Where has the time gone? "Super 8" is 10 today.

by Nathaniel R

the cast of Super 8

Remember Super 8? The sci-fi adventure was released ten years ago today. It was supposed to be a big Spielberg-size event (he produced it) and establish JJ Abrams as a successor. Things didn't quite work out that way, even though it was a decent-sized hit. Abrams retreated back into other people's franchises (Star Wars) where he'd begun as a film director (Mission Impossible and Star Trek). Super 8 grossed $127 million domestically (and another $100 million plus overseas) making it a success but probably not what Paramount was expecting stateside. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and The Smurfs both outgrossed it, keeping it outside the top 20 of its year. Still the sci-fi adventure had its fans and people by and large loved the young cast. And who knows. Perhaps it reengineered pop culture's DNA enough that five years later audiences turned Stranger Things into a phenomenon. Both are about a quartet of nerdy young boys, and the girl they're in awe of / a bit scared by, dealing with otherwordly forces in the Midwest. They're even set just four years apart Super 8 in 1979 and Stranger Things begins in 1983. 

Super 8 is streaming on Paramount+ at the moment. We didn't have time to rewatch the whole movie though we skimmed to refresh the memory. Elle's "acting" debut in the movie within the movie is still a terrifically explosive scene. Anyway, we thought it might be interesting to see how the cast is faring today in their mid-twenties. Let's take them in billing order...

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Kiki's Melancholia (& Other Saturn Triumphs)

Though I haven't yet seen any photographs of the Saturn Award event, held in Burbank this week and the last of the 2011 Film Awards -- arriving even later than the MTV Awards each year  -- we must rush to congratulate the one and only Kiki for her Best Actress win for Lars von Trier's apocalyptic arthouse amazement Melancholia. You may recall we also honored her right here in our Best Actress list. The Saturn Awards don't have anything like a prestigious reputation (often a problem with awards organizations voted on by fans) but they do have a long history (38 years!) which counts for something and you have to hand it to them this year that they're the only large non-critics awards group to honor Kirsten Dunst for her indelible embodiment of Planet Sized Depression though she did win the top Actress prize at a few film festivals (including the very definition of Prestige Reputation: the Cannes Film Festival) and was also honored by two critics orgs one minor and one major: Kansas Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics. 

A complete list of winners after the jump but if you're too lazy to click, please note that they seemed to love Super 8 best even though it didn't win any of their four Best Picture prizes. Wins and commentary if you...

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