Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

I never found Close Encounters or ET entertaining, just manipulative and obvious. Jaws, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park remain the highlights of Spielberg's career.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Oh, I love you internet! Inception was a failure, Super 8 sucks, Abrams is a hack, Spielberg has always been lousy and Nolan has never been any good.

Now all I need is my Good Burger Blu-ray and I'll be as happy as clams on toast.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Actually I guess I am with you on that for the most part, though I'm actually a fan of Minority Report and never really cared for Jurassic Park.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Minority Report and Catch Me With You Can are both excellent, I'll agree with that. Although Minority Report only works if the ending is a halo delusion. :)

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Where have you been? It's cool to not like what's popular. If you like what everybody else does, you're just an unoriginal sheep.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Actually according to the internet, more specifically IMDB, Inception is ranked #9 on the top 250 films of all-time. Yep, #9 there are only 8 films in the history of mankind that are better than Inception.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Personally, I was underwhelmed by Inception. I thought the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Frame of Mind" did it better, and even then I was aware it wasn't an original story concept. The effects were nice, but I'm a viewer that will forgive sub-par effects for a story I like; I will not overlook a disappointing story because it looks good. I was expecting to have my mind blown, and instead I felt snowed by the marketing scheme for a movie I and my wife found predictable. I liked Ellen Page in it, though, and the neat little Bond-esque snow battle was fun to watch.

As for the grander theme of your remark, look: there's a wise old saying that reminds us, "Haters gonna hate."

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince people there was anything remotely approaching depth in Inception.

I guess if you keep repeating the lines "We have to go deeper" you'll actually convince some people

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Christopher Nolan's greatest skill isn't that he's competent and can handle a large-scale production (though he is and does). It's that he's essentially a very cold storyteller who has been able to catch the attention of the mainstream crowd that generally favors Michael Bay productions.

As for the increasingly polarizing Spielberg, his career has been fundamentally built on appealing to the heart of the viewer. You can argue he's heavy-handed and manipulative, but there's no denying what his goal is. He's not trying to blow your mind with intellectualism or explosions; he's trying to make you feel smothered until you cry, before giving you a triumphant final act. We can see this even in Jaws.

Abrams...to be honest, not having watched Alias or Fringe, I really don't have a sense of him as a storyteller yet. I've seen Mission: Impossible III and Star Trek, and all I can say is that I fault Orci and Kurtzman for the flaws in those films rather than Abrams. When I look at what those two have done with the Transformers movies, I'm left with no real doubt about who was responsible for plot holes, thin subplots and "where is this going?" sequences.

So, to try to get back on topic...who wrote Super 8?

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Ah shutup.

You're no messiah. You're a movie of the week. You're a fucking t-shirt, at best.

That's a movie quote that fits how I feel about your post.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

I disagree, Star Trek had no flaws.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Aside from the script that was probably jotted down on napkins with crayolas

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Star Trek had flaws but easily overcame them. Abrams I believe wrote Super 8.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Yeah, he wrote it.

I also agree about ST. It had it's flaws but the direction of it overcame those hurdles.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

I was a kid when I first saw "Close Encounters" and it blew me away. I thought it was the best sci-fi movie I had ever seen. Being older when "E.T." came out, I enjoyed it too a great deal. And remember vividly how huge it was at the time when it came out. When I watched it again all these years later, while I thought it's a nice walk down memory lane, I don't think it's one of Spielberg's best. It's still a very sweet film though. But I do think his best are still "Jaws", "Close Encounters", "Raiders", "Jurassic Park", "Schindler's List" and "Munich".

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Not going to turn this into a referendum on Star Trek, but I fail to understand how Abrams's direction overcame flaws inherent in the story as written. "If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage." The source of most flaws in any film is the story/script. No one walks out of a movie saying, "You know, every part of that movie made perfect sense and the performances were great, but what was up with those props?!"

I can understand how one might be inclined to overlook the flaws because he liked the movie, but I still don't understand this obsession so many have with lauding The Di-rec-tor. How does a fan even go about spotting "good" direction in a film?

The first movie I remember seeing in a theater was E.T.. I would have been three (not turning 4 until December '82). I remember two things. One, my mom had an anxiety attack during the movie and we had to get up and go to the back of the theater, where she struggled to get it together. I can't recall now whether we stayed for the rest of the movie or not. Two, I remember the movie made me want to go outside.

I didn't see another Spielberg movie until 1990, when I was introduced to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on VHS. Ergo, my perception of his filmography was formed really from my adolescence onward. I didn't even get around until seeing Jaws until 2004 or 2005 when a friend who loves the movie got tired of my not having seen it and gave me the 30th Anniversary DVD for my birthday, and I only saw Close Encounters for the first time more recently than that. (For the record, I was stunned that for once, Spielberg gave us a movie that ran contrary to his typical adoration of fatherhood. Also, I loved looking at Teri Garr's legs.)

I was conscious of his works as a kid; I heard from classmates and neighbors about Jaws and Indiana Jones, but I didn't see them during their release era, so I'll be interested to see how this love letter to old school Spielberg plays for me. I'm of the right generation, but that portion of his filmography isn't really part of my movie roots.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Close Encounters bored me. ET annoyed me. Friendly aliens are very difficult to do right, and I think the best sci-fi film to handle that subject was The Man Who Fell To Earth.

I remember being so disappointed with Close Encounters because there was that freaky abduction scene and then the aliens show up and want to just jam to some good tunes. Lame, Spielberg, lame.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

As I already mentioned, I think one thing that makes Close Encounters stand out in the Spielberg filmography is its protagonist is a guy who effectively chooses something else over his children. This is a very dysfunctional family without a happy ending. The rest of Spielberg's films are effectively love letters to fatherhood. That Spielberg wrote Close Encounters himself makes this theme all the more curious.

Also, there are three tenets to science fiction storytelling: social allegory, cautionary tales and to inspire the imagination. Close Encounters as a social allegory is daring if one considers the wave of isolationism that emerged from the fallout over Vietnam. Close Encounters suggests that we should not let apprehension build unnecessary walls between people. It's an important philosophy and one that I'm afraid we have yet to outgrow.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Love letters to fathers? Spielberg's entire filmography is riddled with absent fathers. No dad in ET, Indiana Jones is estranged from his dad. Christian Bale is separated from his parents (or are they killed? I can't remember) in Empire of the Sun. As mentioned, Richard Dreyfus' character abandons his family in Close Encounters. In Minority Report Cruise's character failed as a father to save his son. The only movie of his I can think of that shows a strong father figure who has a happy home life is Jaws. And Catch Me If You Can, maybe.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

War of the Worlds also has an absent father. So does Hook. Those movies have "happy" endings though.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Tone, atmosphere, pacing, line delivery, chemistry, action sequence shooting style, the director's hands are very evident. There's nothing worse than having a great script poorly directed where they mis-read the scene and get it delivered entirely too seriously, or not seriously enough, or entirely over the top, or just completely hammy. They're also responsible for making you give a damn about the characters and make sure the scenes are bristling with content.

I thought Abrams did alright on Star Trek, I just really hated his love of upclose, up nostril shots.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

Anyone notice David Gallagher from 7th Heaven as the Stoner?

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

That's because the 82 year olds out there who'd vote for Citizen Kane don't know how to work the email machine and cast their votes.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

#9 - #20 on that list are all sorts of screwy.

2 Star Wars, 2 Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight, Inception, Fight Club and City of God? All are good, but Top 20 of all time? Pssh.

Alas, that is imdb.

Re: Super 8 (produced by JJ Abrams)
 

I don't think it's screwy, people just need to stop thinking of that list as ranking the best films EVER.

I imagine IMDB voters aren't rating the quality of movies against each other, but as each movie individually based on enjoyment. Dark Knight or Inception are 9 or 10's in my book in entertainment value, but if I was basing my rating while thinking about how it compares to all the other movies i've seen in history, I'd have to adjust my score accordingly. I don't think many people care, or want to do that. Not sure why internet movie nuts always freak out about whatever is in the Top 10.

To be honest, I bet if most people actually did compare all the movie ratings they've ever done themselves, they'd see some screwy things too :lol: