Make your own damn -super 8- movie!

Rating: 10/10 (22 October 2012)

I just finished reading a couple of terrific books about cinema: THE KILL BILL DIARY, by the late David Carradine, and MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE!, by the legendary father of the Toxic Avenger Lloyd Kaufman (one of my heroes). Reading them back-to-back was pretty interesting as I could have a nice look at the making of both a big-budget and a low-budget movie, the anti-Spielberg school of though (both Carradine and Kaufman are Spielberg detractors) and at the passion and compromise of a filmmaker; I mean, in those books you deal with Tarantino and Kaufman and both are truly hard-workers with an infinite love for cinema.
SUPER 8 is obviously about movies; it's about the essence of both a low-budget and a big- budget picture. That's why I recalled those books, and how Tarantino and Kaufman work, while watching J.J. Abrams' movie. Here we have, just like in this year's FRANKENWEENIE, the clear indication that the director had a love towards movies since he was a little kid and began expressing that by making crappy, wonderful super 8 films. Trey Parker writes in the foreword to MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE! that after watching THE TOXIC AVENGER as a 13-year-old boy, he was inspired to shot (in super 8, I suppose) his own damn crap – Parker is only 3 years younger than J.J. Abrams, so you know what I mean.
Abrams is doing here a wonderful tribute to the early days of any filmmaker of his generation, and to the stuff they all loved too (super 8 films, STAR WARS and vintage Spielberg). And to do that he is basically dividing SUPER 8 into two films: one with the essence of guerrilla filmmaking and the other with everything a big-budget Hollywood movie offers, like I said.
SUPER 8 is about a group of kids in the late seventies; with the inspiration of such low-budget horror classics as John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN and George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, they are shooting their own damn super 8 zombie movie. The director of that little movie is not our main character but his best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths); this chubby director is pure f****** guerrilla filmmaking! The cool thing is that I could see both Tarantino and Kaufman in the boy. In THE KILL BILL DIARY, Carradine says that Quentin is always writing new lines and stuff during production; and in Kaufman's book we learn that he, well, does everything the guerrilla way: changes the script all the time and is always looking for "production value" like some fire trucks, for instance. The chubby kid does the exact same things while shooting his zombie flick.
The production value that Charles wants for his movie is actually part of the production value that Abrams is showing off: a huge train. SUPER 8 is (in part, like I mentioned) basically Abrams showing off his 50 million dollars budget. If you're like me and don't really have a big admiration for the big Hollywood disaster pictures (which always involve the US army and stuff), well, guess what? SUPER 8 is probably as noisy, if not nosier, than most. There are explosions everywhere and noise and a train crashing in the most unbelievable, exaggerated, pure Hollywood way. But you know what? SUPER 8 is really clever and, by far, my favorite big- disaster-Hollywood movie in recent memory.
Let's all forget CLOVERFIELD (not that I think in it constantly) and enjoy this fun and emotive one (think in the 2009 masterpiece DISTRICT 9 and in any great coming-of-age film for the emotional aspect) that, just like those books I read, gives some nice lessons about cinema (hell, it even shows you how to make the audience care for your characters!). Lloyd Kaufman says that there's nothing wrong with going mainstream if you do some good out of it (like Trey Parker or SUPER director James Gunn, he adds). For my money, Abrams is doing exactly that, if not with every single one of his projects, at least with SUPER 8.
PS: you must, hell, you will stay for the closing credits for some damn fun and a couple of great songs, including the classic "My Sharona"!
*Watched it on 06 and 17 October, 2012