Super 8 ***

Director: J.J Abrams

Cast: Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Ron Eldard

Bruce Greenwood, David Gallagher, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso

Ryan Lee, Noah Emmerich

From its opening shot, Super 8 reaffirms something we've always sorta known: J.J. Abrams is a natural born storyteller. In an exceptional display of economy he lets us know the location of the story (the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio), the time frame (1979) and using a tiny bit of backstory, lets us foresee the future of its leading character, 14-year-old, Joe Lamb (Courtney) who after losing his mom is left under the care of his stoic father, Deputy Jackson Lamb (Chandler) who, to say the least, has no idea how to deal with the child.

Fast forward a few months and Joe is now helping his best friend Charles (Griffiths) produce an epic zombie film using a simple Super 8 camera. Their world is shaken when school beauty Alice Dainard (Fanning) agrees to be in the movie. Joe, Charles, Alice and their other friends, Preston (Zach Mills), Cary (the scene stealing, precociously Truffaut-esque Lee) and leading man Martin (Basso) leave their homes in the middle of the night to shoot the film's centerpiece at an old train station.

While the boys gasp in the presence of Alice - the way in which Abrams captures prepubescent awkwardness is delightful - they hear the loud noise of an upcoming train. The Herzogian Charles decides that this event will only help make their movie better and orders for the cameras to roll as the train suffers a derailment and consequent explosion. The children leave unharmed but realize the train had an enigmatic cargo that now has been set free upon their little town.

To say more about the film's plot would be to take away one of the film's many pleasures which is the rich feeling of everlasting discovery with which children face their summer vacations and miniature adventures. Of course, this being a movie and all, their adventure demands to be seen on the big screen, yet under the expert hands of Abrams, the film never loses that sheer cinematic delight which invites audience members to think things like these might happen to them as well.

Shot as a loving tribute to Steven Spielberg's E.T.: the Extra-terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the film reminds us of a time when going to the movies assured us that we were in for a treat. Abrams not only pays homage to Spielberg by recreating his cinematic style (along with the superb DP Larry Fong who despite his overuse of flare achieves some stunning work by reminding us that images can be epic and economic) the director also manages to emulate the emotional content of these iconic films in ways that not even Spielberg himself can achieve now.

Abrams' directing of children is astonishing because he lets them be without having them forget that they are after all playing parts in a movie, this is especially poignant in scenes where the kids shoot their own film and it can arguably be said that Abrams has them playing characters on three different levels.

Despite all the makings of a geek landmark, the film is especially admirable because it's able to work as entertainment and aesthetic treatise, notice the way in which Abrams toys with genre and reminds us that cinema has always tried to position itself in two different aspects of existence. Perhaps the film might have some autobiographical touches - the aforementioned character of Charles for example - but it also succeeds by becoming a mirror onto which the audience can project their own life experiences. It might be corny to say so but more often than not Super 8 is a reminder of why we even go to the movies in the first place.

Star Trek ***1/2

Director: J.J Abrams
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto
Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Bruce Greenwood
John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy

Coming straight from planet Camp, the original "Star Trek" series exploded upon the world, and its living rooms, in the year 1966. More than forty years after its release it has spawned ten feature films, several multi-season TV incarnations, countless books and toys as well as a dedicated legion of fans for whom the Vulcan salute is nothing if not sacred.
The effects of the phenomenon are such, that even if you're not a Trekkie, you will at least know of the existence of Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Nimoy) and the USS Enterprise.
You also probably will have been subject to one of the many incarnations of "Star Trek" at least once in your life.
If none of the franchise's many options have sparked your interest in it, then director J.J. Abrams' glorious reinvention might just as well do it.
Setting his story years before the original series (although time traveling and positioning is something of a malleable element here) he takes us to discover the origins of Kirk, Spock and how they came together for the Enterprise's maiden voyage.
James Tiberius Kirk (Pine) is a young rebel who enrolls in the Starfleet to solve some daddy issues. His father died in the thrilling sequence before the credits, serving as a premonitory basis for the rest of the feature, while injecting you with an adrenaline rush the film will try to maintain throughout its running time.
Spock (Quinto) is a half human-half Vulcan genius who gave up emotions as part of his academic training and has battled all his life with keeping a balance between his both sides.
Upong meeting Kirk at Starfleet Academy they both dislike each other (one's volatile, the other's a Vulcan...) but have no time to work out their differences when Earth comes under the menace of Captain Nero (Bana); a psychotic Romulan who's set on destroying every planet in the Federation (the "United Nations" of sorts in the Trek universe).
Before you can say "beam me up", they find themselves aboard the Enterprise along with fellow cadets Dr. Leonard McCoy (Urban), communications officer Uhura (Saldana), helmsman Hikaru Sulu (Cho), navigator Pavel Chekov (Yelchin) and engineer Montgomery Scott (Pegg) all under the command of Captain Christopher Pike (a splendid Greenwood).
The masterful screenplay by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman then focuses on the central mission while establishing personalities and backstories for all the characters.
Those familiar with the series (who don't fall into conservative devotion and purism) will perhaps think "oh, so that's how this and this happened...", while people who have never seen a single episode will be engaged by what is essentially an adventure story where you give a damn about the people.
Great part of this is owed to one of the most inspiringly casted ensembles in recent film history. Most of them (like the original series' actors) are recognizable enough to be familiar, but not flashy as to take away from the plot being established.
Pine's Kirk is a wonderfully seductive combination of Han Solo and James Bond. He's capable of kicking enemy ass, while throwing around insultingly charming one liners (that would make Shatner proud) and he's got some serious chops as well (his anger and stamina scream "movie star").
Quinto is a revelation as Spock. Counting on more than his bone structure to fill his character's suit, he stands at a very difficult place in terms of how far to push (or not to push) his acting.
Spock is emotion-less and most of the time Quinto's work reminds us that it was a decision of his own making. The actor then suggests what might've taken someone to make this choice and in one particularly moving scene we see him restrain all signs of feeling, mixed with the quiet pride of thinking he made what's best for everyone else.
Saldana is sexy and bold, Urban is terribly magnetic, while Yelchin, Cho and particularly Pegg are bona fide scene stealers.
Bana, behind heavy makeup and tattoos makes for a fascinating villain mixing brutal violence with some sort of coherent purpose and Nimoy who makes an unexpected apperance brings gravitas and serenity (not to mention, ironically, a powerful sense of humanity) to something that might've been ridiculously cheesy.
For all the refreshing sense in this "Star Trek" there is also a very respectful approach that never borders on idolatry and is seen in every aspect of the production.
The costume design is simple and elegant, while Scott Chambliss' production design is breathtaking. His Enterprise is one part Ikea (think cool, approachable streamline) two parts futuristic airline.
Daniel Mindel's cinematography is highly efficient and evocative (despite an overuse of flare). His work in the action sequences (combined with Michael Giacchino's utterly majestic score) puts you right in the middle of the events and his smooth travelings in grounded scenes remind us of the ebbs and flows of time which is a recurrent theme in the plot.
And as usual it's perhaps Abrams' who makes the best impression of all. His devotion to every project he gets into is remarkable and "Star Trek" is no exception.
Abrams seems to live in the universe he's (re)-creating and maximum attention is put on every level. There are inside references for Trekkies (who will no doubt recite along in the electrifying conclusion) and enough fun sights (Gasps! Is that Winona Ryder?) for those who came to accompany them.
But what makes his film so marvelous is that he taps into what made "Star Trek" so popular to begin with. Abrams knows that the places and people here were never part of our universe. The events may be happening near or in planet Earth, but this one isn't in the Milky Way, it belongs in the universe of pop culture.
Therefore, like what will be the most controversial element of his reboot, Abrams travels back in time to make us feel exactly like the first people who saw "Star Trek" in the 60s; where despite the starting war, social revolutions and uncertainty there was hope.
Whether it was the possibility of setting foot on other planets or just getting this one in its place, there was a sense of unity and wonder that's very needed right now.
Abrams could've grounded himself on the premise of "realism" (and delivered some dark political message concentrating more on the fate of the planet Vulcan), but his particular brand of reality comes in the fact that he reminds us of the power for change that lies within each of us.
The twists and turns may not make physicists happy, but they remind us that both science and media entertainment were originally intended to make our lives better.
Who needs real science when there is so much fun to be had in this fiction?

Cloverfield ***

Director: Matt Reeves
Cast: Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, T.J Miller, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas

"Cloverfield" started as a well marketed project, taking cue from suspense masters like Hitchcock and Spielberg in "Jaws". The way its destruction was caused by something we couldn't see, sparked a morbid interest to find out what the monster was like.

But once the curiosity was satisfied, it would seem appropriate that along with a huge sigh of disappointment (which most horror movies cause nowadays), underneath it all there would also be a bad movie which had been trying to cover up its flaws with good advertising.

Turns out, it's nothing like that at all.

Taking cue from "The Blair Witch Project", the film uses handheld camera footage which was found after an incident that distroyed New York City.

That nobody had used this technique in mainstream cinema as effectively as this, results surprising in this day and age.

The footage was taken by Hud (Miller) on the night of his best friend Rob's (Stahl-David) farewell party. Rob is going to Japan to become vice-president of something and his last night there is overshadowed by a fight he has with the girl he likes (Yustman).

Rob's romantic drama gets its thunder stolen, when a giant creature begins to attack the city, creating erathquakes with every footstep and throwing down skyscrapers with a terrifying ease.

This is where "Cloverfield" really begins; you will first have to believe that in the middle of this chaos, Hud never throws away the camera "people will want to know how this happened" he explains, but one could argue he's probably thinking more about getting millions of hits in YouTube.

Reeves is an apt filmmaker that allows his direction to become invisible and the fact that an average Joe is carrying the camera, removes all the privileges we're given by conventional multicamera cinematography.

We are seeing what the characters are living and the fact that it takes them so much to find out what the creature actually is (although its origins are never revealed) makes the fear reach brilliant proportions.

Keeping the monster from the audiences as much as it can is a wise move, but the filmmakers also please fans of instant gratification by giving them whole scenes where the creature is the star and perhaps not even them will come out with full knowledge of what they're facing.

In a way this plays out as an accurate metaphor for terrorism which comes full fledged and desperate, destroying lives indiscriminately.

But even as the images of a destroyed Manhattan bring shudders of a historical kind, the film is in fact a very dark comedy.

The characters have motivations that include heroism, love and survival, but one can instantly assume that this is the first time that they encounter a problem bigger than anything in their limited world (one suggests they should run away to Brooklyn...).

The film disposes of them in the same way their generation gets rid of fads, history and people.

That it takes a monster for them to realize there is much more out there is both funny and very, very frightening.