Super 8 (Blu-ray + DVD) [2011] [Region Free]

Kids these days. They don't know what they're missing. Back in 1979, in the days before the internet, mobile phones, and computer games [computer games that were more sophisticated than pong, that is] folks had to make their own entertainment.You could make models, put up posters of tv stars or the space shuttle, ride around on chopper bikes. And you could make home movies with handheld cameras.Lost creator and star trek director JJ Abrams takes us back to those days with a movie all about that kind of life. And it's the kind of movie you might have seen at the time.Set in small town america our main character is young Joe. An emotional opening shows he and his father, one of the sheriffs deputies, struggling to connect in the wake of Joe's mother's tragic death.One release for Joe is via his friend Charles. Overweight and somewhat bossy, Charles makes movies and is desperate to get his zombie horror story completed in time to enter a movie festival.Enlisting Alice, a girl from a few grades above them at school, to play the female lead, the three plus their other friends are out shooting late one night when they witness a train crash. Which someone caused deliberately.As the air force move into town, secrets and strange events abound. Can Joe and the townsfolk find what's going on before their home is torn apart?Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and with the Amblin entertainment logo at the start, thats another way in which it harks back to the period. Along with a wealth of period detail and a fun scene of someone trying out a certain new invention. That looks very dated now.The picture quality does also look like something that's thirty years old, but that may be intentional. It doesn't stop it from being perfectly watchable.The train crash is the most convincing one I've ever seen in a movie - there might be minimal cgi involved - and does create a great feeling of being caught up in the middle of it. just as the characters are.Managing a good job of blending character interaction and development with the ongoing mystery of whats happening in the town, this is an involving and entertaing watch, but it does falter slightly at the end. The size of the cast of characters does mean by this point a few become rather sidelined and don't play as much part in the finale as they could. Plus the motivations of the thing that is behind it all aren't as clear as you might hope.Billed by many reviewers as a perfect family film it does contain some mild profanity on occasion.But all in all it's a fun return to a style of movie making that we'd thought vanished long ago.It's also worth watching the end credits. Where you get to see another movie entirely......The dvd has the following language and subtitle options:Languages: English, Hindi.Subtitles: English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Swedish.English audio descriptive track.The disc begins with several trailers but you can get past those via the next or the menu buttons on the dvd remote control.The only extras are:A commentary from the filmmakers.A fifteen minute long feature about how people made movies with super eight cameras back in the day, and how it inspired the film. This is interesting and delightful nostalgia and well worth a watch.There's also an eleven minute long feature about how the alien of the film was brought to life on screen.

A Five Star movie. Absolutely - however I will be the first to acknowledge that this has it's own unique niche audience, and won't be for everyone. This is a love letter to the movies of the late 70's and 80's, the movie of Zemeckis, Dante and yes, most of all Spielberg. For in this feature J.J. Abrams has created a love letter to Spielberg's era of moviemaking, a movie that both celebrates and emulates the styles and tools, the moviemaking grammar, and particularly the tone of movies from that era.It's all that, but still wrapped in a story, one that has a set of familiar elements, but wrapped up in a new enough arrangement. A bunch of kids in 1979 bond while making home movies with their Super 8 camera. They are filming one night when they witness a terrible train crash.. but when the dust settles, there is something from the cargo of the train that has been released, and it is about to have a major impact on the town. Scratch beneath that relatively simple skin though, and you'll find elements of the Goonies (bunch of kids coming of age through shared adventure), Close Encounters (paranoia, alien contact affecting ordinary small town folk), Gremlins (the black humour), and E.T. (adolescents coming of age in damaged families). And if this is an homage to Spielberg, then it's earlier Spielberg - the guns, deaths and occasional mild swear words aren't airbrushed out. It is very much a story first and foremost about real kids, living real lifes, and much less about the fantastic events happening around them. Yes there is spectacle towards the end, but only as a pay off to the emotional journey of the characters.. if it's just the action or effects you want, you will likely be disappointed. In fact, if there is any off note in the movie, it is the appearance of cgi - a very modern tool to tell an old fashioned story, and taking you out of the nostalgia trip somewhat. But it's not enough to derail the journey.It's not just the director; the look, the feel of the movie, down through sets, period detail and even the musical score, also celebrate that early 80's feel. And let's not forget those lead roles - kids who actually come across as real, likeable, believable - the scenes where they have to emote, particularly Elle Fanning, are amazingly genuine, and the relationship between the leads is handled in a delicate way which uses visuals and acting more than it does clunky exposition or awkward dialogue.So yes, it is my own personal 5 stars.. Maybe it's too nostalgic to appeal to today's kids, maybe its too much about kids to appeal to today's adults. But for me, I am just at that age that when I was young and impressionable it was Spielberg and Dante and the rest that stirred my own passion for movies, that made that first mark, that created those moments that would be my first love of cinema.. and it is precisely that feeling that has been captured and celebrated here. This is what happens when movies about kids are made by mature filmmakers. Watching it, I felt like that young wide eyed kid in the cinema again, and it was a glorious feeling.