App review of the week: Super 8 vs. Clueless

Super 8
(Developed by QMx Interactive)

Available for: iOS

Price: 99 cents

Movie tie-in applications and games are a roll of the dice at best--even a good film can yield a lame official app, especially if Hollywood forces the issue by creating little more than a cheap marketing ploy without a logical reason for existing. But sometimes the pieces all fit together perfectly, and that's the case with Super 8, an app inspired by the new sci-fi thriller written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg.

The app--a note-perfect digital replica of the venerable cartridge film camera so integral to the motion picture's plot--enables iOS device users to create their own no-budget short films, complete with lens, filter and shake effects that lend the images the raw, gritty texture so familiar to anyone who's ever screened a vintage home movie.

The Super 8 app gets all the details right, from the scratch-and-dirt overlay to the jittering screen to the oversaturated colors. But because it's an iPhone app, it also boasts features and functionality unfathomable when the Super 8 format first surfaced five decades ago. Users can toggle between a host of lenses including color, black and white, sepia and infrared, and when filming ends, editing tools enable would-be auteurs to arrange and delete scenes, add titles and production credits, and even insert an authentic Super 8 film leader. From there, users can "develop" their film and share their masterpiece via email or save it to the desktop. Retro and forward-thinking at the same time, Super 8 is a must-have for anyone looking to capture their world from a different perspective--I can't speak for the Super 8 feature film, but the app is Oscar-worthy.

Clueless
(Developed by Paramount Digital Entertainment)

Available for: iOS

Price: 99 cents

So like I said, movie tie-in applications are hit or miss--mostly miss. Some are totally inexplicable, like Clueless, a mobile game based on the 1995 teen comedy starring Alicia Silverstone.

That's right, 1995--a moment in time more than a decade before the iPhone or the App Store, when mobile phones were the size of Nerf footballs and America spent its days transfixed by Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," NYPD Blue and the O.J. Simpson trial. Not one of those pop culture touchstones has resurfaced as a mobile game, so why Clueless? Are teen girls clamoring for mobile apps based on movies released before they were born? Was there an Alicia Silverstone renaissance and no one thought to tell me? Or is Hollywood simply so utterly bereft of compelling ideas that it has no choice but to resurrect blockbuster concepts from a generation earlier? (It's a rhetorical question.)

None of it would matter if Clueless delivered a worthwhile gaming experience, but it's a regrettable waste of time, not to mention enormously condescending towards its target teen audience. "Avoid making your friends cry 'as if!' by matching them up with all the oh-so-fabulous items they crave to land a hall pass to the next level," reads its App Store description page. "In between some major virtual retail therapy and debating whether or not those shoes were so last year, players will strive to maintain their social status by helping over a hundred friends find happiness with romance, fashion and all the must-have items that make a girl's life complete."

While Clueless the movie cleverly and thoughtfully addressed the anxieties that percolate below the surface of teen life, Clueless the mobile game simply exploits those anxieties, championing the shallow, soulless youth culture the movie satirized. Say this much for Clueless, though: It definitely lives up to its title.