SUPER 8: One of the Most Romantic Films of the Year

Since it’s Summer release in 2011, no film has been more indicative of its own downfall than J.J. Abrams’ SUPER 8, a cinematic valentine to its film’s co-producer, Steven Spielberg that is distractingly disguised as a sci-fi thriller and is quite simply, a motion picture placebo. If one were to brand and market said placebo, an apt name for the ineffective product would be “Déjà Vu”. Rife with homage to the filmmaker, it’s hard to discern whether the film is being self-referential to the 8mm film format in its moniker or whether it’s Abrams’ way of highlighting ‘eight’ (more or less, but it appears he miscounted as there are more) of Spielberg’s ‘super’ bodies of work, most particularly: JAWS [#1]; CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND [#2]; POLTERGEIST [#3]; E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL [#4]; THE GOONIES [#5]; “Amazing Stories” (Season One, Episode One: “Ghost Train”) [#6]; EMPIRE OF THE SUN [#7] and JURASSIC PARK [#8].

From the perspective of cinematic equipment, namely a tripod (notice its skewed point of view reflected in the film’s poster), as well as its appearance as a three-legged war machine in the sci-fi classic (and Spielberg’s 2005 re-boot), WAR OF THE WORLDS [#9], Abrams’ film-within-a-film likewise falls flat in an uncompelling fashion under the strain of such weighty adulation for his Amblin mentor and fellow producer - - much like the young filmmakers’ tripod collapses during the visually remarkable train crash and pivotal centerpiece in SUPER 8. In order to understand the crucial significance behind this cataclysmic sequence and why it was filmed over one year in advance of the film’s release date requires going back quite a few years.

Spielberg has said that his earliest childhood memory which impassioned him with his love of filmmaking was Cecil B. DeMille’s THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH that features a disastrous train wreck [see #6] created in the heyday of Hollywood crews’ skillful production of models, pyrotechnics and special-effects movie magic. Of the six children in SUPER 8 to first witness the catastrophic head-on collision of the pick-up truck derailing the multi-car Air Force train which unleashes an alien creature, it can be surmised that Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is the biographical construct of Mr. Spielberg, who, as a hobby in the film, creates and paints model train cars (later used during the staged train crash over the film’s closing credits) much like Steven did during his youth: Exhibit A | Exhibit B | Exhibit C

Watch the train crash in SUPER 8. At the very moment the pick-up truck’s two pairs of wheels merge with the track within striking distance of the trajectory of the train (just as Klaus [Lyle Bettger]’s vehicle did in DeMille’s film), the doomed lovers in Charles’ (Riley Griffiths) 8mm zombie film, “The Case”, utter the lines, “I love you so much’ and ‘I love you, too” moments before a shower of explosive, animated steel and debris surround the filmmakers as if they’re evading enemy gunfire in Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN [#10]. It’s curious that The Cars’ “Bye Bye Love” is playing in the soundtrack en route to the location-shoot at the train station - - could this perchance be Spielberg intimating ‘goodbye’ to the special effects filmmaking techniques of yesteryear, at once, so dear to his heart, as we enter the fully-digital arena of the 21^st century or is it simply an attempt at foreshadowing through the characters’ dialogue their fateful goodbyes? My money is on the former.

SUPER 8 has quite a bit to say about the act of looking. Like an adept filmmaker who is able to anticipate a problem on set, notice how Joe (initially tasked with being a grip and makeup artist) looks over his shoulder and is the first to be aware of the potential destruction about to befall his young friends. There is even a hollowed reverb element in the sound design to accentuate his close-up gaze of the oncoming disaster in the vein of the visually unsettling dolly zoom (or “Hitchcock zoom”) in VERTIGO or Spielberg’s use of the effect in JAWS. However, “The Case” is not Joe’s film. The film’s enthusiastic director, Charles, like J.J. Abrams, is strictly in it for the “production value” and focuses his tunnel vision on documenting his shot unable to foresee the damage about to come his way. Likely crowding his vision is Abrams’ penchant for lens flare which would’ve gotten a filmmaker fired in the good ole’ days of the Hollywood studio system.

It might be more significant that Joe is the sacrificial ‘lamb’ as the film’s youthful protagonist. The other characters and elements that permeate SUPER 8 seem to attract to him much like the emptied train cargo of mysterious, magnetized cubes which pull towards each other for reasons yet unknown. Just as Elliott (Henry Thomas) was initially ignored by those in his orbit [see #4], by the climax of E.T., after he forms a connection with an alien botanist, he becomes the central focus of attention towards which his peers gravitate. Similarly, Elliott’s family unit is broken by the exit of a parent (his father, a consistent theme in Spielberg’s work). In Abrams’ film, the Lamb family experiences the tragic loss of its wife and mother from an accident at the town’s steel mill. If it weren’t for the alien being escaping its steel prison cell of the train car and wreaking havoc on the fictional town of Lillian, OH, the death of Elizabeth Lamb (Caitriona Balfe) was already responsible for sending shockwaves through the tight-knit, mid-western town.

Strangely, the action that unfolds seems awfully familiar and starts to resemble a cinematic town full of filmic neighborhoods we’ve visited before. When the kids aren’t borrowing their parents’ automobiles, they get around with the assistance of their trusty bicycles [see #2, #3, #4, #5]. The military occupies the town of Lillian (named after Abrams’ grandmother) [see #1, #2, #4, #7] in an effort to cover up a government project which involved keeping an alien being captive as people are inextricably snatched [see #1, #2, #3, #8] by a nearly-unseen, tentacled beast who is pilfering various appliances [see #4] to construct its spaceship (aided by those cryptic, shape-shifting cubes). Unmanned automobiles in a used car lot {perhaps a nod to USED CARS [#11]?} spin out of control [see #3], levitate and magnetize to the spacecraft for additional ballast before the creature uses it to depart its water tower launch pad towards an extra-terrestrial destination at the fascination of the film’s surviving onlookers [see #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 ………. ].

Ordinary kids pitted in Extraordinary situations … Joe (SUPER 8) and Barry (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND) share striking, ‘70’s similarities.

Steven Spielberg is one of the most recognized, respected and strategic film directors in the world with entertainment properties valued in the billions of dollars. He has either mentored or (executive/co-) produced films by such directors as Frank Marshall, Robert Zemeckis, Joe Dante, Matthew Robbins, Kevin Reynolds, Todd Holland, Phil Joanou, Brad Bird, Barry Sonnenfeld, Michael Bay (who, coincidentally, was also known at the age of 13 to have a fondness for blowing up his train set and filming it with his 8mm camera), Peter Jackson, D.J. Caruso, Jon Favreau and others. In some of these relationships, Spielberg has humbly foregone the screen credit either for financial/political reasons or more assuredly, because he was passionate about the project and wanted to solely be its cinematic benefactor. To have such a prolific cinephile with a deft hand in his/her ring would surely be any filmmaker’s delight. Even upon Stanley Kubrick’s passing and after many private conversations on the craft of filmmaking and collaborations on the film which Kubrick stated was more suitable to Spielberg as it was “closer to his sensibilities”, Spielberg directed the ambitious A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

J.J. Abrams and his many ‘easter eggs’ (here, Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD) … Not seen on the wall is Charles’ other poster for John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN which takes place primarily in Haddonfield, IL. Haddonfield, NJ is the home town of the film’s producer/screenwriter Debra Hill - - as well as Steven Spielberg's home when he was a child.

Many of the aforementioned filmmakers have succeeded/are succeeding in their own right because of their individual creative, stylistic voices and the emotions they evoke in their respective audiences. Unfortunately, the young filmmakers’ inside references to George Romero in their construction of a low-to-no budget zombie horror picture in SUPER 8 are overshadowed by Abrams’ direction of his film in which “The Case” exists: a 112-minute master class on the essential cinema of Steven Spielberg.

Alexander Pain-ful’s, “The Decadence”

Despite the film’s gorgeous tropical vistas of the Big Island and its lushly photographed, Pacific-kissed and sun-blessed archipelagos, complemented by wall-to-wall Hawaiian folk music typically equated with relaxation and warmth, Alexander Payne’s THE DESCENDANTS is no cinematic day in paradise. When Phedon Papamichael’s camera isn’t capturing sumptuously picturesque island-soaked skylines, the film has a lot of weight in familial relations and shows how characters are inter-connected, most particularly through financially vested interests in an ancestral trust. And if it wasn’t for the “The” in the film’s title, one might think the film was entitled, “Decadence”, for its gluttonous excess of Hawaiian beauty and parallelization of moral deterioration. Entitled is a fitting word. Payne’s tropical tragi-comedy dramatizes that purveyor and haole land baron, Matt King (thespian ringleader and the consistently glib and ever-smug, George Clooney), oversees a trust that owns 25,000 acres of prime Hawaiian real estate in an impending sale to a commercial owner who will blight said land with hotels, franchised stores and various and sundry tourist traps. Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, King’s wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), is on life-support following a devastating water-skiing accident whose mortal decline counterbalances the meteoric rise of the financial sum expected from the sale of the Kings’ land investment. As the hereditary woes escalate in Payne’s pictorial paradise, each of King’s flawed archipelagic family members and close friends exhibit signs of arrested development and unlike the visually arresting backdrops on which they’re projected against, their actions in the film just aren’t pretty.

Nearly the entire cast is portrayed as vulgar, vitriolic, eccentric and depressive - - its adults and their children - - and ironically, the longest smile and the film’s most thoughtfully happy instance comes complements of Elizabeth King just moments before she succumbs to her accident-inducing coma. The adults lead a lazy existence with a foundation based in wealth management as they don shorts, flip-flops and casual wear in corporate settings while the children harbor an entitlement that they feel they can hurt those around them by texting injurious messages to fellow classmates, flipping people off, engaging in excessive name-calling, entangling themselves into their parents’ affairs, etc. Their respective futures appear destined for failure unlike those of their forebears who struggled and triumphed in their endeavors and provided the fruits over which the contemporary King clan labors. The film’s most potentially authentic emotional moment appears and in Payne-ish fashion, is crushed in a swell of sarcasm and obscenity when Troy (surfing guru, Laird Hamilton) directly connected to Elizabeth’s accident, tries to pass along his warmest regards and nearly looks as if he’s going to break down when King and his youngest daughter, Scottie (Amara Miller), brush him off. The authenticity of this moment is intensely and dramatically palpable yet is immediately destroyed giving way to scenes of relentlessly bad parenting, inappropriate slang words for a woman’s vagina (repeatedly uttered by young girls no less) and introductions of characters so incredibly kooky and ill-mannered that their presence seems like an excuse for a chuckle. Therein lies the double entendre of the film’s title - - THE DESCENDANTS - - whereas the King family descends from ancestral Hawaiian royalty, Payne charts a coarse course into a contemptibly immature realm which consumes all who are connected with the King fortune.

Decay and deterioration of communication (paralleled with the decomposition of Elizabeth’s mortal body and soul) exists between family members and dear friends which seem to serve as recurring punchlines rather than sharp examinations of human nature. Sensitive familial ties as fragile as these literally hang by a thread which seem destined to snap at any moment. THE DESCENDENTS is over-crowded with so many dysfunctional moments that it’s any wonder the King family finds any resolution to the number of problems which swirl around them and are yet to appear in their fictional futures. They can rest easy in knowing there is a financial safety net secured by the struggle and heartache of their ancestors to brace their descension into further depths of despair. Payne’s microcosmic view of humanity is distorted. What is especially troubling is when this brand of dark humor and dramaturgy draws laughs and sympathy from moviegoers. Thankfully, this has been isolated to a few floating islands in Mr. Payne’s paradise which is indeed very troubled.

Although there is more harmony in the film’s use of traditional Hawaiian music than between the film’s characters, the soundtrack has an adverse effect with regards to the accompanying visuals and actions that unfold. Similar to Tim Burton’s BEETLEJUICE employing a soundtrack of Calypso music, the music’s mood utilized in THE DESCENDANTS has a contradictory effect and becomes monotonously jarring, despite the few instances of diegetic music, for instance, where a Hawaiian band is playing in a dive bar.

The elder King, father-in-law, Scott Thorson (Robert Forster), is naïve to the fact that his “good girl” and “devoted”, “faithful wife” to Matt, has been having an affair with another man and treats her with compassion and dignity which is most becoming of a father. Upon his lips approaching his daughter’s mortal cheek for the last time, Matt, his daughter, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and her simpleton beau, Sid (Nick Krause), peer into Elizabeth’s hospital room from the hallway to watch humanity be exhibited, albeit through a small, sliver of an opening of the door. King hasn’t the slightest inclination of the meaning of fatherhood as he consults those in his network of family and friends (even his eldest daughter, Alexandra) for advice. He even refers to himself in voiceover as a “back-up parent”.

This proves one thing: when faced with mortality, the cast of characters move about the screen in a harried fashion. Matt runs several blocks in flip-flops to the delight of sheepish audiences not accustomed to such behavior out of the mega-star which is delightfully pretentious when he could’ve simply driven his car resting idly in the driveway. And his nuclear family goes on their own bounty hunt for the man with whom Elizabeth has been sleeping.

Even Hawaiian and pop-cultural icon, Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman, “Dog the Bounty Hunter”, makes a brief appearance via his television program of the same name. This is a trope that King follows when he goes on his own mission to seek out and serve his unfaithful wife’s suitor, Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard). Imagine a bumbling, middle-aged “Magnum, P.I.” leading his own brand of Keystone Kops or Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade donning flip-flops and casual fatigues as opposed to his fashionable suit and sans a legitimate private investigator license. (Ironically, Clooney’s portrayal of Matt King physically appears casually fatigued throughout the film.) Upon seeing the motley crew of modern-day gumshoes stealthily seeking out Speer, the image of them comes across as more of a family outing to dinner and a movie rather than an impromptu manhunt.

It doesn’t excuse the fact that a responsible father would prefer to engage in such activities on his own rather than having to involve his youngest children and explain any potential repercussions likely to occur. Although the hunt for Speer serves no financial bounty for King and Company, it is eventually revealed that the hunted Speer will come into a bountiful sum of money if King’s trusted ancestral estate is sold to Speer’s commercial employer. Herein lies the conundrum: when pitted between choosing to sell the land or not, this will make Matt’s immediate family filthy rich and bestow a huge commission to Brian Speer in the process or King can maintain the dignity of his descendants visualized in the obligatory scene when Matt literally shines a light on photographs of his ancestors as he opens the seemingly long-closed shades in a cottage tomb of relics, framed pictures and keepsakes of his family.

Sadly, it is Elizabeth who insists through her Will that she be removed from life-support if there seems no chance of recovery and her body isn’t able to keep. This document thereby becomes the second instance of legal trouble for King to overcome; a gross contemporary representation of bodily maintenance compared to what King’s ancestors had assuredly implemented for their own well-being. It just seems quite value-less when one has to involve power of attorney to avoid spoiling like milk, as King’s father-in-law, Thorson, puts it. The duration of the film depends on Elizabeth hanging on for dear life, just as she clutches onto her small hand towels, so that those close to her not only have ample time to pay their final respects, but have the opportunity to offer forgiveness and/or right their wrongs with the soon-to-be-departed. It is therefore especially chilling when King vehemently curses her imminent corpse as he comes to grips on his inheritance decision knowing that she has been unfaithful to their holy bond of marriage.

The film shows that mortal death is inevitable. Robert Forster’s portrayal of Scott Thorson doesn’t look too far off either. Whoever oversaw his make-up and decor really made him look dreadful. (It didn’t seem so long ago that he knocked one out of the park in JACKIE BROWN as skilled bail bondsman, Max Cherry - - that ball is still soaring overhead.) THE DESCENDANTS not only shows the face of death by way of Elizabeth’s mortality, but also magnifies and inspects it on numerous occasions and when it takes on another form after cremation, the film comes to rest on its post-mortal ashes as they’re shoveled into the Pacific Ocean to descend the Polynesian depths. Elizabeth’s face is an image that is multiplied many times over in a child’s photography assignment at her elementary school. Its cooling visage is even applied with makeup. There is something terribly wrong about all of this.

On the other hand, George Clooney’s Matt King, though living and breathing, is utterly emotion-less with a consistently gravelly inflection. When he’s portraying happy, it appears to be sarcastic. When he shows anger, it still appears facetious. At once, when the script calls for him to be overcome with sorrow, his expressions of grief and anguish are wooden and just plain sad.

The film will unequivocally cater to mainstream audiences in the nation’s blue states; which is interesting, because one might deduce the correlation of first-generation Greek, Director Alexander Payne’s cultural affinity for the color, blue. Ironically, it was in Ancient Greece that there was a lack for a word for blue. Yet it has since become the prevailing and national color of the Hellenic nation (as well as a repellant for evil spirits and flies). Likewise, Payne’s films (most particularly evident in SIDEWAYS and THE SAVAGES) have slyly garnered an attraction to those audiences of a socially aware, liberally elitist, granola nature.

Were it not for the exalting imagery of the Hawaiian setting, THE DESCENDANTS appears as if it was contrarily produced and shot on a shoestring budget. The mise en scène of the various residence interiors, Alexandra’s private school, the hospital and adjoining beach venues exude a feeling of “on location” and look as though the film crew just happened to show up to film the respective environments. Coupled with this is an inordinate amount of close-ups, specifically in the exchange between King and Cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges). At the pivotal point when Hugh reveals the connection between Brian Speer and King’s ancestral investment, one close-up here would have been more effective. Instead, a monotonous series of close-ups ensue that are both uneven and makes one wonder if Payne shot the scene in this manner because he was in short supply of background extras the day of the shoot.

In the surf laden atmosphere of Hawaii, perhaps it would’ve been to Payne’s benefit to hang ten - - of his fictional cast of characters - - whose depressive and ultra-distressed existences make THE DESCENDANTS look more like a BLUE HAWAII. Come the finale, the King family sits down to ice cream (ala Marc Forster’s MONSTER’S BALL) perhaps to soothe their exacerbated tummies of the mutual stresses they overcame prior as they watch Luc Jacquet’s documentary sleeper, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS. If Payne is trying to relate the treacherous journey of the (emperor and female) penguins to that of King’s similarly “ancestral” breeding ground, then that is a further insult to the viewer - - quite frankly, the journey of the penguins is more arduous and exciting and portrays a more stable vision of parenthood despite the harmful elements that swirl around them as they help strengthen and develop their young.