Formative Experience: Super 8 and Nostalgia Cinema

A good portion of my childhood seemed to have revolved around the movies.  My parents introduced me and my siblings to all manner of quality flicks.  There are moments I remember indelibly:

• Dropping my brother off at Nana's so I could see my first movie in theaters (Star Wars!)


• The moment I was told to cover my eyes in Raiders of the Lost Ark (I peeked and Nazi faces melted.  Nightmare fuel to be sure, but awesome.)


• The flowers coming back to life as we near the climax of E.T.


• Dreading Annie as we waited in the lobby and being too embarrassed to admit I enjoyed it afterward.

You get the picture.  Through it all, there was one constant. We saw most of our films at the same couple of theaters.  Today's young kids would barely recognize these places.  No stadium seating, sticky floors and a snap-crackle-pop sound system.  I'm not intending to go on an "in-my-day" kind of rant, just pointing out the differences.

So needless to say I was excited when Super 8's marketing highlighted the film as a throwback to the old Amblin movies.  Love J.J. Abrams. Love Steven Spielberg.  Love the vibe they are going for.

Still, I avoided it opening weekend.  And the subsequent weekends.  I was biding my time for the right experience.  First run theaters around me are pristine.  The sight lines are perfect.  The sound rumbles you out of your seat.  There's no way I can capture the magic of my youth in a counterfeit theater, right?

Super 8 finally came to the little second run place near my house.  You step across the seats, your feet crunching on day-old popcorn.The seating isn't flat, but it's far from stadium seating. And the speakers emit that familiar background hum from my youth.

Perfect.

I caught an early show after work and slid into a seat behind another group.  The screen lit up and showed its age with pitting and staining.  The lower right hand corner was perpetually out-of-focus.

It felt right.  For two hours, I was 10 years old again.  And watching the credits sequence on that screen made my year.

As to the movie itself, it was good but not great.  If it were a meal, I'd call the waiter over and point out that someone got a monster movie in my sweet coming-of-age soup.

Nostalgia is not supposed to be clean.  It's supposed to be scratches on old 8 mm or garish coloring in a video.  Super 8 could stand a little dirtying up and my theater delivered.

Super 8 may not be my favorite films of the year, but it may be my favorite film experience.