Super 8

I found out the other day that if you go to the theater before noon, you pay the Early Bird special of only $6...which is pretty awesome nowadays, even if it was what I used to pay for regular price when I first got my license and no longer had to rely on my mother to take me to the theater.  (She hates going to the movies....I think maybe I was adopted.)  I am excited about this because I often wait until a movie comes to our base theater before I see it because the tickets are so much cheaper, but I really wanted to see Super 8 in the Cinemark.  (Our base theater is, um, less than spectacular.  Just a tiny screen at the back of a stage in an auditorium with theater chairs in it.)

I really enjoyed this movie.  Think E.T.....if ET had looked a little bit like the deformed love-child of Alien and Predator and ran around digging tunnels and eating people while telepathically whining about how he's just really freaked out and wants to go home.

Snarkiness aside, it really was a good movie.  All of the kids acted really well (not that I was expecting any less from Dakota Fanning's little sister, Elle) and the story never dragged or stopped pulling on your heart strings.  (Yes, I have heart strings.  They're just tiny and hard to find.) And I always enjoy seeing Kyle Chandler on screen.

He's very sexy in that whole "Hot for Teacher" way.

Although JJ Abrams is the writer and director of this movie - and you can tell by the scarier side of it - you can still feel the Steven Spielberg effect all over it.  He does these types of boy coming of age by way of huge events movies very well.