Super 8

I'm not exactly sure where to start with this amazing film, perhaps I should start by saying Super 8 is by far the best movie of the summer. I'm saying this as a hardcore Harry Potter fan as well as a film buff.

Super 8 is one of those rare summer blockbusters that combines fun explosions, entertainment and a good well rounded story. Movie like that don't really exist in today's Hollywood however there was a time when they did and that time was dominated by the man that Super 8 pays homage to, Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg was also a producer on Super 8 but you could tell that this movie was really just a love letter from JJ Abrams to Spielberg himself. Abrams had stated that the idea for this movie came to him because when he as young he spent his summers making movies with his friend using his super 8 camera. He wanted to make a movie that featured a large part of his childhood, Spielberg. Now he is also known for running around making movies with his friends when he was a kid, in a way Super 8 is for both of them.

Now, people who have seen Cloverfield or watched Lost or anything else Abrams has done, they know the man is a genius and knows how to make a suspenseful movie that don't feel like a bad horror flick. However in Super 8, Abrams takes what he does best and merges it with Spielberg's classics to create a piece of art.

It's clear to see Spielberg's classics such as ET, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, The Goonies and even Jurassic Park reflected in Super 8 so I don't need to explore those. Instead I want to talk about the amazing child actors that carried this film.

Making a movie that focuses on children is difficult, kids aren't always easy to work with and it's hard to find those that can carry a large amount of depth needed for a film. The stars of Super 8 were fantastic. Apart from Elle Fanning, who I am a huge fan of, I hadn't seen these young actors in anything else. In fact, the lead role was given to a complete unknown and this was his first acting gig. His first acting gig. He blew me out of the park, all of them did. I knew going into it that Elle had the acting chops to hold a movie, having first seen her in Phoebe In Wonderland, a movie that changed my mind about kids in general, and then in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere. Each one of the kids in this film stood out and they all have a very bright future ahead of them.

Another thing I loved about this movie was how real it all felt. Yeah, I know aliens feeling real? Girl, you watch too much Doctor Who, but it was more than just the alien plot. The subplots felt really, the dynamic between the kids and how Fanning came between them. That happens in real life all the time, I'm sure each of us has a memory of when we liked someone but they liked our friend and we took it out of them. Happens everyday, and the relationships between the parents and their children. Everything was connected in a way that felt real and was explained just enough for us to get it and not need anymore.

Now, to the alien, what an amazing plot. I love how we went into the movie thinking that this was a monster and the bad guy but as the film developed we learned that this Alien didn't want to harm anyone, he/she just wanted to go home. Paging ET and making me cry again. That touch gave the movie such a classic feel but updated for this generation.

I could go on and on about all the little things I loved about this movie but I won't, I'll just say please go see it. It is worth every penny and it's clear to see this is a five star movie.

Daydream Nation

I just watched Daydream Nation starring Kat Dennings, Reece Thompson and Jon Lucas. It's a coming of age story about a city girl who upon a move to a small town decides her life needs some excitement in the form of an affair with her teacher and an unexpected tumble into love.

Before I start this review I should point out a few things.
1. I love Kat Dennings, I think she is beautiful and hilarious. She is one of the women that I wish I was instead of myself.
2. I have a huge weakness for coming of age dramas. Even more so when they are limited release or independent coming of age dramas. Although the story lines are often the same, I still love them. Something in me just can't get enough of them, maybe I'm still coming of age even in my early twenties or maybe we never really stop coming of age. I just love them, especially when they are about females.

Now know those two things, on to my review. I think it's safe for me to say that I really liked this film. I thought Kat Dennings did a wonderful job portraying a girl on the verge of college who has dealt with way too much for her age and just wants to pretend to be someone else while trying to figure out who she is. This film focused on what she does best, being sexy and sarcastic while still showing off that she can act. The rest of the cast holds up to her and Reece Thompson, who I had only seen in Rocket Science before this, did a great job as the stoner schoolmate who just can't get his life together. This role was completely different from Rocket Science which is always nice to see. I actually didn't put it together until I looked it up after because the two characters are so drastically different. Jon Lucas also did a great job of playing the teacher who is just as sexy as he is crazy. I loved that they added more of his story in the terms of his novel that he was trying to write, it was a great way to show the audience what Reece's character's possibly future could look like. I loved that subtle comparison.

The story was very different from other coming of age dramas because although with the romances, they added in what was going on in the town to the point that Kat's life was occurring around the events of the year when she started to change. That was a great way of showing it in a realistic way, most of us remember our personal events that led to us starting to change but we also could tell you how the world around us led to those. Along with that the film didn't just focus on Kat's character coming of age, just as much was about Reece's character finding himself. They balanced each other nicely in the way that first loves do, you're both a mess and tend to screw things up often but somehow things fall into place to help you grow. It's a beautiful mess (or maybe that was just my first love). As I already stated the film also focused a good deal on Jon Lucas' teacher and his slight mid-life crisis. It wasn't over the top but it was in there enough to allow the story to feel full. Along with this there where some great moments with Reece's character's younger sister. All this plots can sound confusing however from the way I looked at it, it really was a story about Reece and Kat. Reece's sister was a way of telling Kat's past from her childhood while Jon's was Reece's possible future. The way this plots twisted together created a beautiful pattern that flushed out the story in a creative way.

I love coming of age dramas however most of them suffer from the stories not feeling like a fully developed story, Daydream Nation was developed. I wasn't left sitting and saying wait, why did that happen? I don't understand why that person did that. I understood how the characters interacted and why the film concluded the way it did.
Overall I really enjoyed this film and gave it 4 and 1/3 stars. The acting and storytelling where right on par, I'd recommend this movie to other fans of coming of age dramas.