Super 8 Great, Powerline Wrong

One of the guys at the indispensable Powerline, following the lead of Big Hollywood, is saying that the new film Super 8 fits the anti-military pattern we’ve been seeing for years with liberal Hollywood.

Well, I saw it at a drive-in, and it was an E-ticket all the way. Very fun, and a deliberate harkening back to the feel of Close Encounters, with a very sweet and realistic nostalgia for small-town America circa 1980.

The government/military-conspiracy stuff is not nearly as bad as it was in ET or a bazillion other films. It’s a plot device, and as this device often does, it limits the taint to a rogue special command within the military. No way to do this particular sort of plot if you don’t rely on that device. Well, you could set the movie in, say, Argentina, and then villiainize a part of the Argentine military.  Big Hollywood might be okay with that.

The film also has a nice (even profound) “reconcile with your father subtext”—i.e., the psychology is the opposite of the dreadful “blame the parents” one seen in the John Hughes movies.  Indeed, it seems a great film for the junior-high ages particularly, ?? for those who can handle moderate-intensity scares.  I don’t recall any profanity.

As one of the commenters on the Powerline site put it, the Big Hollywood people are bit too reactionary. I’ve enjoyed Nolte’s work generally, but that’s definitely the case here. A summer treat, not to be missed b/c some conservative harummphed.