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Honestly, I haven’t seen many movies this year.

Save for quick shots to the theater in the winter to see Oscar nominees like True Grit and The King’s Speech and maybe a few more, I paid premium money to go to The Adjustment Bureau - I blame my friends and their poor taste; it was horrendously horrible - and The Descendants - a decent flick, I think, and that happy medium kind of movie my family and I decided on over Thanksgiving.

And, save for being there for Reeling Film Festival’s opening night selection here in Chicago last month, that’s kinda been it.

What’s been interesting to me about this year, then, is that this might be the first time I’ve seen more new releases at home than I have, well, outside my home. I’ve got my buddy Redbox to thank, as well as a Netflix account a friend and I are sharing.

On top of that, I’ve become more patient with my movie going. I just haven’t been compelled to see much anything this year and have figured that a) saving money is good and b) well, there isn’t a whole lot being made anymore that I need to see right now.

I’ll get to them when I get to them, you know?

With that said, I got to a few of them, and came out the other side feeling a bit displeased, if not confused. A few movies I expected to be awesome were largely opposite that; they failed to hold a candle to my expectations. And with it being near the end of the year and all, I thought it a good idea to go over a few of ‘em.

Besides a knock on the filmmakers’ reputations, it’s been mostly no harm, no foul for me. So a movie was rather bad - at least I didn’t spend more than a buck to see it!

Among them:

Super 8

I suppose the big miss about Super 8 is that I’m not of the demographic the film catered to satisfy. If I were 13 I probably would have loved this thing. But I’m not - I’m nearly twice that. I came away feeling duped into seeing something that in its marketing implied it had J.J. Abrams’ seal of approval.

Let’s re-remember those original trailers and teasers, shall we? If you recall, they play very much like a sequel to Cloverfield or some other J.J.-branded movie would: They reveal little to nothing, but tempt you with just enough to wanna know what’s in that box! In Super 8’s case, the box is way more than a figurative thing. There’s a being - something - that survived a giant train explosion, and is all but begging to be unleashed from its confines as the trailer or teaser comes to an end.

Well, what in the hang is it?!

The first quarter or so of Super 8 is good, but then it transitioned into a basic thing, really; a film too simple to have been written and directed by J.J. Abrams.

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