The Daily Texan rated Super 8 in the Top 5 Movies of 2011:
The film gets the coming-of-age story at its center so right that it’s impossible to leave off this list. Magnificent performances from Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney make for several wistful, heartwarming moments, and Abrams nails the awe-inspired Spielberg aesthetic that made many of the films he’s trying to emulate classics.
The Dare to Dream show has Joel Courtney listed as their "Breakout Movie Star" for 2011.
A Breakout Star list of 2011 would not be complete without Joel Courtney. Joel wowed audiences this year with his relatable and real performance as Joe Lamb in the summer blockbuster Super 8.Courtey currently has 2 films in post –production that we can’t wait to see. We know we’ll be seeing more of the star in 2012!
Joel has been noniated by the BAM Awards in the category of "Best Performance by a Child Actor in a Leading Role".
But that's not the only Super 8 award nominations.
From the Twin Cities Daily Planet:
4. Super 8, directed by J.J. Abrams (USA)
The most commercial film on this list, J.J. Abrams’s Super 8 is a reminder of why we go to the movies in the first place: to be entertained. Abrams kept his plot secret for months before its release: Super 8 involves a group of adolescent kids working on a horror film, until their lives take a supernatural turn as a military science experiment derails from a train and sends their small town into a media frenzy. Abrams’s cast of young child actors are “mint”; the film showcased a breakthrough performance from Joel Courtney as a young adventurer caught in the middle of his first love. Super 8proved to be even better than all the hype that surrounded the film last summer promised.
The Gator Star reviewed Super 8:
The casting of characters was perfect and everyone acted very well. Joel Courtney (Joe Lamb) just stole my heart. He did a great job conveying such a wide range of emotions throughout the movie. I knew Dakota Fanning’s younger sister was acting now, but this was my first time seeing Elle Fanning. She can definitely hold her own, very impressive. She had me crying with her when she was watching old home videos in Joe’s room.
The Daily Beast rated Joel and Elle with the "9th Best Kiss of 2011", even though their lips never touched. Read why.
Elle Fanning has been acting in front of a camera for the majority of her young life, so it was no surprise when, in director J. J. Abrams’s Super 8, she wowed both her fictional castmates and real-life audiences with a captivating performance in the amateur “film” that the young characters make with a Super 8 camera. What nobody quite saw coming, however, was the chemistry between Fanning and Joel Courtney, who had never acted professionally before Super 8. In one pivotal scene, Courtney, whose character has a long-standing crush on Fanning’s, explains how to act like a zombie for their film. Fanning does a spot-on impression, deadening her eyes and approaching him with threatening, outstretched arms. But the closer her face gets to his, the more it occurs to both Courtney and audiences that their lips might touch. She pulls away before contact is made, but the atmosphere left behind is as emotion-packed as after any kissing scene. When asked by MTV News why he didn’t have the kids play out a full kiss, Abrams said, “These were kids who, their affection for each other didn’t necessarily need to be played out with a kiss. But hopefully you get the sense that their feelings for each other are profound.”
James A. Molnar of the Toledo Free Press rated Super 8 as one of the Top 3 Movies of 2011 because it "hit home."
The hand of death has touched my life. And the reminders are haunting.
There is a scene in “Super 8” where Joel’s Courtney’s character Joe Lamb is watching old movies featuring him and his mom together.
“It’s so weird watching her like this, like she’s still here,” he says about his mom to Alice Dainard, played by Elle Fanning. “She used to look at me this way, like really look. And I just knew I was there. That I existed.”
