DVD PIck: "Super 8"
"Super 8" -- a good DVD, and it's not about a motel
In a year filled with movies about movies ("Rango," "Hugo,") one of the most fun was JJ Abrams' family friendly Spielberg tribute 'Super 8."
The movie did okay business, but I felt like it was under-attended -- parents told me the period title (a reference to a type of film/camera) baffled its teen target audience. It's a sci-fi movie about a teen film crew (Elle Fanning is the starlet) making a movie in their Ohio hometown when an alien is suddenly loosed upon their community.
It's a sweet love story, a rousing alien adventure, and it has the best closing-credit sequence of the year -- makes sure you stay tuned.
Also new this week: "Sarah's Key," a grim adaptation of the Tatiana De Rosney novel of a French woman digging into her family's unsavory past as Holocaust bystanders. It's one of those adaptations that captures the horror but not the art of the book.