Super 8 was terrific...

Spoilers, links below...










I managed to go in knowing only: small town, kids, alien, train crash. It was pretty much a perfect movie . . . until the alien grabbed Joe.

The alien design was lackluster and not remotely deserving such an extended closeup. I actually prefer Ben 10's Ultimate Spider-Monkey version of the same concept. And I'm going to pretend the over the top Steven Spielberg-style shmaltz that takes over the movie at that point just never happened. In my alternate universe, the kids manage to run away from the alien, watch its spaceship take off, and reunite with their dads. No heart to heart with the giant spidergorilla, and no hit me over the head with the frying pan metaphor of letting go of mom's necklace.

Also, everyone in the movie had wonderful, memorable moments, except for Kyle Chandler, who was as memorable as a block of wood.

Here are a few related links:



Jack Rossi created a poster and one of the alien's mysterious cubes.




Since I avoided spoilers, I missed this, but apparently there was some sort of special popsicle sold at 7-Elevens as a tie in.




JJ Abrams used to be known as Jeffrey Abrams and his first movie was Taking Care of Business.




As I understand it, flash drives loaded with video clips were sent to various movie sites, and when assembled made this short film (which is seen in the movie).

Spider-Man: Edge of Time wallpaper and trailer (plus two game reviews)

Here's the trailer for Spider-Man: Edge of Time. I cropped a widescreen wallpaper featuring Anti-Venom:



Which all gives me a good reason to finally mention how much I liked the DS version of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. I picked up Shattered Dimensions ($20 at Amazon) and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien (also $20) for my boys. But after they asked me for help with the Spidey game, I fell in love with it and claimed it for my own. The game is a lot like Metroid starring Spider-Man. He controls so well and has so many moves that for quite awhile I simply enjoyed swinging and crawling on walls. I highly, highly recommend it. (You can watch a full playthrough here.) I can't think of any game I've actually enjoyed replaying this much. My 4 and 6 year olds have also come to love it as long as I help them past the two or three tricky parts.

What's strange is that it and the Ben 10 game were both made by Griptonite. And Ben 10 was abysmal in every way - - the characters control terribly, it's difficult to see where to go next, the next platform is always off camera so jumps are blind and often fatal, save zones are too far apart, and cut scenes are long, boring and unskippable.