SUPER 8

JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg's Super 8 has been touted around as Stand by Me meets The Goonies meets E.T. via everything else in between, and whilst those movies would seem to be disparate poles apart on the face of it, the reality is that this mash up works really rather well indeed. Super 8 is a great fun adventure ride with a soft, sympathetic centre.

I'll be frank straight off the bat though, I'm no fan of JJ Abrams whatsoever. Cloverfield was fun I admit, but he didn't direct it. His Mission Impossible 3 was boring, I couldn't give a rat's ass about dismal shit like Lost, and his Star Trek reboot (although I have warmed to it on secondary viewings) was a Star Trek movie made for people that don't like Star Trek (i.e. bad to the point of being offensive).  Spielberg on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. He’s very easy to knock and take pot shots at, but the geezer knows his onions, and the day I badmouth the man responsible for Raiders of the Lost Ark is the day them pigs start flying! So yes the creative forces behind this have many varying, different degrees of quality between them.

After a poignant opening, we meet Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), son of a small town policeman trying to deal with the premature death of his mother in a tragic work accident. 4 months on from the tragedy and he's being recruited by his movie obsessed best buddy Charles (Riley Griffiths) to help him complete a Super 8 zombie movie over the school holidays in order to eventually enter it in a competition; getting all their mates on board including new friend Alice (Elle Fanning). Alice is the daughter of the man Joe's father holds responsible for his wife's death and so both father's are dead set against their friendship.  The kids set to work making their movie anyway, filming after school and in the evenings. One evening they all head off to the train tracks to film a new scene and it at this point the film diverges from one genre to the other. I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't curious to see this film without the extraterrestrial aspects. On it's own as a coming of age tale this could indeed have been very interesting and is clearly where all the Stand By Me comparisons are coming from. Nonetheless the alien element is cracking fun and the film is not diminished by it. It's just different, and takes the film off on quite a tangent.

At the train track filming the kids witness a spectacular train crash. In a stunning set piece, carriages are flung far and wide, things explode, and ultimately a rather aggressive alien is unleashed. In the aftermath of the crash they find their school science teacher has a long held secret regarding some top secret government work, and gradually strange things start happening in town. Generators and microwaves and car engines are all stolen and every single dog in the area runs away!

Now from this point on the film is not perfect, but it is above all else a lot of fun. In particular the design of the alien is very uninspired. Looking like a mix of something from Men In Black, and a Transformer it's poorly rendered cgi means the creature leaves little to no impression on the viewer. The anchor of the film is left to be the kids and their friendship, and fortunately this gets us through! That's not to give the impression that everything involving the alien is bad though. There are some cracking set pieces, from the train crash to a bus attack to a suburban war zone; and once the alien was unleashed we feel more like we're in a Spielberg film. There's some classic Spielberg-ian show and tell going on. Show you everything but tell you nothing. A cherry picker scene amongst the tree tops (with an unseen force the other side of the trees being very reminiscent of some Jurassic Park velociraptor interfaces); or the gas station incident with the local sheriff, both straight out of Spielberg’s big book of classics.

There is much fun to be had with Super 8. I saw it on a grim, wintery Friday afternoon. At a loose end with the afternoon off work, Super 8 was the perfect way to spend the time.

Super 8? More like Super Great!

IMDB: Super 8

SNOWTOWN

Snowtown is the story of notorious Australian serial killer John Bunting and his accomplices, who in the 1990’s murdered 11 people in and around Adelaide, dumping their remains in the eponymous town of the title. It is a brutal and tough film to watch. A grim ordeal in places, but worthwhile overall if you can stomach being in the company of some callous and wretched specimens of humanity.

The film as been accused of being lacking in judgement of its abhorrent central characters, but their actions speak for themselves in some pretty harrowing scenes of torture and murder. While it’s true that the film does have a certain air of detachment, it is not manipulative in the way a Hollywood serial killer movie might be. The filmmakers take up a distanced vantage point for sure, but there won’t be a single person watching this who could take away anything other than revulsion from Bunting’s deeds. The film’s skill is in this detachment. You are complicit in a way - forced to witness the crimes in the same way that Jamie Vlassakis initially is, as he is drawn in to Bunting’s deluded and sickening world.

Make no mistake though, this film does not ask you to sympathise with any of these people. Instead it attempts to show how these crimes could occur. John Bunting is portrayed as a charismatic ‘bloke next door’, popular in the neighbourhood and a father figure to Jamie Vlassakis (excellently played by Lucas Pittaway in his debut role) and his brothers. It’s a chilling turn by Daniel Henshall, who deserves all the plaudits he’s is currently receiving. But even so this charisma masks the true nature of a violent killer, as a warped sense of vigilante justice paves the way for evermore disturbing and escalating homicides.

There is very little by way of expository dialogue. There are no characters rattling off unrealistic summaries of events, and this further lends itself to the feeling of the viewer as eyewitness. Whilst this is an interesting and admirable approach, it is also where Snowtown does falter. Whilst I do always appreciate a filmmaker crediting his/her audience with enough intelligence not to have to spell everything out, Snowtown’s sparseness of exposition leads to some confusing and often muddled elements. As a non-Australian, largely unfamiliar with the crimes of John Bunting and his accomplices, I did lose my way on more than one occasion particularly surrounding the identities of some of the peripheral characters.

Nevertheless, it is resoundingly worth watching, if wholly unpleasant as an experience. It has a seedy, washed out look that helps drag you into the claustrophobic confines of the murder scenes, and the unpleasant mire of the protagonists. As you observe the depths to which human beings can sink, you’re not asked to like it, merely to witness it. While Snowtown is an excellently made and beautifully shot movie, it is not likely to be one that welcomes repeated viewings.

IMDB: Snowtown