Super 8

I'd love to say that Super 8 was super great, but I think I got to that party super late. I don't super hate Super 8, but I'm also not sure it was worth the super wait. Would it have made a super date? If I did say it was super great, would it leave me in a super state? Or would I still be bored and go super masturbate?

Perhaps I've said too much...


In 1970s Ohio, Joe and his friend Charles, along with assorted other friends, are shooting an amateur film for  an international film competition. While shooting scenes at a local train station, an approaching train presents an opportunity for what Charles calls "Production Value." As the train passes by and the scene is filmed, Joe notices a truck race onto the tracks ahead of the train, causing a massive derailment. In the ensuing mayhem, the camera is knocked over and continues to film the derailment. Once everything settles down and the friends are accounted for, they approach the truck to find their school science teacher. He warns them to get away and not mention the incident with the train.

You ever have someone tell you something was literally
a train wreck? Well, this was a train wreck...literally.

Strange things begin happening around town: all the dogs in the area run away; several townspeople disappear, including the chief of police; and electronic devices, from microwaves to car engines, are mysteriously stolen in large quantities. Joe's dad, now the acting chief of police, attempts to work with the Air Force personnel who've arrived to collect the mysterious contents of the train, but is thrown in prison. Shortly thereafter, the Air Force starts a brush fire, forcing all the residents to evacuate. What could they be hiding that's so important...

» Snape transformed into a what? «

In addition to boxes upon boxes of white cubes, the train that derailed also contained a space alien that had been captured by the Air Force years earlier. The science teacher who derailed the train had been a part of the team investigating the alien and its crashed ship (which was constructed of the white cubes). After being picked up by the alien, he developed a psychic link to the creature and learned of its desire to simply rebuild its ship and go home.

Alice, whom Charles invited to be in the movie in hopes of starting a relationship with, begins falling for Joe. When she's taken by the alien, the kids head to the school to find more information about the alien in the science teacher's storage trailer. With the knowledge they glean from the footage they find, the kids head back into the evacuated town to track down the alien and help it get home. They discover the alien hiding out underneath the town water tower, using the stolen electronics to try and build an electromagnetic.

Here's a shot of the alien. Totally worth it, right?

After being chased by the alien, Joe is captured, but uses the psychic link to convince the alien to finish its device and go home; to forget about the past indignities and finish what it set out to do. The alien rebuilds his spaceship using the electromagnet and leaves Earth. Joe and Alice's dads reconcile their differences, and Joe and his friends finish their movie.

Super 8 feels like two films that have been crammed together to form a single movie.

The first movie is about  a group of friends making a movie and dealing with the random shit that happens in life. In this case, Joe loses his mom in a steel mill accident when she's covering a shift for Alice's dad, who failed to come to work because he was drunk. For this, Joe's dad blames Alice's dad for his loss, so they are forever forbidden from being together. However, over the course of the movie, a relationship develops while another suffers, but ultimately things work out and a pretty amusing amateur film, The Case, gets made.

The second movie is about an alien. Yeah, that's it, a fuckin' alien.

I said more goddamned shadowy, quick-cut alien shots!

It really seems like J. J. Abrams, the writer and director, had a good idea for a movie involving something probably near and dear to him: young filmmakers and the fun-citement of small town life in the 70s. And then somebody was like "Hey, aren't you J. J. Abrams? Like Star Trek rebooting, Lost executive producing, Cloverfield J. J. Abrams? Can't be! Where the fuck is the awesomely scary spacey-mystery-monstery-shit?" So what you end up with is a pretty good movie with some alien shit thrown at it. The alien parts aren't terrible and do add a bit of excitement to the film in certain parts, but the ultimate resolution is telegraphed from a mile away and really kind of detracts from the film. I'm curious as to how the film would have turned out without the sci-fi aspect. Sure, there'd still be some major conflict separate from the minor conflict between the kids, but would it be completely dismissed because it didn't fit with J. J. Abram's string of releases? I guess we'll never know.

Also, the amateur film The Case, about a detective investigating the appearance of zombies around the Romero (see what they did there?) Chemical Factory, plays alongside the credits at the end of the movie and is worth sitting through. It's obviously a little hokey, but that adds to the amusement factor. After seeing all the little bits filmed throughout the movie, its cool to see a final film stitched together from the bits you see. And Charles' final note is good for a quick laugh.

Torn about the 2-movies-in-one premise, we've got 2 ratings for Super 8:

If you're looking for a J. J. Abrams alien film...		If you're looking for good movie about friends, films, a train crash, and can tolerate some alien crap thrown in for effect..
Netflix, cuz you'll probably be mad if you throw any extra money at this film, moreso if you don't want to sit through a bit of Romeo and Juliet.		Should have seen it in theaters to make the big moments bigger

Ron Perlman auditioned for the role of the alien, but they ultimately passed when test audiences literally peed themselves in fear during screenings. Literally.

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Flogging Molly
	Song:	Drunken Lullabies
	Album:	Drunken Lullabies

The Cabin In The Woods

In an effort to cut down on typing time (and since nobody really reads this crap anyway), I'm going to switch a few things around. I'll provide a much shorter summary, since if you really want to know exactly what goes on in the movie, you can always head over to Wikipedia or read the blog of somebody that gets paid to review movies. I've also changed up the rating system a bit, which you can read about here.

A group of five friends make their way to an isolated cabin deep in the woods owned by a cousin for a weekend getaway from school, aborted relationships, and regular everyday life. Once there, they discover a handful of oddities about the cabin, including a 2-way mirror, randomly opening doors, and a basement full of seemingly random objects. Shortly after finding and reading a young girl's journal, the group is attacked by the re-animated corpses of the her family (referred to in the film as "Zombie Redneck Torture Family"). From that moment on, the group of friends fight to survive this seemingly traditional slasher horror film...

Except it's not quite that simple. The events occurring at the cabin are being monitored and influenced by a group of shirt and tie overseers who have an ulterior motive in leading each of the vacationers to their certain demise. And it seems these five may not be their only victims.

» Snape does what now (spoiler)? «

It turns out that the group behind the events in the cabin are killing the friends off in a predetermined sequence that acts as a ritual sacrifice to appease the Old Gods who came before humanity. These five friends represent the basic archetypes found in almost every slasher movie ever. The first to die is "The Whore", followed shortly by "The Fool," "The Warrior," "The Scholar," and ending with "The Virgin." Should the sacrifice fail, the Old Gods will once again rise up and erase mankind from the face of the Earth. In an attempt to stave off this ultimate destruction, the people orchestrating the killings have multiple sacrifice locations, but the cabin ends up being the last viable option. The fate of the world hangs on the the deaths of the five friends.

So each one is killed off in some horrible manner. Thinking only "The Virgin" is left alive and her death is left up to fate, celebration ensues in the observation room below the cabin. But it turns out "The Fool" has managed to evade his zombie pursuer and discover the entrance to the observation labs. He saves "The Virgin" and they both descend into the labs, finding more nightmare monsters and the true purpose of the cabin. After unleashing all the other monsters from their Cube-esque cells, the two are the last left alive. Deigning humanity unworthy, they refuse to kill each other and allow the Old Gods to once again rule the world.

The Cabin In The Woods is a horror-comedy that was written as an attempt to pull the horror genre back from the "torture porn" route it was heading. Co-written by Joss Whedon of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Firefly fame, the movie leans more towards the comedy side of the horror-comedy genre. It's still got some good horror moments, especially once the zombies show up on the scene and towards the end of the movie, but a lot of the perceived attempts at suspenseful horror come off as fully aware of how horribly cliché they are.

The spin on the typical horror film scenario is one of the more interesting, along the same lines of the early M. Night Shyamalan films, the ones with the good twists, not the horribly stupid twists (I'm looking at you, Lady In The Water). Unfortunately, to a certain extent the trailer kind of gives away some of the "surprise" moments. There are a few good cringe-worthy moments involving an invisible barrier around the cabin, and overall the film is a pretty good watch.

There are a handful of big names in the film (including Chris Hemsworth, who played Thor in Thor), but the acting is well done. The characters all fit into the roles they ultimately play. I have to admit, I think Fran Kranz would probably have made a better Shaggy than Matthew Lillard. Or at least a more smartass-y one.

So, would Ron Perlman spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods?

Dispatching Redneck Torture Zombies? Ron Perlman calls that Thursday.

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Deep Forest
	Song:	While The Earth Sleeps
	Album:	Strange Days: Music From The Motion Picture

Rating System Change

I've decided to change up the rating system a bit. Ron Perlman heads can really only tell you so much, and seem kind of arbitrary. I think this new review system will give you a better idea as to whether a movie is worth seeing or not. In addition, it should give you an idea as to where or how you'd want to watch it. Or it could be just as useless.

So here's how the new rating system works. Based on the movie, I (through previous rating method Ron Perlman) will give it one of the following ratings:

Theater It - The movie is so good, you should see it/have seen it when it was in theaters. Since a movie ticket usually ranges about $15, and you'll ultimately be taking out a small loan to take more than 2 people and even think about buying something from the snack bar, this is about the best rating a movie can get.

Buy It - The movie is damn good. Maybe not good enough to see at a theater, but good enough you'll want to watch it more than a few times. Also, there's the potential for awesome special features that you might miss out on by just renting it.

Redbox It - The movie is good, but not good enough to drop $20+ on. It's still good enough to throw a few bucks at and make a trip out to get it. (Note: you don't necessarily need to rent the movie from Redbox, but it's recognizable enough, and seems cooler than "Rent It").

Netflix It - The movie was OK, but not worth any real extra effort to see. So what if it came out on DVD 3 months ago, you didn't really miss anything by waiting.

TV It - It's Saturday, there's nothing on TV, and you don't have Netflix (what's wrong with you?). If this movie suddenly came on as the Saturday Matinee Watch Today Cuz It's OK on whatever channel you stopped on, go ahead and watch it. Even edited, you won't lose enough for it to really matter.

F#$k It - Should be obvious. If someone came up to me on the street and said "What do you think about Movie X?", my reply would resemble "That movie? Fuck that movie."