Movie Review: Super 8 (spoiler free)

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What appears to be the best kept secret for the movies happened this weekend. After seeing trailers for Super 8 you're left wondering just what is it braking out of the train car, scaring away dogs, putting fear into the towns folk and causing the disappearance of nine people. Usually weeks or months in advance there are clues as to what "it" is. Not this time around. I don't know, maybe they put some major damage clauses in contracts with everyone involved in the project that they wouldn't even dare risk it. The beauty was that walking into the theater I had no idea what to expect.

To ratchet up the hype, Twitter and Paramount teamed up. Two days before the advertised release they went through different venues to let people know that they could go to a special location for information about pre-release date shows. It happened to be showing at my regular theater in IMAX format. Regular 2D format would release on the scheduled date. Normally I would have waited, but this time I went: one because I was really interested and looking forward to the movie and two I had another M&Ms prize for $3 off a ticket. So for $7 I was able to see the IMAX version a day early.

Now here's where it gets tricky, reviewing without giving away any spoilers. It was directed and written by J J Abrams of Lost, the Star Trek reboot and Cloverfield fame with Steven Spielberg producing. Both men leave their fingerprints all over this movie. Right from the opening scene we're pulled into an emotional state. The slow camera movement and the minimal on screen action without words speak loudly tugging at the heart strings. From there the level of emotion is held tightly and pulled tight and then relaxed accordingly.

The emotional center is Joe (Joel Courtney). The year is 1979. Match Game is on TV, Disco is waning and the aftershock of Three Mile Island is weighing on the minds of Americans. Life events are changing rapidly for Joe. His dad who is a deputy for the small town of Lillian, Ohio doesn't think his friends are good enough given those changes. His friends are making a horror movie via a super 8 camera hence the name of the movie. While trying to capture a scene at the local train station, a train accident happens under mysterious circumstances. Afterward, strange things are starting to happen. Something on the train got loose but what is "it"? We don't know until about half way into the 112 minute movie. So like Cloverfield we don' t know what "it" is allowing the drama and action to build.

Speaking of "it", the lens flares are not "it". Abrams has used the lens flares before. We saw them used extensively in Star Trek. In Super 8, it was over done and became annoying. Any of the night shots had flares left and right and up and down. It would have been one thing if they were views through the camera the budding movie production team was using, but no it was from the mind of the director. Maybe he was using the flares as a type of misdirection to hide little clues in the background as to what was happening.

While we're talking about clues, there was a short clip that just recently started making its rounds on the internet. Abrams took a page from the Lost game book. Pierre Chang had orientation films for the Dharma Initiative that outside of the hour each week on network TV gave those little extra information nuggets to help explain what was happening in the bigger world expanding the little slices of story we were given. If you do a little poking around with Google, I'm sure you'll find the Super 8 "leaked" footage.

The emotional journey of Joe with his friends and family in dealing with the accident drive the story and keep our eyes glued to the screen and our minds scrambling to try to put pieces of the story puzzle together. The coming of age story has threads similarly woven within Goonies or even ET. While they didn't use quite the same language those 80s movies had it had its own to earn a PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and some nudity. There were a couple of items that were introduced that didn't have a completely satisfying explanation or ending but the overall picture was well worth seeing.

When you go, do not leave as the credits begin. Take a moment to breathe deep to take in the ending and make sure that you stay through the credits. The bonus that you get gives the movie a satisfying conclusion tying together some of the loose ends. It is a great little treat for those that wait!

As a side note this week. Have you had the aggravating experience of someone who talks or texts throughout the movie? Or do they even pull out their phone to check texts or calls or try to use them as a flashlight during the show with the screen light shining as a bright high beam beacon in the middle of the dark theater? I had it happen while watching Super 8, a man having a conversation on the phone during the middle of the movie. The funny thing was that I had noticed that they didn't run the theater trailer telling people not to text, call or talk during the movie. The Alamo Drafthouse had that situation and they kicked out the patron who called back and left a nasty profanity laced voicemail for management. Alamo Drafthouse turned around and created a PSA (Public Service Announcement) using that voicemail. Here is the link to the censored version over at YouTube. If you want the uncensored version, check the suggestions on the side of the censored version. As I write this between the two versions it has about 3.5 MILLION hits in less than a week. AHHHH, if only all theaters would enforce their own rules in the same way! Oh, I did let my management know about the situation and not having the house rules before the movie. The manager said he would check with the projectionist because it was supposed to be there for the IMAX theater.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Shutter Island

Eleven miles off the coast in Boston Harbor is Shutter Island a place where the really bad of the bad of the criminally insane are being treated.

A women goes missing and Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) of the US Marshals are called in to investigate the disappearance. This woman murdered her three children and doesn't acknowledge that she killed her offspring, she treats the facility like its her home in the Berkshires. As Daniels attempts to investigate he gets stalled by Dr Crawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr Naehring (Max von Sydow) who refuse to turn over inmate and staff records. As severe weather barrels down on the facility Daniels investigates further the motives and methods of the doctors is called into question on Shutter Island.

Martin Scorsese directs this movie. After The Aviator, Gangs of New York, The Departed and now Shutter Island, this is the fourth time Scorsese has directed DiCaprio. The movie has tight shots give a claustrophobic feeling following Daniels. When the winds blow and the rain pours down, you almost feel wet yourself. With the topic of mental illness and trying to figure out what is real from what is fake there are shots that jump back and forth. Continuity is not always facing forward. You wonder what is happening drawing you into the story as the image perspectives move about in setting and reality.

While questioning inmates Daniels and Aule get the feeling that something isn't right between people giving almost verbatim answers to questions or getting nervous when certain other questions are asked. They question if Crawley and Naehring are hiding something. Aside from trying to find out what happened to the missing prisoner, excuse me patient as Dr Crawley keeps reminding Daniels, he has ulterior motives for being on the island. His wife was killed in a fire set by a fire bug. Daniels has tracked him down to Shutter Island and is looking for him. In a series of dreams we meet Daniels wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) who gives him warnings. Daniels background as a solider during WWII who helped liberate Dachau are shown in flashback sequences. The images of Holocaust victims discarded as trash have an impact on Daniels bringing his own state of mind into question. Nine years had passed since Daniels helped with Dachau's liberation and the images still haunt him.

Can a crazy person prove they're sane? Can a sane person prove they're not crazy? Can a psychiatrist make a sane person crazy? How good are they at helping crazy people become sane. With Dr Naehring, a former Nazi on staff, are experiments from the days of Nazi experimentation part of Dr Crawley's new methods of treating the mentally ill? As the story line got further in depth, what was real, what was imagined, who is sane, who is crazy, what is really happening there at Shutter Island got convoluted. This is a thinking movie to try to follow and I have to admit that my brain hurt trying to keep track of everything and may need a second viewing to catch all the details put into story.

Some of the images are tough to look at between images of concentration camp captives and poor treatment of the 1950s mentally ill including slight nudity. This earned the movie an R rating for the two hour eighteen minute presentation. Heavily present in the movie is smoking; it seems to be in a number of movies lately. Even though tobacco is a legal product a disclaimer stating that they weren't paid to portray tobacco usage is tacked into the credits. Alcohol can be just as detrimental to a person's health and yet they don't put any disclaimers about alcohol products and byproducts disclaimers in the credits. I wonder how long it will be before that has to be put in there along with the no animals were harmed disclaimer.

Movie Review: Law Abiding Citizen

This is one of the movies where "The Man" gets what's coming to him. What is justice, what is revenge, what is right and what is wrong are questions that come up and are explored in this 108 minute R rated movie.

The movie starts quickly. A dad is tinkering on something while his daughter does some arts and crafts with letter beads. The door bell rings and the wife tells the husband to get it. As soon as the dad (Gerard Butler) gets the door, he gets clunked on the head by a baseball bat. The two bad guys tie him up, stab him and tape his mouth shut with duct tape and then clunk the wife when she enters the room. The wife then gets raped as the husband observes. Their daughter enters the room where the one criminal says that kids like him. You know that is bad and no good is going to come of it.

They jump to the court, the badder of the two bad men turns a deal with the prosecuting attorney Nick (Jamie Foxx). Clyde, the husband, doesn't want the deal and wants to go to court but Nick, afraid that his conviction record might not stay intact decides the deal is better. Clyde wants to see justice for his wife and daughter but is told that it's not what you know, but what you can prove in a court of law. No consolation for a deeply grieving husband. Nick is seen by Clyde shaking hands with the criminal.

Jump forward 10 years. The execution of the second criminal goes wrong and dies in agony. The first criminal has bad things happen to him too. This causes the police to suspect Clyde. He is arrested and taken into custody where is appears that his main target is Nick. While Clyde is in custody people associated with the original trial are picked off one at a time in some both brutal and high tech manners. How could this be since Clyde is locked up? Who is helping him and how is he able to pull them off? That's where the majority time of the movie takes place.

It was tough to watch at times due to the brutality. At times is was tough to watch due to the attitude of the legal system. I think at one point in time or another we all get upset with the system and the way it works whether personally or watching what happens with other people in the news. Law Abiding Citizen looks at some of the emotions that happen on both sides of the issue.

The movie didn't break ground in any of the cinematography, special effects or anything like that. The plot was intriguing and kept my attention as several twists and turns were presented and I didn't look at my watch once during the movie. There are scenes of severe brutality and blood and should be left to adults. A good first run movie.