This is a bit of a first, because this is my favorite scene from a movie I really didn’t like. It’s the only thing JJ Abrams has ever done on TV or onscreen I didn’t like, but I do love this scene. That happens sometimes. A movie won’t work, but you revisit a certain scene over and again (the Internet has made this much easier than the pre-net dilemma of ‘do I buy this just because I loved one scene’?). Super 8 is a Spielberg homage. It’s such a successful Spielberg homage to his ET-era work that it also incorporates all the problems Spielberg has developed in the last 20 years. It’s overlong, it’s clearly not being edited by someone with authority to say NO, and the ending devolves into sappy nonsense. That’s a commentary on Spielberg not Abrams who, aside from his acute lens flaring addiction, is an outstanding filmmaker.
The train crash is amazing. It’s everything a big movie blockbuster action scene should be and in the theater it was astounding. It created a sense of genuine danger and thunderous anarchy that have had me revisiting it long after I’ve dismissed the film (and to be fair I know a lot of people who adore this movie).
Killing Time 