Totenkindly
@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
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I know E.T. is considered a classic film and well-revered by many with all of its accolades industry-wide, but I don't recall it ever doing much for me. I have not watched it for a good 20 years or more but don't remember much from that watch either. In fact, the only salient point (other than general plot) I recall is that they were playing Dungeons and Dragons in the beginning. But it very much felt like Spielberg's sense of childhood overlaid on my generation; I know the military thing suggests that soldiers and government cannot be trusted, but also I never really viewed aliens as benevolent and peace lovers either. It's a big universe, we are all strangers with different needs, and we all start from places of agnosticism -- we don't really know what each other wants or expects.
When Super 8 came out, I actually saw it in the theater with a few folks from these typology sites (it might be the only film I have ever watched in NYC). My first watch, I was kind of disappointed because it didn't match my expectations, but it did grow on me over the years. So the 4K transfer just came out and mine arrived yesterday, so I watched it last night. First of all it is a STELLAR transfer, both the video and audio. I never really realized how important audio is or how much information is included on tracks, until I started watching 4K films -- but there is stuff I now hear in films I have seen multiple times previously that I did not even know was there. The audio for the entire film is phenomenal, but I'm wondering if I freaked out the neighbors, watching the train scene at 12:30am with the audio up. When the kids first go onto the platform, I could actually HEAR the breeze and the creak of the steps, as well as seeing it; it really felt like I was there. But the train wreck sequence is nuts with the audio up. It's like being in the middle of the actual wreck.
Anyway, all that aside. while some of the film can feel a little slow, it's still well-constructed and the opening sequences are emotionally poignant -- a lot of back story is told through simple imagery and location. But really, I have always considered this film (set in 1979, in the same basic time period as E.T.) as the more "real" alien visitation story. And I think the kids in Spielberg's version are too sanitized and "happy" -- it always feels like 50's "everything is right in the world" shoved in to twenty years later.
No, I'm Gen X, I basically grew up a latchkey kid in rural PA (so not unlike rural Ohio, although Lillian OH had many more families than my little town did). Both of my parents worked, so my mom made dinner and did chores but for some years was on day shift (and not home during the day) or worked night shift. My dad was pretty much never home or if he was, he was sleeping off a drunk and/or a pain in the ass and I didn't want to be home. The same kind of setup is in Super 8 -- moms are gone and/or buried under demands from 5-6 kids, dads are busy at best and dealing with their own shit. Joe's dad (as is Joe) is dealing with the accidental loss of Joe's mom; meanwhile, Alice is dealing with her own dad's emotional absence (and no mom, who left him) because he's either working or drinking. Basically the result of one salary no longer being enough to support a family and both parents needing to work to maintain the household.
Not only is there this horrible sense that you are on your own (can't depend on your parents) or actually PREFER to be on your own (because your parents are hot messes); but you pretty much just have your friends and have to depend on yourself to figure out life. There is no authority you can really trust... or even if you think they are trustworthy, the reality is that they just don't care enough to guide you, so you are still on your own. This makes you very resourceful, and adventurous, and competent individually; you learn how to take care of yourself; but at times I know I experienced (and still do) a disconnect from people and/or feel like there is nothing dependable in the world either.
the government and authorities are also even less trustworthy than the ET film. From what I recall, the docs and army guys were hidden in their outfits / professional costumes, so they were unknowable -- maybe they are good, maybe bad, but unknowable? Here the army is knowable but not benevolent --it becomes very quickly clear that they are trying to cover up something and in fact are culpable for how events are unfolding. Nor do they much care about average people. Meanwhile, Joe's deputy dad is lost in his work (handling the town's problems with the sheriff missing) because he's too emotionally damaged over his own loss to deal with his son, who he wants to send away so he can suffer in silence. There's also a telling scene where Joe comes home to a house of cops, and his dad tells him he left him some pizza in the fridge (as makeshift supper) and another cop says "Uh, no, I ate those, sorry kid." And Joe just politely says, "It's okay." And his dad offers nothing else, leaving Joe to fend for himself. WTF? But that was my life too, being respectful to authority mostly because I felt they were clueless and it was best not to engage them / get into arguments with them, so they wouldn't inadvertently meddle in your business when they didn't understand your needs anyway.
So basically the main characters both feel abandoned / unseen by their parents. they also find this kinship with their frightening alien, when they realize that all of them have suffered loss -- there is some kind of shared "sentience" there in this parallel experience of being lost, being abused/neglected, needing to take care of yourself, and thus also feeling like no one else understands or cares -- and why should they, because we're all on our own anyway trying to survive? But they realize they share that, and you can keep living despite it. the film is also about facing grief together rather than isolating oneself or lashing out at others who are also grieving... and accepting you cannot let your past direct your future, that each moment you have to find and create your own life and happiness. Others will not do it for you, although we can all do it together and share that experience, if we are open to it. I've been pissed off at a lot of Abrams' recent work, but this is the part about Lost and Super 8 and MI:3, etc., his earlier stuff, that I loved -- we're the same generation and I felt like he was speaking for me, we didn't have anything external to depend on (even the family structure), so you're kind of adrift... but maybe if you are fortunate, you will find people in your life (peers, friends) who you can make your own kind of family with and find love, companionship, etc., that way, even after the structures of life (blood family, government, etc) have all ceased to offer anything.
I think this was the first film I saw Elle Fanning in and might be the one that really catapulted her into the public eye. I had heard that "dakota fanning's sister" might be a better actress than she was, and this film bore it out. She's just remarkable, getting up there into the realm of Kirsten Dunst for young acting precociousness. Her line delivery on the first take at the train station is just emotionally stunning -- all the characters (the boys) are speechless and moved, and it's one of those cases where the audience is left feeling similarly.
I forgot Rain Man. Yeah, he's very self-centered in the beginning and if I recall just wants to use his brother for an inheritance or something? But then he actually starts to care about him.
When Super 8 came out, I actually saw it in the theater with a few folks from these typology sites (it might be the only film I have ever watched in NYC). My first watch, I was kind of disappointed because it didn't match my expectations, but it did grow on me over the years. So the 4K transfer just came out and mine arrived yesterday, so I watched it last night. First of all it is a STELLAR transfer, both the video and audio. I never really realized how important audio is or how much information is included on tracks, until I started watching 4K films -- but there is stuff I now hear in films I have seen multiple times previously that I did not even know was there. The audio for the entire film is phenomenal, but I'm wondering if I freaked out the neighbors, watching the train scene at 12:30am with the audio up. When the kids first go onto the platform, I could actually HEAR the breeze and the creak of the steps, as well as seeing it; it really felt like I was there. But the train wreck sequence is nuts with the audio up. It's like being in the middle of the actual wreck.
Anyway, all that aside. while some of the film can feel a little slow, it's still well-constructed and the opening sequences are emotionally poignant -- a lot of back story is told through simple imagery and location. But really, I have always considered this film (set in 1979, in the same basic time period as E.T.) as the more "real" alien visitation story. And I think the kids in Spielberg's version are too sanitized and "happy" -- it always feels like 50's "everything is right in the world" shoved in to twenty years later.
No, I'm Gen X, I basically grew up a latchkey kid in rural PA (so not unlike rural Ohio, although Lillian OH had many more families than my little town did). Both of my parents worked, so my mom made dinner and did chores but for some years was on day shift (and not home during the day) or worked night shift. My dad was pretty much never home or if he was, he was sleeping off a drunk and/or a pain in the ass and I didn't want to be home. The same kind of setup is in Super 8 -- moms are gone and/or buried under demands from 5-6 kids, dads are busy at best and dealing with their own shit. Joe's dad (as is Joe) is dealing with the accidental loss of Joe's mom; meanwhile, Alice is dealing with her own dad's emotional absence (and no mom, who left him) because he's either working or drinking. Basically the result of one salary no longer being enough to support a family and both parents needing to work to maintain the household.
Not only is there this horrible sense that you are on your own (can't depend on your parents) or actually PREFER to be on your own (because your parents are hot messes); but you pretty much just have your friends and have to depend on yourself to figure out life. There is no authority you can really trust... or even if you think they are trustworthy, the reality is that they just don't care enough to guide you, so you are still on your own. This makes you very resourceful, and adventurous, and competent individually; you learn how to take care of yourself; but at times I know I experienced (and still do) a disconnect from people and/or feel like there is nothing dependable in the world either.
the government and authorities are also even less trustworthy than the ET film. From what I recall, the docs and army guys were hidden in their outfits / professional costumes, so they were unknowable -- maybe they are good, maybe bad, but unknowable? Here the army is knowable but not benevolent --it becomes very quickly clear that they are trying to cover up something and in fact are culpable for how events are unfolding. Nor do they much care about average people. Meanwhile, Joe's deputy dad is lost in his work (handling the town's problems with the sheriff missing) because he's too emotionally damaged over his own loss to deal with his son, who he wants to send away so he can suffer in silence. There's also a telling scene where Joe comes home to a house of cops, and his dad tells him he left him some pizza in the fridge (as makeshift supper) and another cop says "Uh, no, I ate those, sorry kid." And Joe just politely says, "It's okay." And his dad offers nothing else, leaving Joe to fend for himself. WTF? But that was my life too, being respectful to authority mostly because I felt they were clueless and it was best not to engage them / get into arguments with them, so they wouldn't inadvertently meddle in your business when they didn't understand your needs anyway.
So basically the main characters both feel abandoned / unseen by their parents. they also find this kinship with their frightening alien, when they realize that all of them have suffered loss -- there is some kind of shared "sentience" there in this parallel experience of being lost, being abused/neglected, needing to take care of yourself, and thus also feeling like no one else understands or cares -- and why should they, because we're all on our own anyway trying to survive? But they realize they share that, and you can keep living despite it. the film is also about facing grief together rather than isolating oneself or lashing out at others who are also grieving... and accepting you cannot let your past direct your future, that each moment you have to find and create your own life and happiness. Others will not do it for you, although we can all do it together and share that experience, if we are open to it. I've been pissed off at a lot of Abrams' recent work, but this is the part about Lost and Super 8 and MI:3, etc., his earlier stuff, that I loved -- we're the same generation and I felt like he was speaking for me, we didn't have anything external to depend on (even the family structure), so you're kind of adrift... but maybe if you are fortunate, you will find people in your life (peers, friends) who you can make your own kind of family with and find love, companionship, etc., that way, even after the structures of life (blood family, government, etc) have all ceased to offer anything.
I think this was the first film I saw Elle Fanning in and might be the one that really catapulted her into the public eye. I had heard that "dakota fanning's sister" might be a better actress than she was, and this film bore it out. She's just remarkable, getting up there into the realm of Kirsten Dunst for young acting precociousness. Her line delivery on the first take at the train station is just emotionally stunning -- all the characters (the boys) are speechless and moved, and it's one of those cases where the audience is left feeling similarly.
I forgot Rain Man. Yeah, he's very self-centered in the beginning and if I recall just wants to use his brother for an inheritance or something? But then he actually starts to care about him.
