Spielberg classic. Then something started to slip. The key relationship of Alice and her troubled father Louis (Ron Eldard) went through an arbitrary U-turn." Ebert

The Films Level of Ambition

"The poster for the new movie "Super 8" is dominated not by an image but by two equally prominent names: writer-director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg. Hybrids may be all the rage for cars, but this melding of two cinematic sensibilities, though effective at moments, is finally not as exciting or involving as it we'd like it to be." Turan

"There are really two movies here, one about the world of the kids and one about the expectations of the audience, and "Super 8" leads a charmed life until the second story takes command." Ebert

"Remember Three Mile Island? Remember “My Sharona”? Remember CB radios? Remember Blondie and disco? Mr. Abrams certainly does, and he evokes that bygone world with a sense of period detail that sits right on the line between uncanny and neurotic. His 1979 is more like 1979 than the real 1979, which hardly seemed like a time of innocence and eager wonder." Scott

Words You Found Interesting

"...materialization..." Ebert

"...cumbersome..." Scott

Relationship to Film Movements/Genres/ Relation to other Filmmakers’ Work

"Old-fashioned and genteelly entertaining, even wholesome, "Super 8" plays more like a family film than a kinetic work by Abrams, best known on the big screen for such high energy items as "Mission: Impossible III" and the latest "Star Trek." A longtime admirer of Spielberg, Abrams has made something more in that director's style than his own, an action that has diminished his own effectiveness without replicating what makes the best of Spielberg's films so successful." Turnan

"The associations are deliberate. Steven Spielberg produced the film, and its director, J.J. Abrams, worked in lowly roles on early Spielberg movies before going on to make "Mission Impossible III" (2006) and "Star Trek" (2009) — and produce "Lost" on TV. What they're trying to do is evoke the innocence of an “E.T.” while introducing a more recent level of special effects. There are really two movies here, one about the world of the kids and one about the expectations of the audience, and "Super 8" leads a charmed life until the second story takes command." Ebert