But…
As I read some reviews and box office tap dancing around Super 8, I feel that we’re in for one of those Critics Overreaching moments of the summer.
There are two elements to this. First, it’s this group of reviews that is starting to cluster around the idea that the film is flawed, that it is obviously a Spielberg brown noser of epic proportions, BUT it is somehow the stand-in for “original” or “smaller” or “challenging” films this summer.
But didn’t you just say it was The Endless Homage? Do we really believe that the film cost only $45m (and are we disregarding the fact that the studio is spending more than that on domestic marketing… or that Spielberg’s name on it means a significant percentage is coming off the top?)? And challenging? Less so than putting together a Happy Meal toy.
But the question, I thought, was, “Is it good?” And most of the positive reviews I have read have hedged like crazy on this point, then returned to some childhood reverie of what it was like to see E.T. at 6.
Then there is S.T. VanAirsdale’s rather bizarre defense of the film’s box office potential, which starts by calling people who think the potential isn’t that great as “skeptics” and makes the deadly mistake of assuming – not even bothering to question the assumption – that the film is good enough to establish long legs… much less E.T. legs.
And if it doesn’t have legs, it must be the fault of the mean, cruel box office system of 2011, not because audiences may reject the film after a decent opening weekend driven by marketing.
Oy.
“If Super 8 can manage half (E.T.’s) profile, it will be a $200 million sweetheart — not to mention the summer Oscar probable we all know it was intended to be.”
Oscar is hardly sacrosanct… but are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?
I do not deny that it is possible that some audiences will enjoy this film. It’s isn’t a Reese’s Piece shat whole by E.T.’s alien digestive tract… but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have enough entertainment value to make it worth the $10 for many. But for this film to get to $200 million domestic would require that it open to at least $75 million. Not likely. (I will be disavowing my box office chart guess on the film shortly… and significantly raising my domestic guess on Bad Teacher.)
I had hoped that Super 8 was a great, sweet, happy ride into nostalgia. But it’s a box of a dozen hot Krispy Cremes on a hot summer night with no one to share them with… tastes great at first, okay after you’re half way through, and you’ve become sugar-averse and uncomfortable by the time you’re done.
But some people LOVE sugar.
And ironically, the most passionate audience for Super 8 may be the critics who take themselves most seriously… people who spend their time telling everyone how stupid and worthless sugary movies are… until they take up the cause of an unpopular one. And then, it’s spun sugar art.
I’m not saying that it’s an offense to like or love the film. The argument about what it is doesn’t seem to be much of an argument at all. Everyone seems to agree. The question is whether audiences will want to consume this concoction once word of mouth starts in its second weekend.
Frankly, the notion that I will spend more than a second debating this with anyone this summer brings back memories of the summer of A.I.… and with it, a sad, ironic sense that our standard for what we spend our time debating has been lowered dramatically.
DP: But the question, I thought, was, “Is it good?” And most of the positive reviews I have read have hedged like crazy on this point…
Isn’t this what you said about the critical response to Thor? Just maybe, in the case of Thor and Super 8, critics actually like it and are not “hedging.”
Come on, DP. Love your site but you hardly have your finger on the pulse when it comes to what folks think a good movie is. See the Todd Phillips interview.
As a point of argument, that’s interesting, Paul… but then look at the actual reviews.
That said, I do think critics play this game all summer long. If a movie does suck as bad as they feared, suddenly it is a good movie. And then, if it is rejected by the public, it’s a GREAT movie.
Would you really argue that Thor is actually a strong movie? Would anyone? Likeable? Absolutely. I don’t think it’s a HORRIBLE movie. But will you find anyone who considers it again or feels compelled to see it again after July 4 this summer?
I haven’t seen Thor or Super 8 and so I have no opinion on the quality of either one. Just couldn’t help but notice that twice in only a month you make the argument that critics are hedging on a movie and don’t really like it as much as they claim to. Seems to me that many critics genuinely like both movies even if they find flaws in each.
Chris… weak argument.
There are two separate issues. 1. What audiences like. 2. What the box office is, which in 90% of the wide-release cases is driven by marketing, not the quality of the movie.
If all you have to make a case with is Todd poking at me, you don’t have much of a case.
People are talking of “Super 8” as been a sort of Spielberg circa 1980’s homage. But I believe that the two best movies that best capture the 80’s (Spielberg) vibe are “Monster House” (2006) and “Trick ‘r’ Treat (2007).
But “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it” isn’t really what a film critic is primarily there to do, is it? It’s no insult to say that EVERYONE can do that and does that.
And like I wrote, Paul, this is a summer disease. It’s a season of really good looking films that are very popular and mostly fluff.
I think that most people who saw Thor were fine with Thor. But it’s a bad movie. Some of my favorite movies are bad movies. But I know the difference. And so do those critics who talked about how wooden the characters were and how silly much of it was and then still gave it 3 stars or whatever.
But I see the Super 8 thing as very different. It may also be a pass… but it touches on the Spielberg thing, which is a hot topic for critics, pro and con.
I never said that is what a film critic is primarily there to do. Again, haven’t seen either one, but I find it interesting that twice in a month you have concluded that critics are hedging on a movie. It’s a trend. 🙂
The biggest homage ever is still not the umpteenth remake. One can still tell a new story while apeing another style and tone.
Thor is full of annoying flaws and story problems that I started to realize after I saw it and wrote my initial review. But at the end of the day, I was entertained during the initial theatrical experience and that’s pretty much all I claimed in my review. It’s not a great or even all-that-good film, but it’s a humbler movie than Iron Man and less-dumbed down than Incredible Hulk, so I enjoyed its silliness more.
Having said all that, Dave brings up the key problem with Super 8’s marketing strategy, which is something Paramount could not have anticipated back in February. “And ironically, the most passionate audience for Super 8 may be the critics who take themselves most seriously… people who spend their time telling everyone how stupid and worthless sugary movies are… “. I’ve said this before, but the biggest obstacle Paramount has right now is the uncommonly strong slate of current summer movies. Instead of being ‘the one we’ve been waiting for’, Super 8 is (at best) just another good summer movie. It doesn’t mean the film is going to flop or that Paramount shouldn’t be praised for their ‘close to the vest’ campaign, but Super 8, even if it’s as good as the hardcore fans claim, is now merely another good film following Fast Five, Bridesmaids, Kung Fu Panda 2, and X-Men: First Class.
For those who care – http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2011/06/diamond-amongst-diamonds-how-jj-abramss.html
Isn’t hedging a valid critical response? I liked THOR despite it’s obvious flaws and, yeah, would probably give it 3 stars on a 4-star scale. Maybe one could argue that I should make it 2 1/2. But sometimes one or two things you like can overpower five or six things you don’t, enough to tip you from 2 stars to 3.
I realize none of the caveats in my hypothetical THOR review would be reflected in an RT fresh rating, but that’s a flaw in the RT “system.”
DP you said “it doesn’t have enough entertainment value to make it worth the $10 for many”
so wait for a cheap afternoon screening ? wait for dvd to come out ? wait for it cable tv … will Transformers 3 be a 10 dollar movie …
So it’s fluff? Empty, mass-audience summertime junk? That’s enough to get my $5 (weekend shows between 4-5:30 pm only $5 at the DeKalb Carmike).
I was hoping it would be more, and maybe I will respond differently, but I’m glad my expectations have lessened.
Also, I’m a life-long Star Trek fan (I’m 40, FWIW), and JJ’s film didn’t ruin the series for me. So whoever commented that it ruined the franchise “for a whole generation” in a previous blog has to revise that subjective statement.
Yes, I think it is Yancy. But there is a tendency to want to Take A Position and that is where many of these reviews land. And I agree with the RT problem.
Sanj… you left out the front of that sentence, which negated the “not enough entertainment value.” That said, I think your point for other films is well taken… and yes, people wait for cable or DVD rental often.
Scott… the funny thing is that I would take Stu’s point against yours on this issue a little. If the movie was really great and you came out wanting everyone you knew to see it (I was not the biggest ET fan, but people ADORED it), the opening would, as he noted, be a minor problem. Maybe late July would be better, but there is no good summer slot for an underdog and out-of-season means less (likely) potential audience.
I would also argue that none of the films you mentioned are Definitive Summer Movies. They are all fine (didn’t see Panda) and there is some love out there for each of them, but none of them would stop a truly great summer flick. But there is not much there in Super 8 to sell. The “secret” isn’t much of a secret… the relationships are never stretched to the point where you could get it in 30 seconds… and there is no real point to the exercise, aside from the nostalgia, which I think they have sold well.
The one element that hasn’t been sold hard is the kids… and there may be a reason for that. If they aren’t great charmers in real life, it wouldn’t be a win to shove them out there. If one was a really funny or charming guy or gal, they’d be great at, say, MTV Movie Awards. But instead, we got JJ and Steven as the stars with a touch of Elle. There is an arrogance that people want to see a JJ Abrams movie. And to the degree that it opens well, it will be because, indeed, people want to see a JJ Abrams movie… cause that’s a lot of what they’re selling.
If they had a better movie, they wouldn’t have to hide what’s in the box… which is, I guess, your point.
I wasn’t a huge fan of JJ’s Star Trek movie. But I thought it was fine… just not great.
I still would credit him for opening the franchise back up after it had run out of steam. It worked for audiences.
Of course, the fact that they haven’t launched a new series off of the idea of the prequel is dumb or arrogant or both. These movies will never be as financially lucrative as a series. And really, the reboot is made to be a series. It’s a WB wet dream show.
hey DP – “Definitive Summer Movies” – any movies you saw at Sundance qualify for one of these ? you must have seen a dozen of them .. if people are looking for higher quality stories then thats where you find them .. the only one i can think is Cedar Rapids – if it opened in a few weeks would this movie make 100 million ?
the problem with these tryuly mindless movies with big explosions is you can’t fast foward the movie in the teatre when there are boring parts – don’t all the summer blockbusters have at least 15 minutes they can cut out ?
Paranormal Activity 2 – would it be better movie it was
just 1 hour movie with really good editing .. cause a whole
lot doesn’t happen in movie ..and people kinda noticed.
also DP – have you seen all the Star Trek tv series ?
there must be over 500 episodes ..
Oh I agree that none of the films thus far are ‘definitive summer movies’, merely that they are a better starting lineup than we’ve had in awhile, certainly better than last year (when we were so desperate for mainstream quality that The Karate Kid felt like a gift from the gods). I agree that mid-July (ala Pirates and Inception) would have been a better place to position ‘the movie to save the summer’, but Paramount understandably had to pick the Spielberg weekend (Raiders, ET, Jurassic Park). And yes, if the movie were (allegedly) better, it wouldn’t have been so dependent on having a bad summer start that needed a ‘savior’. On the other hand, if (BIG if) Green Lantern confirmed our worst fears, Cars 2 played like C-level Shark Tale material, and Transformers 3 wasn’t that much better than part II, THAN Super 8 would be in a position to represent a ‘back to basics’ yarn that looked like a masterpiece in comparison. I’m not even sure there is going to be ‘the film of the summer’ this time around. Sure, I want Harry Potter 8 to be the best film of the year, etc etc, but I imagine it’s only going to reach that level of impact for those who have really enjoyed the series up to now. What else is there other than Captain America? Anyway…
“And then, it’s spun sugar art.”
Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFFapgGGSeg
“Of course, the fact that they haven’t launched a new series off of the idea of the prequel is dumb or arrogant or both. These movies will never be as financially lucrative as a series. And really, the reboot is made to be a series. It’s a WB wet dream show.”
David, is it possible there’s no series because unlike the flick, a series couldn’t survive the profound animosity some segments of Trek fandom feel for the Abrams reboot? A one-off movie could survive that, but alienating the first group of people you need to win over in order to make a series a success does not seem like a winning strategy. And some Trek fans loathed the Abrams flick. Mind, I could be completely wrong and perhaps there simply aren’t enough Trek fans around now to form a critical mass that could make or break a new series. But if there are, and some of them would be a priori hostile to the idea of a series based on the Abrams flick, surely that would be starting off on the wrong foot.
I suppose it would be analogous to the BBC’s reboot of Doctor Who, which has been an overwhelming success. However different the new version is, the basic premise is the same as it was in 1963. Maybe the right questions are, What’s the basic concept of Star Trek? and How much can one deviate from that concept before it’s not Star Trek anymore?
NB: I despise the Abrams Trek, for the evisceration of the Trek mythos, but mostly because the movie just sucks. It is possible, of course, that those are simply two sides of the same coin.
J.J. Abrams is also making Mission Impossible 4 for December release this year – if they waited 6 months for
July 2012 would this be a huge summber movie ?
how can this movie make huge money in the winter time ..it”s cold out .
the movie itself should be okay – if they don’t go crazy
with the plot and make it confusing like the first one.
plus its got the guy from Disney directing and DP’s favorite actors Jeremy Renner + Paula Patton who is nice..
+ Josh Holloway the guy from lost tv series + Anil Kapoor the guy from Slumdog Millionaire + Simon Pegg the British comic actor and some guy named Tom Cruise.
is J.J. Abrams just lucky with his movies or will people
follow him everywhere because of Lost /Fringe which
got like 20 million viewers a week …and maybe 2 million
will show up for Super 8…
how does J.J. Abrams handle all this pressure with
all the stuff he does ? can he afford to screw up these
blockbuster movies ain’t cheap ..
not sure if last airbender made money but it didn’t
get good reviews .. and M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t
seem to be doing any new interviews .
i just read a sizable sampling of reviews on this site http://moviereviewintelligence.com/movie-reviews/super_8/ – hands down the best review aggregator – and i gotta say, are you tripping on egoshrooms DP?
i didn’t see a lot of ‘hedging’ at all. flaws are subjective and relative; one person’s minor gripe/critique point is another person’s deal-breaker, one person’s major shortcoming isn’t an issue for someone else, and you are only capable of expressing your personal response/bias, you are not the arbiter of ‘quality’. once again you appear to be looking at the critical response to a movie exclusively thru your own personal prism, then predicating your argument on the assumption that your interpretation is ‘valid’ and declaring everyone else who saw it differently as being somehow duplicitous/silly/too easy on the film in their critiques, simply because THEY DON’T SEE THE MOVIE EXACTLY LIKE YOU DO and thus must be either the willing or unwilling victims of overreaching group-think riding the easy-pass train, while you – thinking clearly – are somehow able to see the truth and the bigger picture in your (quite minority) interpretation. you were hoping the movie would be ‘this’ and you were disappointed, therefor everyone else who didn’t share your disappointment and expresses an alternative view, flaws and all, is either lying or deluding themselves on a cotton candy sugar high. here’s an insane thought: other critics genuinely think the movie is good, AND like it, for valid reasons of their own, which they lay out on the whole fairly lucidly in their critiques – in the numerous reviews i read, anyway.
Leahnz’s post is funny considering her response to the whole Lars von Trier episode.
how’s that exactly? the opinion i expressed on von trier was mine and mine alone, with a sampling of anecdotal opinion of people i know incl. some europeans/russians i work with, who happened to share my general view. i was personally attacked ad nauseum for daring to dissent from the pack. how does that in any way relate to what i wrote above?
Glad to know that you know my mind better than I do, Leah. Perhaps I can consult you when I consider, well… anything. Why would I rely on my own thoughts?
Let me ask you… is is possible that critics and others are lining up to push this one to the goal line… perhaps with a little more zeal than they might for other movies with a similar level of quality?
I know that I am profoundly flawed… but is it possible that groupthink exists a half dozen times a year out of, say 125?
Just want to know what I am allowed to think in Leah’s World…
PS – Just to stay on topic…
Did you notice how most of the positive comments were about an idea of what the film is and not what the film IS?
aw, i think you can think whatever you like DP, but what’s REALLY funny is that you spend an entire post above proclaiming to know what other critics are thinking – insinuating they have an agenda to ‘push’ a movie SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU DON’T AGREE WITH THEIR CRITIQUES – and then you accuse me of claiming to know what you’re thinking when i respond to EXACTLY what you have written in your piece above (in which you claim to know what others are thinking). no more, no less. my reply is based on what you WROTE, not ‘telling you what you think’. i didn’t bother quoting you ad nauseum, i didn’t have time.
what are you allowed to think? well, i assume you realise that you wrote a piece in which you actually lay out what you think above, upon which i based my retort…does the irony of your reply escape you?
I know you prefer it when it’s all about me, Leah… but please try to answer the direct questions…
Is it possible that critics and others are lining up to push this one to the goal line… perhaps with a little more zeal than they might for other movies with a similar level of quality?
Is it possible that groupthink exists a half dozen times a year out of, say 125?
Did you notice how most of the positive comments were about an idea of what the film is and not what the film IS?
but this IS about you and you alone, because it’s a bunch of fabricated bullshit. the ONLY reason this is an issue for you is because you don’t like the movie. end of story. i read the reviews. did you? (without your eye patch on?). most of the positive comments are NOT about the idea of the film as opposed to the film itself. there is certainly a degree of nostalia at play; this does not invalidate critiques of the movie as a sham. (edited to make sense)
“Is it possible that critics and others are lining up to push this one to the goal line… perhaps with a little more zeal than they might for other movies with a similar level of quality?”
no, and the dead giveaway? you use the word quality, WHICH IS SUBJECTIVE. see first paragraph above.
“Is it possible that groupthink exists a half dozen times a year out of, say 125?”
no, you’re paranoid. see first paragraph above.
Actually, Leah, I have read a lot more of the reviews than you have, based on your offer of what you read. And they have been fairly consistent.
Your two “no”s tell me all I need to know. It’s a perfect world of film criticism in which the good is praised and the bad is put in its place and Crazy David just rails about notions that are not even really controversial… except that no one likes to be told they are towing the line.
Gotcha.
I’d love to hear about another job in the world that is so far above any interruptions in purity… aside from inside my paranoid mind.
And actually, it’s been an issue for me on some movies I quite like. But don’t bother with nuance… it might get in the way of you calling me names.
point out one instance of me calling you a name.
I agree with the hedge comment…. critics are grading this one on a curve….. the ones that like it, like it for what it is.
I will bet real money this film will be nowhere to be found on the year end top ten compilation…. even Corliss’s list.
fwiw, aren’t you supposed to critique art for what it is? does a movie with positive reviews somehow have to be on year-end top ten lists, otherwise those positive reviews, even raves, were bogus?
David, can you install a Charlie Brown Teacher squawking trombone effect to accompany all of leah’s posts?
Thanks.
— Everyone.
squawking teacher this: shouldn’t you be off to junior high grooming elle between shoots? only 5 yrs to go, charmer
also, the notion that critics can ‘push to the goal-line’ a big flick like ‘super 8’ is giving critics way to much credit, it’s all a storm in a very tiny teacup.
Four years and 10 months. But who’s counting.
pedophiles
Yes… Tempest In a teacup. But it’s the teacup I work in.
riddle me this, DP, if the shoe was on the other foot and you happened to believe ‘super 8’ was a good movie, with all the exact same reactions/reviews coming from other sources, can you honestly say you’d still be making this same ‘groupthink’ argument?
of course not, because it’s your personal view about the lacking ‘quality’ of the movie – seemingly relative to other movies in this case – that’s informing your reaction to the reaction.
Uh, Leah… did you read me on Bridesmaids?
Sure, there are movies that I don’t think will get critical support and then do… and if I am with the group that likes the film, it’s a lovely warm feeling.
But the Summer Groupthink Phenomenon works in a variety of ways. It can be giving a really offensive film a Mixed Negative because expectations have been lowered. It can be a specific actor who is disliked… or liked… or a director… who gets the negative or positive pile-on. It can be the film that’s assured of being a mega-hit and can be rationalized into a passing mark. It can be a nice little film that reminds us of something we miss at the movies and therefore gets wildly overpraised. As a smart guy once said, it can be the movie just good enough to be overrated.
I face the shitstorm every time I bring it up… but it is so obvious to me when it happens, I am amazed that anyone who is in the middle of it bothers to pretend it isn’t true.
In this case, I’m thinking that this is a movie for movie nostalgists over 50… which is right in the movie critic alley.
And they can like whatever they like. Not my call.
Truth is, I get what they like about it. I don’t think it’s abstract. I don’t think they are fools. And if you want to write, “I know it’s Spielberg porn… but I LOVE it!” good on ya. (That’s what I see over and over.) But don’t tell me that it’s a great movie.
When you have been on a diet of Fast Five, Thor, Pirates 4, and Hangover 2 (which I seem to like better than most), I guess why Faux Spielberg feels like a relief. X-Men First Class was good, but it’s still a little embarrassing to hang your hat on a comic book movie. Even Tree of Life… it’s great… but it’s not commercial… so who cares what we think?
As this conversation evolves, I am thinking that this and the Woody Allen movie may be part of a trend story… the movies that critics and some audiences want to believe they are experiencing for the first time in decades and all the passion that attaches.
In terms of Super 8, many have swallowed every piece of spin out there, starting with the film being “original” and an underdog, etc. And I am all for critics embracing context – too many men in superhero costumes – but to review on the curve, with all this passionate intoning about the good ol’ days… I don’t know…
I like Super 8 to end up around #18 on our year-end Top Ten List round-up. Not completely insincere. And nothing else besides the Malick will rank as high for the year as of this date.
Like I said in the review, it’s a beautifully shot live action Robot Chicken. All the pieces are there… they are just crammed together in a big pile of “so what?”. But a lot of people LOVE Robot Chicken… even critics.
“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. Joe’s own father seemed to sway with the requirements of the plot. The presentation of the threat was done with obscure and unconvincing special effects. We want the human stories and the danger to mesh perfectly, and they seem to slip past one another.”
3.5 stars out of 4
As for the comment on the other thread that Robot Chicken ain’t as great as it used to be…I just bought the third season a few weeks ago (tho it’s been out a few years now), I bought the first two a few years back, and I’ve never seen any of these episodes before (due to not having cable).
Is it a bad sign that it’s taken me this long to continue onward after season 2? Is it a bad sign that I dreaded seeing the humping robot promoted on the box art? It’s only the third frickin’ season, goshdarnit–just how bad is it going to get?
my goodness DP, where do i begin? i can’t be stuffed, actually. i’ll try loosey-goosey style.
you make so many assumptions in the above, so many leaps of logic and baseless observations with no proof apart from what you ‘surmise’ based on your own personal bias towards the movie perhaps sprinkled with some anecdotal observations to which you attribute far more too much weight, it’s staggering. (for instance, you KNOW critics are grading this movie on the curve? really, you know this, how? have you surveyed every single critic on the planet to come to this conclusion? and further, you know that compared to other summer movies, some of which have been well received, critics are just giving this a fee pass? you know no such thing)
but i think this best encapsulated your arrogant attitude in this regard, in which you blatantly accuse other critics of being feebs, sheep unable to resist ‘groupthink’ because they have the gal not to share your opinion:
“don’t tell me it’s a great movie”
uh, why not? i’ll tell you it’s a great movie if i think it is, and i’ll explain why to boot. you may disagree, but are you so omnipotent in your own mind that you honestly believe your interpretation is beyond reproach and such that others can’t think the movie is good – or even great – without those people being delusional? at the end the day it boils down to one thing: if others see a movie differently from you, judge it differently from you, and jump on a different bandwagon from you, they MUST be engaged in collusion and victims of groupthink. awesome.
note: people can share an opinion and it does not mean they are perpetrators or victims of ‘groupthink’ in any way.
(and i don’t understand how your critique of ‘bridesmaids’ is relevant to this, i only know you were WRONG on every level; it made WAY more cash than you predicted, it’s WAAAAY funnier than the insipid hangover re-do (imho of course, since we are only able to offer our individual interpretations) and it’s destined to be WAY more beloved than most of the movie you disparaged it against in your critique. not following you there in how you think ‘bridesmaids’ is helping your case)
also, re: the review you site above, perfect example. the reviewer obviously really like the movie for the most part, but explained in some detail where it fell over for them in the final stretch. so i’d surmise it would have been a four star movie for them, but tinged with disappointment in the finale, it slipped back to 3.5 in their esteem.
what exactly don’t you understand about this? it is possible to think a movie is good – and further recommend people see it – even if it’s flawed in one’s eyes. it happens to me ALL THE TIME, good movies with weak endings, it doesn’t mean the movie has to be crap. perhaps that not the case for you, but don’t assume everybody judges things the same way you do.
So a lousy ending might knock a movie down only half a star? But wouldn’t a bad ending retroactively invalidate if not ruin what has come before?
It’s like arguing that Hildebrand should be awarded the Indy 500 victory because he was so close to the finish line when he crashed.
not at all, because a car race is an objective competition with a finish line, not like judging art at all, really, is it (and i said a weak ending, not a lousy ending, there is a difference, to me anyway. it’s a matter of degrees and how much it impacts your total view of the movie)
I was ready to give the otherwise hilarious Rat Race 3.5 stars until Smashmouth showed up.
To this day I want to strangle whoever decided that THAT’s how that movie should end.
i actually remember that
Rat Race gets my pick for worst ending to an otherwise good movie. It’s a funny and mean little movie that suddenly has to punish its instigator for the consenual actions of the other characters. Wanted to throw popcorn at the screen.
It’s not some clever turn at the very end… it’s most of the third act.
Leah… you like to work backwards from “this is what you think, David,” so the effort on my part is just wasted.
Lesson learned.
I think there are perfectly good arguments about why my feelings about this are wrong. But you haven’t found one. There is no room for me to be anything but 100% wrong. Boring.
Desperate Measures
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304778304576373873701768868.html
Tracking is bullshit.
SUPER 8 POWER.
LITTLE ELLE = 120m OPENING WEEKEND.
GUARANTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
This won’t make a PENNY under 100 MIL this weekend.
TAKE THAT TO THE BANK. THE BLOOD BANK.
Please don’t let that be a hymen reference.
I don’t even know what that MEANS. It’s a “Hard to Kill” reference.
DP, I don’t understand how you can know without a doubt that the positive reviews are due to groupthink and groupthink only. Ebert’s review does not read like groupthink to me. He calls it a wonderful film. Other reviews I’ve read, EW, The Chicago Tribune, Joblo.com, Associated Press, Orlando Sentinel, none of them read like groupthink to me. Maybe we’re reading different reviews. You just seem so damn certain about the reasons many different critics like this movie. I’m not suggesting groupthink doesn’t exist and never happens. But how can you be so certain? Maybe you read these reviews and look for things you can point to that will align with your belief that only groupthink can explain positive reviews. People I know who’ve seen First Cllass didn’t like it. Are the positive reviews for that movie groupthink?
I think you’re overstating my argument a bit, Paul.
You’ve read 5 reviews. Do you see recurring themes in them?
“How have we survived for so long on such a meager, high-cal, low-nutrition diet of processed summertime superhero sequels?”
“Kids don’t play with their parents’ Super 8 cameras anymore. They don’t devour movies the way they used to, either. But with “Super 8,” Abrams offers up a summer entertainment that appeals to the inner 13 year-old in us all, so much fun it may be even make real 13 year-olds put down their Gameboys and discover what it means to lose yourself in a movie.”
“”Super 8″ is the rarest of things this time of year: a summer blockbuster that’s completely earnest and irony-free, not filled with cheeky pop-culture references or cheesy product placement.”
“Set in 1979 and the summer of “Alien” and “Breaking Away,” “Super 8″ evokes a time before smartphones and YouTube, when making movies with your pals (inspired by the last five movies you saw at the two-screen theater out by the shopping center) took some effort, risked serious social isolation and constituted a high, rarefied calling.”
In these four of your 5, two are the leads and one is the closing graph.
So… are they reviewing the movie or are they reviewing their own nostalgia or sense of where they wish culture was?
And regardless of how I feel about the film, I think 2 of the 4 quotes are factually inaccurate and the other two have a lot of “get off of my lawn” in them.
Ironically, having grown up making shorts on Super 8 film, I know how hard it was… so I guess I should be the most nostalgic. But I feel like the film is bringing out the disaffection for this era by many critics more than anything else.
There are pulls from MRI. They don’t sound like, “Yeah, but we;’re giving it a pass because…” quotes to you?
Glenn Kenny – “as each of its plot layers is unpeeled, what’s actually revealed isn’t as interesting as it kind of promised to be… and it doesn’t matter all that much….”
Andrew O’Hehir – “if its heart of gold is artificial, that won’t stop you from enjoying the heck out of it.”
Emanuel Levy – “a picture in which individual parts are more significant and interesting than the overall system in which they are contained.”
That’s all I am saying, really.
I don’t mind, “it’s profoundly flawed, but I liked it anyway.” All I am saying is that sometimes we lose track that this is what we’re saying… and in the star count or pull quotes, we get lost in too simple praise. Not everyone is going to FEEL the way that you do… anymore than everyone will REACT the way that I do.
I think it’s equally wrong to write about Tree of Life as though everyone and their kid is going to be happy to have spent $10 to sit through that film… and it’s my best of the year so far.
But somehow, critics were okay having that conversation with their readers, in general, and in this case, it’s “GO! Go NOW!”
And in addition, many of the reviews are projecting things onto the film that are really not there, whether Leah wants to say they are subjective or not.
It’s not when critics disagree with me that I get snippy about it. It’s when I feel this wave of the group being lost in the idea of something, positive or negative, and it just doesn’t connect with the movie, so much as some bigger idea. Leaning back and teeing off, as a group, is not good on the positive or negative side.
David I read those 5 this morning. I have read far more reviews than that for Super 8. I’m just not getting a groupthink vibe from them.
Some people really don’t like Tree of Life at all. Would its critics be able to make a groupthink argument? Couldn’t anyone make a case for groupthink (Thor, First Class, Super 8, etc.) when they happen to disagree with the majority? I may have overstated your argument and I’m not saying you’re wrong (hopefully seeing it over the weekend). It’s an intriguing issue.
For me there was a lot more hedging in the Fast Five reviews, along the lines of “surprisingly not terrible” and “better than the others.”
Six minutes free at http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-trailers/#/video/25edf9f6-6e43-4533-ab33-05a5f401cc8b/ …and it leads off with lens flare after lens flare. Counting them feels like the masochistic exercise of seeing how many times Hudson says “man” in Aliens, and by the end I was paying attention to nothing but the lens flares.
This is supposed to convince me to see the movie?
(P.S. Maybe it is objectively possible to say that a movie is bad or not, especially if all the “they leave town, then have to return to town” scenes make it sound like a retread of Doctor Who from the bad old days.)
ok, so i’m watching comedy central last night, they show an X-Men: First Class commercial and at the end a Rotten Tomatoes logo shows up and the announcer says
CERTIFIED FRESH!
That’s how the spot ended.
So the discussion about the weight of Tomatomer scores may be changing if the studio marketing guys are going to start Tomato Stamping ads.
Who had the first prominent lens flare? The earliest I can place are in Die Hard. But there most have been some of that in the 70s right?
Not so surprisingly enough, on the “lens flare” Wiki page Abrams is given first mention as someone who deliberately added lens flare, right after it described how Laszlo Kovacs had no choice but to put up with lens flares in Easy Rider.
“Lens flare was typically avoided by Hollywood cinematographers…” Heh, heh.
Abrams is all over a simple Google search for “lens flare,” which also yields this new interpretation of old Star Trek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAaX8Aq6smQ
i used to bag on janus kaminski all the time for being “The Shaft of Light” guy. Every movie, at some point, no matter how appropriate, there’s a strong beam of light shooting in through a window like the sun is six feet away.
It became such a trademark to his work that it took me out of the movie. OH LOOK, there’s Janus’ GIANT SHAFT OF LIGHT beaming through the kitchen window as if Apollo, the sun God was approaching to have tea.
bunny: I haven’t read the Wiki page Sam mentions, but I immediately thought EASY RIDER. I’m also thinking that stuff like COOL HAND LUKE and any number of films set in the summertime South might’ve made use of them. Wouldn’t be surprised if there were one in CITIZEN KANE, ’cause just about EVERYTHING is in CITIZEN KANE.
Wow, a few topics ago leahnz accused me of repeating myself and browbeating people into agreeing with me and beating a dead horse. And that was after just TWO postings! I count ELEVEN for leahnz on this thread….certainly not even a record breaker for her.
And I said leahnz, I leave the browbeating and beating the proverbial dead horse to you. It is obviously your territory and you certainly must have felt infringed upon.
So the consensus is that lens flare was certainly widely used by the 90’s?
What I’m thinking of in particular are the blue horizontal lines. I guess that’s just one kind of a whole spectrum of flare effects.
“the opinion i expressed on von trier was mine and mine alone, ”
Better hope no one actually goes back and reads what you wrote in that conversation, because you did a bit more than that.
”Super 8″ is the rarest of things this time of year: a summer blockbuster that’s completely earnest and irony-free, not filled with cheeky pop-culture references or cheesy product placement.”
Really? How about the monster movie model kits, the R. Crumb poster, the car that looked like Bumblebee from Transformers, the obligatory “Slusho” joke, the cribbing from Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars remake, the George Romero name-drop…
The biggest example of critical groupthink to me this year was when every other Internet critic decided that pirates 4 was somehow the worst summer movie they’d seen EVER.
It’s not a very good movie. But the hate was waaaaay out of proportion.
“Really? How about the monster movie model kits, the R. Crumb poster, the car that looked like Bumblebee from Transformers, the obligatory “Slusho” joke, the cribbing from Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars remake, the George Romero name-drop…”
Wouldn’t kids have a lot of that stuff? Must one completely ignore the pop culture of the period in order to avoid cheese? Is acknowledging pop culture the same as constant references?
Torpid, I can still remember all these decades later that whenever Christine’s headlights popped on–meaning someone was about to die–there was a lens flare. In other words, it was a special, distinctive moment.
Abrams, though, uses lens flare all the frickin’ time. He even joked that the number of flares in Trek was “ridiculous”, and yet he’s polluting Super 8 with so many that there’s even one on the movie poster.
He will go down in history as “the lens-flare guy”, but that’s like being remembered as “the solicited-a-cop-in-an-airport-bathroom guy”.
There’s a lovely lens flare when Benjamin is cruising to stop the wedding in THE GRADUATE.
Unless your parents were total hippies who had lived on a commune or freaked out in Haight-Ashbury, I doubt any kids had R. Crumb posters in 1979.
You had to find your dad’s R. Crumb comics in the basement along with his stash of classic Playboys, and if you were lucky, your mom’s copies of The Joy of Sex and Our Bodies, Our Selves.
“Unless your parents were total hippies who had lived on a commune or freaked out in Haight-Ashbury, I doubt any kids had R. Crumb posters in 1979.”
Probably. But model kits? Kids making a zombie movie mentioning Romero in the 80’s? Those seem rather natural. Slusho is Abrams thing, so I can excuse that.
The movie is supposed to be set in ’79. Yes, Dawn of the Dead came out a year earlier, but the only way these little kidlings would have been able to see it is if they snuck over the fence of a drive-in.
It wasn’t hard for kids to see R-rated movies back then Sam. My mother-in-law has told me numerous stories about seeing violent horror flicks, some of which I’ve never heard of, at the drive-in when she was 12 and 13.
Crumb’s Keep On Truckin’ poster was EVERYWHERE in 79.
All I know is I haven’t even seen it yet, but this “mint” bullshit is already the most annoying-cutesy meme ever. Already CRINGING at the thought of it.
SO embarrassing.
@storymark:
I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t know if the overall “feel” of the movie environment is true to my memory of being a kid in 1979. So take this with a grain of salt, but the references LYT mentioned above skew about five years later than 1979, to be honest. Transformers? 1984-87.
I don’t know how old the kid with the Super 8 making the zombie movie is supposed to be — 13? — but you do have to wonder how even the most hardcore film-school-bound aficionado would have access to Romero movies at that age in 1979. This is making me want to watch the doc about the making of DAWN OF THE DEAD again — a lot of the extras were high-school and college-age kids who were greatly affected by their viewing of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and wanted to be part of the effort. But I’m pretty sure the only way you could watch a Romero was on the college film society circuit.
Please, someone correct me if they remember seeing a chopped-up NIGHT on TV at some point. There were a lot of Italian gothic horror flicks shown cut to shreds on the “Creature Feature” weekend packages, but wasn’t Romero considered too taboo even for that sort of thing?
Now, model kits — DEFINITELY — my first was a black Camaro Z-28 with gold and bronze detailing. BITCHIN.
Anyway, Abrams would have been in his 20’s already in 1979, so maybe his recollection is skewed.
@christian:
Forgot about “Keep on Truckin”! Yeah, that would be legit. But that’s about the only Crumb you could openly display without having too many difficult conversations with your kids (say, who’s this Fritz the Cat? Can I read your Fritz the Cat books, Dad?).
Romero’s Dawn of the Dead played at drive-in theaters. As I mentioned, it was extremely easy for 12 and 13 year-olds to see R-rated movies at drive-ins.
Also, Abrams was born in 1966.
Sorry Paul, didn’t see your post until I finished mine. I guess I overthought it. Or just forgot about drive-ins (don’t know why, that’s where I saw Stars Wars for the first time)!
NOTLD played on the midnight movie in my hometown in 1984, but I remember at the time “Halloween II” was relatively new, and it rung out as a little false in H2 that NOTLD would be playing as the late movie in 1978; In Carpenter’s original it was “The Thing” and some other old 50s movie on the movie marathon, then Halloween II picks up a few hours later, and suddenly NOTLD was on TV, and I always thought NO WAY did that play on the local movie till about 4 or 5 years later.
And this way pre-VHS obviously in 1979, no NO 13-year-old kids would’ve had access to Dawn the year prior unless a parent took them.
Also everything in 1979, both in movies and in REAL LIFE, was in some blurry, wan, washed-out INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN soft focus with powder blues and depressing colors. The saturated colors of “Super 8” don’t look ANYTHING like the world looked in 1979.
Damn, I knew it — LexG and I are the same age, and our memories were all taken with the same damn Kodak Instamatic.
Would they have needed access to the movie or just a subscription to Fangora? If they were young film fans they would probably have a couple of issues of horror enthusiast magazines and I am sure each of them would be centered on Romero and Zombies.
NOTLD ads were all over TV in the 70’s, scaring me from an early age. Not to mention all the genre mags featuring the film. Bob Wilkins world premiered NOTLD on TV on his Creature Features show. DAWN OF THE DEAD was a giant hit on the drive-in/midnight circuit, which is where I finally saw it. I also made super 8 horror/monster films. I’m there.
@hcat:
Super 8 kid would have had to get his hands on the VERY FIRST issue of Fangoria, which featured Tom Savini’s work on DAWN OF THE DEAD, when it came out in 1979.
Does anyone happen to know when in ’79?
Otherwise, I like the drive-in solution, but it feels like fan-wanking.
Or a 1978 issue of FANTASTIC FILMS which featured it on the cover, or CINEFANTASTIQUE which had an article (and who always featured Romero through the years). And DAWN ads were all over TV, brief and scary. Why wouldn’t there be some kids like me or my friends who knew this stuff? If it was a movie about baseball, you’d show the kids collecting cards, watching games, etc.
To be fair, I had seen Halloween, The Fog, Alien, Escape From New York, Nighthawks, and The Shining all by the time I was nine, thanks to HBO. So I don’t object on any moral principle that these apple-pie squares would worship horror movies… Just that the Romero/Tobe Hooper stuff was a little more verboten and NEVER played on cable at all, ever, until decades later. I finally saw TCM and Dawn of the Dead both in the summer of 1986, when I was 13.
I’ve also said this a MILLION times, but literally EVERY KID I KNOW would come into school all fired up to talk about Porky’s and Animal House and Caddyshack and Stripes and The Shining and The Deer Hunter when we were 8, 9 years old.
Are today’s kids stupider, or are the parents just bigger pussies? Other than (Wells Moment Alert but it’s TOTALLY TRUE) the Hispanic guys who take their kids to see SAW and WAITING…, do little kids still watch hard-R movies when they’re coming up, or are there so many goddamn cartoons that all they watch is Ratatouille until they’re 22?
Dawn of the Dead was released in May according to IMDB. It’s very easy to believe that the kids could have seen it at the drive-in. At the very least, if they’re into horror movies and making zombie movies, they’d be aware of it.
Three things that are etched in my mind from that era:
The camp counselor who drew diagrams of the Vietnamese village to help describe to me how AWESOME the “Flight of the Valkyrie” helicopter scene from APOCALYPSE NOW was.
The day after JAWS was the ABC Sunday Night Movie, every kid in my grade school was talking about it.
The babysitter who described in vivid detail exactly how every bonking teen was dispatched in FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH.
CREATURE FEATURES and KUNG-FU THEATER. In the pre-VHS era, this was the only place a kid with no cable and no access to either arthouse or grindhouse could watch a shit-ton of AWESOME.
Christian, thanks for the info on Bob Wilkins and the other genre mags featuring the DEAD films. Amazing. I had no idea that NOTLD got aired that early, what with the extreme backlash from the establishment.
THE DEER HUNTER also premiered uncut on Channel 40, my local UHF station (that also featured Wilkins) in 1980 and that was a major playground dialogue.
Christian, was NOTLD also uncut? That would be something.
As far as I know, yep. They showed it with “parental discretion” – the UHF stations could be relied on to show some films uncut.
That must have been great. Nowadays, Chiller and FearNet edit the movies they air. Lame.
The slumber party massacre from THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH was always edited out though!
Lex, I suspect a lot of tweens these days spend more time watching movies made just for them. It’s no longer like the bad old days when movies were either Benji or Goodbye Girl or Dawn of the Dead.
God, my mom used to subject me to The Goodbye Girl like three times a month in the early 80s. I can still hear Dreyfuss in that annoying voice of his going “…and I don’t… like… the panties… hanging on the ROD!”
Between being subjected to that and “Only When I Laugh” nine zillion times while Dad was off at work instead of watching football, it is a MIRACLE I like vag.
ot from a cool discussion, just to get it out of the way
“It’s not when critics disagree with me that I get snippy about it. It’s when I feel this wave of the group being lost in the idea of something, positive or negative, and it just doesn’t connect with the movie, so much as some bigger idea. Leaning back and teeing off, as a group, is not good on the positive or negative side.”
“i FEEL this wave”
“lost in the idea of something, positive or negative, and it JUST DOESN’T CONNECT WITH THE MOVIE”
“leaning back and teeing off as a group”
holy shit DP, that’s the best yet. you ‘feel’ a wave of groupthink? THAT’S your argument, you feel a wave?
every statement above (and previous, really) is a baseless subjective notion, pure conjecture with no proof, in which you twist subjective notions to suite your argument because others like a movie you don’t. you cherry-pick parts of reviews above as if it’s proof of your assertion, which backfires and simply shows how slanted you are looking at things because none of the excerpts you chose proves a thing except that you can’t get past your own interpretation of ‘super 8’ to see that others can provide valid criticism of a film that they still think is a good movie and apparently like.
(i believe paul has been saying something similar, but apparently you simply refuse to listen to anything from anybody if it means having to admit your declaration is shakey. maybe todd phillips should come onto the blog and tell you how full of shit you are)
“lost in the idea….that just doesn’t connect with the movie”.
again YOUR subjective take, it doesn’t connect for YOU. just becuase you feel that way doesn’t mean everyone does or has to, your argument is, as it has been throughout, based on nothing but you don’t like the movie and you don’t like the way others are reviewing it, so they MUST be in collusion, they MUST be ‘groupthinkers’, you FEEL A WAVE. but the problem is, what about the critics who don’t like the movie, are they the only ones immune to the ‘groupthink’ disease? what about positive reviews for other movies that also mention flaws/shortcomings, are those all ‘groupthink’ too? the mind boggles at just how absurd your argument is.
ok, done boring you with the reasons your assertion is absurd that you think are boring because there are better reasons that you are wrong, according to you, which you apparently won’t share because then you’d be admitting your just making shit up, i guess.
glamourboy:
having a disagreement about something on the blog is not the same as browbeating with one’s opinion about a movie, which is what i was SPECIFICALLY referring to other day when you started in on ‘first class’, jumping threads so you could repeat how you don’t see how anyone could like the movie, how badly made it is, how unnecessary it is, blah blah blah, repeating and beating a dead horse with your negative opinion that looked like to me the makings of a browbeating.
you don’t like that i’ve posted 11 times during an active back n forth? i don’t consider that the equivalent of repeating oneself again and again about how much a movie sucks, so i guess our definitions of browbeating differ greatly.
and storysnark:
fyi i actually did go back and read that thread again, and i invite anyone else to do so, i could care less. have you? but you’re rather good at making accusations that you fail to back up while completely ignoring what others say, convenient for you just to look at one side, but i’d expect nothing less from you, to be honest. i NEVER claimed to speak for anyone but myself (did provide some anecdotal opinion because i thought they gave insight into their european perspective), i presented my point and argued it speaking for myself, never claimed anything but, and i defy you to show me otherwise. but you won’t, because you can’t, because i didn’t.
but nice to see you and get a little story-snark! remind me not to be the only one to ask about your job next time when you post about it here, i think instead i’ll come in with a nice little snarkly quip for my own amusement, that’s always fun.
sorry to interrupt the good stuff, hope i didn’t kill it
When you see GOODBYE GIRL, you can tell why Spielberg didn’t want Dreyfus for JAWS at first.
The funniest part of that movie is when he’s playing Richard III. But that’s like, the first five minutes.
Luke – Can’t disagree on Pirates 4, though I thought it was worse on Pirates 3, which was just a lamb walking into the critical slaughter.
The thing, for me, about the references in the movie is, I don’t care. Go with God (or Steven).
It only makes me nuts when people start proclaiming the purity of the film.
Moreover, the comment about kids seeing R movies in that period… of course. Especially movie-crazed kids.
One scene of Charles (the filmmaker) trying to see a bare tit through a scrambled signal would have been more honest than any emotion in that film now.
When I was a kid, we could see part of the drive-in screen from a church that sat on a hill across the street. I think someone even brought binoculars on occasion. If a monster movie-crazy kid heard there was a zombie flick playing at the drive-in, I’m sure he’d try something like that if all else failed.
christian wrote: “The slumber party massacre from THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH was always edited out though!”
In the immortal words of Eulabelle, “It’s da voodoo, I tells ya!”
I wanted it to be better than it was. In summer 1979 I was exactly the same age as those kids. However… nobody in the U.S. had heard of the Rubik’s Cube or the Walkman yet since they did not appear here until the following year. I’m sensitive to anachronisms in period films set in my lifetime, so right away I was thrown out of the movie. Oh well…
Lex: I LOVE that Dreyfuss line. Whenever anyone says “I don’t like …(something),” I reflexively retort, “I. Don’t. Like. The. Panties. Hanging. On. The. Rod.” My wife even uses the line back at me now and she’s never seen THE GOODBYE GIRL.
Yeah, the Walkman bothered me too. I wasn’t quite sure when it came out. I know I was on a plane in the fall of ’83 and the lady sitting next to me was so fascinated by it. I thought it was a bit beyond the amazement period but certainly they weren’t ubiquitous back in the early 80’s. What I was surprised by was that there was no Boom Box, man, those were everywhere! The Mattle’s Electronic Football was cool to see but I was disappointed it was so white and clean. Mine had so many paw prints on it in the first three hours I took it out of the box I have a hard time believing the color didn’t start out as off-white.
Trying to get back to the OP, one thing I wonder, if Michael Bay or Ratner had made this movie would the reviews had been so forgiving? I think either of those guys, probably plenty others on that list, would’ve gotten ripped worst than anything they’ve done. No one would’ve said, it’s got flaws but I still like it cuz it’s so much fun. They would’ve been at his throat for not getting the simplist aspects right. It would’ve been the ultimate proof of an inability to direct a real movie.
I haven’t read the reviews so I can’t directly speak to groupthink aspect but it does seem plausible. Also, sorta on paper, sight unseen, this is potentially a movie that could be the leggiest, sleeper of the summer. And, as it’s also been mentioned, a prime candidate to be overlooked regardless of relative quality. This would explain the hedging bets reviews.
I think the summer lineup is too full for anyone to really bestow the label of what this film “coulda been” both in terms of quality and b.o. performance.
According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the Walkman came out in 1979 in the US but was known as the Soundabout. Twas known as the Walkman in Japan, however.
Having now seen the film, I’m rummaging around here…
My opinion: Ya know, you simply cannot have it both ways. SUPER 8 is a throwback movie to the old days of summer blockbusters. I’d rather have this marketing campaign and movie ANY SUMMER rather than TRANNIES 3 or PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN.
Summer movies ARE fluff. They’re supposed to be fun and kinda lame and above all, entertaining. SUPER 8 is exactly that. People are griping about Joe’s emotional state and his lack of character development but there much more to Joe than there is to Eliott in E.T.
Yes, every film should be judged on it’s own merit, etc. But for all the griping people (like me) do about the lame CGI, the quick cutting, the tertiary market driving how the movie is marketed…on and on. SUPER 8 tried something different. It sent back in time and made us remember what it was like before media was shoved down our throats. And, it’s a solid film to boot.
“According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the Walkman came out in 1979 in the US but was known as the Soundabout”
Sony has a weird history of naming products.
Their new handheld is the PS VITA.
No idea why,