Steven Spielberg did not direct Super 8, he produced it, but he certainly had a huge influence on the film.
The 64-year-old American director/ scriptwriter/producer has had an indelible influence on Hollywood, in a career spanning five decades and several genres from film to video games.
His early science-fiction and adventure films are held up as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster film-making, while his later films addressed important issues.
Oh, and he is a two-time Academy Award winner and a co-founder of DreamWorks.
Everyone has their favourite Spielberg moments, whether they realise he directed their fave film or not. Here are some of the Tonight writers’ choice memories.
l Kgomotso Moncho likes Catch Me If You Can, and a few others, but her best Spielberg film is The Color Purple.
“For me it’s the kind of movie that has the same sensibility as the book The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, and Spielberg captures that so delicately and with care. It’s morbid with its winning funny moments.
“Whoopi Goldberg is beyond magnificent and Oprah Winfrey was made for the part of the feisty Sofia.
“Then there’s the music scored by Quincy Jones and our own Caiphus Semenya.
“So it’s profound on so many levels. It has definitely formed part of my cultural reference.”
l Helen Herimbi picked The Color Purple, purely because of Goldberg’s awe-inspiring portrayal of Miss Celie and Winfrey’s quotables.
“But none of his films come close to the classic ‘Give us, us free’ from a darker-than-night Djimon Hounsou in the film Amistad.
“This film poignantly illustrates how freedom is taken and not given.
“Before there was such a thing as a mani or pedi, Cinque bloodied his fingers picking out a nail from the slave ship to unhand himself and his kind from the enforced shackles. And later, from the bondage of a slave’s mind.”
l Paul Eksteen has a thing for the mash potatoes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
“Close Encounters made a profound impact on me because it gave science-fiction a human face. At the end we got a mothership and smiling aliens, but the spirit of the film is to be found in the everyday people caught up in something so much grander than the society whose beat they march to.
“Richard Dreyfuss’ obsession, captured so vividly in his mashed potato sculpture of the alien landing site, nearly costs him his family before the truth sets the world free from its fear of the unknown.”
l Theresa Smith: “I love the high-tech gadgets and the totally dystopian, Phillip K Dick feel of Minority Report, but if we’re talking most profoundly Spielberg film moment, it’s got to be the movie magic of ET.
The film gave us a homesick little alien, changing the way we think of extraterrestrials, an amazing portrait of childhood, and Amblin Entertainment gained a logo.
“The alien being lured out of the cupboard with Reese’s Pieces and then proceeding to have a tea party with little Drew Barrymore… too precious (and also the start of product placement in movies).”
l Diane de Beer couldn’t turn away from one of his most haunting movies, Schindler’s List.
“I think this was his most personal movie and when it came to the telling of this story, he didn’t hold back. His casting of Ralph Fiennes in the most unlikely role of the villain was uncanny and seeing our own Embeth Davidtz give such a raw performance was a bonus.
“But it is also memorable for the spin-offs that followed. Spielberg set up a memory bank for Holocaust survivors who were given the chance, often for the first time, to tell their stories. It gave them a voice, while Spielberg boasted his first truly adult movie – the one in which his heart was invested.”
*Tell us what your favourite Spielberg movie moments are.