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Cloverfield Discussion
I don't get to see many movies with a 4 month old in the house, but I managed to escape to see Cloverfield. Stop reading immediately if you don't want spoilers. It's Blair Witch's first person camera work, applied to a small (for the genre) budget monster movie. The monster is cool. The little monsters are cool. The acting is sometimes good, sometimes awkward. The action is often great and very intense. And it will undoubtedly be the most hyped movie of 2008 until the spring blockbusters arrive. I really enjoyed the movie, but I'm posting this so you guys can have a place to talk amongst yourselves about this movie. Groundbreaking movie-making or just hype-making? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure my skull can handle watching it again- that jerky camera action gave me a headache. (Also, there was a Star Trek teaser trailer attached, and I'm almost ashamed to admit that I want it so badly it made me hurt. Please Abrams, don't screw it up)
The movie itself was pretty lame overall. I'm calling it Snakes on a Plane II.
You know, it's nice when 50,000 people from /. help a torrent out, but a blair witch wannabe ? What's that, like a piece of nothing aspiring to be a piece of shit ?
I saw the movie last night and I have to admit I'm not sure how I feel about it. The story was fucking incredible but I think the shaky camera was over done. It made my head hurt and confused the story at times. I think it could have been made with out it.
But I think my most concern is fuck the people. I want see the same story from the army point of view.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I don't know why but I just can't seem to bring myself to think that this movie is going be anything groundbreakingly good. I've been watching rottentomatoes and the last time I checked the cream of the crop had it at 80%. I'm torn, but I still probably won't see it in theaters. The trailers just show you little enough that that's the reason I'm thinking it's just getting hyped, but hey I might be wrong.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Was it just me, or did the parasites make the most awesome gobbling noise? I would pay for a ringtone of that. I mean, I'll make my own in audacity as soon as I have a copy of the sound, but I would pay for it if I could today.
I loved it up until they survived the helicopter going down. I wished the movie would have ended with the crash.
What do we call the critter? I'm nominating Tarrasque because that is what it reminded me of when it was standing in the field right before it ate the camera guy. Was I the only one who cheered at that point? Damn he was annoying.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I was expecting a rehash of the Blair Witch Project. Somethings that made it refreshingly different:
1) The main character, for me, wasn't Rob. It was the guy holding the camera. He was a complete idiot, but I loved him.
2) I thought there was clear character progression for Rob, from complete, insensitive jerk to heroic.
3) Clear resolution on the real story, which is Rob's relationship to whats-her-face.
4) Kick-ass special effects.
One caveat about the movie: bring Dramamine. Lots of it. I had two friends with me who missed the whole second half of the movie because they couldn't look at the screen.
The writing style was what I would expect out a 9 year old writing a book report, just not as many "very"s.
On topic, I couldn't give a flying fuck about that movie.
And so that this isn't considered a troll, a little constructive criticism - Rob, would you have accepted a review from anyone else - book, movie, anything - that was written as poorly as that?
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
I haven't seen Cloverfield yet but would like to. But first a question to those who have and liked it.
Did you also enjoy the Blair Witch Project?
I'm just curious if it may be the style or the movies themselves or what. For the record, I didn't want to see BWP, and never would have except that my aunt gave me the VHS for christmas one year and I felt obligated at that point, and I did not enjoy it at all. A friend of mine who was there at the time fell asleep during it. If Cloverfield is too similar, then I'd rather wait for it in Redbox and not pay $10 at the theater...
I went and saw the movie and was only looking to see that Cloverfield was some sort of government code name, so I was satisfied. Also, no tentacles which was great.
Four month old what?
Most important is the fact that Cloverfield is directed, and directed brilliantly. Blair Witch was just a bunch of shakey cameras as a gimmick. The first person point of view is critical to this movie. It truly puts you into the scene and leverages everything about the one camera point of view, both in terms of what you do see and don't see. And, in spite of the first-person point of view, every shot is meticulously constructed. There is one amazing camera shot in the subway in which Hud has a close-up on Madelene with Rob and his brother's girlfriend in the background. Amazing shot.
It's a really, really, really good movie. Best I have seen in a while.
And for those who hate the ending, it really could not have ended any other way.
1) Just enough exposition to make you care about the characters
2) Once the action starts, it doesn't let up - I think only Aliens (22 years ago) had me at that level of intensity for a full hour
3) Leaves you guessing - not everything needs to be explained or wrapped up in 90 minutes, and consequently, you're left not knowing anything more than the characters do
4) Outstanding effects (invisible or otherwise) that don't get in the way of the story
5) Finally, a scary flick that isn't torture porn!
All in all, a great (if fairly mindless) monster movie. What the 1998 version of Godzilla should have been.
The actual movie takes place in poughkeepsie and the monster that appears 13 stories high is only 13 inches high.
I enjoyed Cloverfield, what I saw of it. The problem I had was that I didn't anticipate it making me motion sick. They really don't give you any clue in the trailers that it's going to be full of a jolty, sudden, quick movement. It seems obvious enough in hindsight, that "Hey, a movie filmed from the point of view of somebody's home video camera *might* just make you motion sick, dummy." On the other hand, I haven't really seen anything with that type of shooting, so I feel like they could have given me a little warning.
A little history: I get simulation sickness from first person shooters. I used to be able to play them with no difficulties, besides maybe a game here and there (I seem to recall Hexen being one of the first to bother me). After a break from gaming, I came back to discover I'd pretty much lost all tolerance for FPSs. It might be possible to build a tolerance back up, I don't know. Being nauseous isn't fun, so I haven't really attempted it. Dimenhydrinate (Dramamine) and meclizine both made me drowsy, so I gave up on it.
I don't get seasickness.
Anyways, my point is, if you get simulation sickness, you may want to skip this one, or bring some dimenhydrinate or meclizine along. I made it maybe 45 minutes or an hour into the movie (run time is 1h 30m) before I had to keep my eyes closed.
and loved it. Good to finally see something different. No character development (except for the little bit by Rob). No Godzilla-esque exposition about the environment/nuclear testing/global warming threat. Just mass destruction and the occasional tasteless joke by Hud. No explanations, no resolutions. Just in the moment from the characters perspective.
I didn't get sick (and I should have, I threw up after playing HL2 the first time), but my girlfriend did get a bit nauseous.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
I'm posting this so you guys can have a place to talk amongst yourselves about this movie.
Real guys stop by the local coffeehouse to pick up their favorite drinks and walk over to the bookstore to browse through the books while discussing the merits of the movie.
I saw it last night as well and found myself really liking it. For me, I'm often more interested in disaster films where the main character(s) are simply trying to survive, rather than being the savior of the human race (two somewhat more recent contrasting examples are Will Smith in Independence Day, and Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds). For that reason, I thought the hand held camera effect, some shots being out of frame/focus, not always pointing at the person who is talking, camera pointing at the person who is talking but you can't hear them, worked great. While I didn't think there were any particularly frightening scenes there were some that has a 9/11-esque feel to them that may disturb some people, such as a wall of smoke and ash rushing down one of the streets towards a large number of people.
I'm not going to rush out and see it again today but it would be fun to see it once more in the theater.
I kept comparing it to The Mist, because in many ways the films are so similar. You have limited knowledge of the monsters in both films.
I think The Mist did a better job of establishing a sense of dread, and had better characters.
Cloverfield had a better monster and better action sequences.
I enjoyed both films, even if both are downers.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
everyone keeps comparing it to BWP, but i think it's going to be the next Rocky Horror Picture Show with people acting out the rolls while it's playing
I think there is another movie in there. We've seen the movie from the point of view of Rob and his crew. I would like to see the movie remade from the other side now. A traditional filming without the shaky cam style. I want to know more about the monster. Really how many of us give a flying fuck about Rob and friends?
Alright. We've had the art house version, now lets have the hollywood block buster.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Why do these monsters always seem to appear in cities? There's been so many movie monsters popping up in New York, Tokyo... eventually, probability dictates that one should pop up in the middle of nowhere. That's what my monster movie's gonna be about: a giant monster that pops up in the middle of Kansas. It'll terrorize a corn field and like two farmers.
was injected, whether intentionally or not, at just the right moments to keep the movie from becoming overly serious. Maybe a serious giant monster movie use to work, but now the absurdity of all the bad Godzilla movies and the corny 60's and 70's movies have pretty much ruined the genre of "serious" monster movie. What made this movie enjoyable was the humor and the characters. My favorite line comes right after they rescue the girl from the leaning tower of Manhattan. "What's that!?" she screams to which HUD replies "Something terrible!" After they kill the critter in the stairwell and they're walking down, HUD does a close up of the dead thing and says, "Something also terrible." The theater exploded. Perfect moment for some levity. I also heard something last night that I have never heard in a DC theater before. Silence during the movie. When Rob's mom called the theater went pin drop quiet. That's as much a testament to this story's power as anything.
This is what slashdot has become??
Building collapse and a wall of dust and debris. Mass exodus of people crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. Jets and helicopters flying low over the city.
Was the use of those particular images intended to evoke emotions tied to the events of 9/11? Probably.
Was it wrong for the filmmakers to use those images? I don't think so. You have ANY disaster set in New York and you'll have comparisons to 9/11. Does that mean it's forbidden territory? I don't think any subject matter should be forbidden. Even if it makes people feel uncomfortable.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
If you can get through the 20 minutes of chimps with a video camera at the beginning it's a lot of fun. Parts are extremely good while parts get slow and tedious. The 20 minutes establishing characters at the beginning was a waste because I still didn't care about any of them. The high point are the little one. Sadly you don't see much of them. Expect an ocean of knock offs trying to mimic the style but mostly succeeding in giving you seasickness. The whole movie rides the edge of annoying but as I say when it's good it's amazing and very effective. Go with some one else and have them save your seat while you go for popcorn and avoid the first part. It's not as bad as the hour from hell at the beginning of King Kong before anything happens but I definitely would have cut back on the endless party scene.
I'll admit I'd love to see this movie but the thought of another Blaire Witch nauseating experience is enough to turn me off. Heck, I could barely sit through the second two Borne movies without a splitting headache. However, all of these movies got me thinking...
Would it be possible to "De"-shaky cam a movie? Given a high enough source material (HD rip or what have you) and a whole heck of a lot of time I'm wondering if you could take each cut - where the camera is trained on one given thing - and frame a slightly cropped version that kept the main point of focus (someone's eyes or what have you) in a consistent point in the frame. I'm thinking something along the lines of "the phantom edit" only making a movie watchable in terms of cinematography instead of dialog and story.
As I said, I haven't seen Cloverfield yet so it's possible it's just do damn blurry and shaky there's nothing to be done but something like Borne might be rectified.
That or this horrible "jerking the camera around makes the audience feel like there there!!1!" fad in film making could just die a quick death and I'd be happy.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
For what it was, I really liked the movie. At least they didn't have the president giving a speech or the stupid military general talking about how they were going to nuke it. It was just a bunch of people, running for their lives, and all the events unfolded entirely from their perspective. I wasn't going in expecting it to be the best movie I've ever seen though, so I wasn't disappointed....Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half...
...such as the half-eaten burger and onion rings on the floor next to me, thanks to a friend who decided they were hungry and wanted to sneak dinner in.
As for the movie, I believe it was complete hype. Even in some of the previews you see an object in the distance that looks like a tail; from that point on (before I ever saw the movie), all I could picture is Godzilla spewing fire. Instead, all I got was a giant monster from who-knows-where with man-eating dandruff.
The movie should not have progressed beyond the helicopter crash. I understand that they wanted to get to the "I love you"'s with Beth and Rob but, really, you expect all 3 of them to survive a helicopter FREE FALL from hundreds of feet? Now, I will say that it's not impossible, because a good friend of mine fell 90 feet while repelling from a cliff once, but he didn't get up and keep going; instead, he had most of the bones in his body broken, and now has a metal plate in his face.
Honestly, I'm not completely sure why so many people on here enjoyed the movie. The special effects were nothing new, the "I love this guy/girl but he/she doesn't know it and we could die at any minute" story has been told countless times, and the character of the cameraman was only so-so for me. Some of the times I enjoyed him, other times he just was pissing me off.
Could someone please explain the origin of the monster??? I'd like to think he was terrestrial, but how does something that large go completely unnoticed for however long he's been around? It would have to be a water-based creature, as I'm sure that we would've noticed something that large on land beforehand. And even if he has lived in the water so long, why come up now? Also, I'm sure an animal that large has been around most parts of the ocean, so how has he not been noticed before?
It's just too over-the-top Eight Legged Freaks style for me.
Sounds like the internal code-name for a new Intel processor chip.
Good afternoon,
> I don't get to see many movies with a 4 month old in the house,
> but I managed to escape to see Cloverfield
Here's the trick my wife and I used for our "dates" when our son was younger - one of us would drop the other off to watch the movie and then go shopping for a couple of hours with child in tow. Then back to the theater where we'd do a hot driver swap, and the first to watch the movie then shopping for a couple of hours with child in tow. Then back to the theater to pick up the other, and we head off to dinner to discuss the movie. We took turns being first.
Take care,
cb
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
The beginning was slow, but I'd argue the that the goal of the plot is only feasible if this first part occurred. Whoever followed your suggestion might be asking, "Why did Character A do this, and what's the significance behind Character A and B's relationship at the end of the movie?" I could imagine people asking, "What's the freakin' plot? Did it have one?!!!111!1" If they skipped the first part. And well, they've started asking this even after seeing the whole thing.
For those out there who are now worried; yes, it had a plot. My opinion of those who didn't discover the plot are that they are dumber than a box of rocks, which is entirely feasible. When a metal plate with 5 nubs arranged in a linear fashion appears on screen, and the response from one audience member is, "5 nipples? WTF? I don't get it", you begin to question the intelligence of some fellow moviegoers.
Ok, now, back to the original topic: I like stories, and perhaps it's because I get attached to characters easily; therefore, as long as SOME character development is present, I'll be able to relate/care for them in some way. What development in this movie was enough for me, and it certainly wouldn't've been the same for me if I skipped the beginning. The last 2 lines of the movie wouldn't have the same impact if I hadn't seen the beginning. In other words, don't skip it. Besides, even if the first 20 minutes is boring for you, I'm sure the other hour would more than make up for it.
The storytelling in the movie was amazing. Like most good stories, it focused on the relationships among people. Yes, it was a horror/action movie (and there are some nice action sequences), but that's not what it's really about. I love the fact that monster (and monsterlings) itself is only rarely seen -- and when it does, it's used to heighten the tension among the real characters. Similarly, each action had a purpose, moving the story along. The choices which the characters made (although sometimes eliciting a "don't go in there!!" yell) were exactly what I felt they should do, as characters. They felt scared, hopeless, and ultimately real.
I'm expecting some complaints about the action, the need for dramamine (I agree), and the weird acting, but overall Cloverfield was an excellent story about people thrown into an extreme situation. The action was secondary, and rightly so.
http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=227&task=videodirectlink&id=529
....nothing.
Now that is a teaser... you see
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Not only did Abrams rip off Blair Witch and riff on Godzilla, the entire relationship plot is reminiscent of Miracle Mile which also ends with a helicopter crash.
Is what this basically was. Went to see it last night, good movie, but really not living up to the hype from before it came out. I'm already predicting the following:
;-)
1. Movie at least turns a profit on the theatrical release
2. DVD with some extras comes out
3. "Special Edition" DVD comes out with second disc with more back story (WTF *was* the monster?)
4. "Directors Cut Special Edition" DVD comes out with nearly a second movie on the third disc, with even *more* back story...
5. ***PROFIT***
Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
I can live with that but Abrams has already said there is no Lovecraft tie in. Thank god it wasn't Godzilla.
Offtopic Advice: I know there are some geeks out there that plan to have kids and some of you already do, CmdTaco. Pay attention because I'm about to give you some advice that you won't find in any blog or manual. When you buy kiddy shampoo make sure that you can tell what it is from feel alone. Make sure that when you are doing that blind shower grope the kiddypoo feels different from your conditioner. Trust me on this, you will thank me.
My fucking hair now smells like strawberry but on the upside it does have a nice bounce.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
The silence at your particular theater at that specific scene also happened at the one I was at.
That's as much a testament to this story's power as anything.
I think that's true to an extent, but I also think it has to do with the fact that we've had a few major disasters in the USA within the last 10 years. First 9/11, and then New Orleans. Consequently I think most reasonably mature people above a certain age have had plenty of time to have contemplated what it would be like to lose someone during a disaster.
Of course the whole movie was set in New York. And shortly after the monster first appears, there's a scene in the street that looked similar to how things looked in NYC when the first WTC tower collapsed. I think this movie meshed very, very well with the fears of our times. Not about aliens of course -- the alien was necessary because they didn't want to make it strictly like some type of plausible disaster rehash. Without an alien the story would have been too limiting, and the plot too obvious. No, they had a winning formula here. It was very well done.
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
Damn! Where were you when my kids were that age! Yeah, I know I should have thought of it.. .but I didn't.
Generally, I liked the premise of this film, but the shaky cam literialy killed it for me. After 45-60 minutes of non stop camera going in every direction possible, you just can't watch it without losing your head, and you tend to just zone out and listen at the rest of the film. One of my friends literaly couldn't breathe for a few minutes due to the vertigo.
At some point they should have made him turn on steadycam or maybe they should have made Hud a Video Camera professional by trade to explain some more camera steadiness in the film.
It wouldn't surprise me if they make a Cloverfield "Vertigo free edition" When it comes out on DVD and hopefully if they make a sequel, they'll use a news crew team to tell the story. At least I would hope their camera shots would be less all over the place.
On an kinda off topic note, this is why I like full size video cameras over handheld ones. The full size camers were infinetly easier to keep steady over the handheld ones. and with today's tech they could be a lot lighter and easier to use. (not to mention hold a full size hard drive or DVD) At least they make the sholder mounts for the handheld ones I guess.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/startreknews.php?id=41074
I can't quite figure out if not only the submitter, but everyone commenting is being paid to hype this.
HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY ANALYZE A MOVIE MADE IN THE LAST 25 YEARS
THERE HAS BEEN NOTHING GOOD
NOTHING
you want to see a movie, get a netflix account and grab stuff by tarkovsky, lang, kurosawa, godard, herzog.... SOMEONE WITH REAL TALENT
but don't act like you're some sort of intellectual because you're analyzing a fucking godzilla knockoff made in 2008 you fucking tools
I enjoyed it. Yes, it was a monster movie, but it was very immersive and exciting (after the opening party scenes), and it thankfully lacked these tired, stereotypical scenes:
- projectiles/ships arriving from space (except... yeah, I know)
- guys in glasses and clean pressed lab coats with white boards
- roomsful of army mucketymucks looking at giant maps and arguing
- bombastic orchestral score
- dashing square-jawed muscle-men who perform unlikely physical feats and save the day
Some people think you NEED this stuff to make a good monster movie. Yes, I got a bit woozy at first. I bet that's why they left the datestamp on so long at the beginning, to give you a visual anchor til you got used to the motion. I was impressed with the way they incorporated the effects -- I'm sure it was a lot harder than most people think. Kudos to Abrams, Reeves, Goddard and crew.
not enough monster movie. The movie was good when the action sequences got going. Then it was excitement-inducing, but still not as much as I'd liked.
There was a bit too much backstory at the beginning. The fact that Rob and Beth had a relationship could have been said at the party without the the shots at the beginning. I didn't like the ending very well either. They said their goodbyes, presumably died in the following explosions, and we got to see their day at Coney Island. I didn't care enough about them to begin with to be moved by this. The fellow holding the camera for most of the movie was fairly good, injecting just enough comedic bits. Although, when he gets killed, if you look at how the monster attacks, I would think that the top half of him would have been gone and the camera would have been in the monster's gullet. If there was a shot after of the camera seeing a slit of light as the creature was being dissected after being killed, that would have been interesting.
That being said, there were things about the movie I did like. The first-person perspective, although Blair-Witchy (and that was the first thing everyone in the theatre noticed) was, I admit, interesting. The Japan references were cute, making one think of Godzilla. The way things came full circle when Rob and Beth said their goodbyes on camera like everybody did for Rob (again, Blair Witch, but not as dumb). The good bits like fighting off the spiders, the disemboweled soldier, and Marlena exploding. That was what I came to see.
But it was a letdown for me. With the ads never showing what the creature looked like, I was geared up a bit. It was like that movie The Invisible. I was expecting a ghost story, but some of the scenes in the trailers had been cut, and it turned out to be a love story, and not a very good one at that. To rate it on a scale of zero to ten, I'd give it a six.
i know why he came back for the chick -- but i think the story should have gone in a different direction. goddamn abrams and his not-telling-the-audience-anything shenanigans.
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
*stop reading if yer a spoilers nazi*
Anyone else notice at the very very end, when they're at coney island, in the background you see something fall from the sky into the ocean near a boat. To me this is them trying to say the monster came from space, chilled out in the ocean for about a month, then came out and smashed stuff up.
"I'm posting this so you guys can have a place to talk amongst yourselves..."
/. is a supposed $-making enterprise has NOTHING to do with such an ideal - riiiiggghhht.
And the fact that
PLEASE DONT LISTEN TO THE BULL SHIT!!!!!!! This movie is one of the best movies I ever seeen. IF you want a monter movie then you got it...but what make this movie great is that it is in the eyes of the helplesss victims and it seeems so real. I makes you feel that you are living with they are living, you some how become a part of the movie... It really bothers me that most people can sit down and use there imaginations for once... THIS MOVIE FUCKING ROCKS.....I just dont get how they made everything look so real, nothing about this movie looks fake and that why I ( a starting Linebacker at smc tranferring to USC) was gripping my seat..... I am going to see it again tonite and tomm...... SEEE IT PLEASE...
If there's even a small chance that you will ever want to see this movie, see it in theaters! Unless you have a sound system so good that it sets off seismometers, you won't have the same experience at home. Yes, the camera can be slightly disorienting, but the choice to film it from that point of view gives them so many amazing angles and effects that you would never imagine. There is no way the movie could have been better with a conventional setup. Finally, as someone before me mentioned, the Star Trek trailer was reason enough to see this.
...and the theater was PACKED. I don't think it was sold out, but it was close-- and this was in the largest auditorium in the multiplex. Say what you will about the movie, but the marketing for it was absolutely perfect from the word go, in terms of building anticipation. People were stoked to see this, probably from the moment that weird, untitled teaser nearly stole Transformers' thunder 6 months ago. They showed an unusually large number of trailers before starting the movie, and the audience was getting really restless and jeering when the last two green bands appeared instead of the "And now, our Feature Presentation" graphic. A huge cheer went up when the Bad Robot logo finally hit the screen.
(Spoilers ahead, so consider yourself warned...)
As for the movie, loved it. The first 20 minutes were a little slow, but we do need a little time to get to know the characters and settle in before all hell breaks loose. The "ShakyCam" stuff was just this side of annoying, because it's hard to really get a good look at some things when they're all over the frame-- of course, that's probably the intended effect, to induce in the audience some of the "what was that, what the HELL is going on???" confusion that the characters are feeling. The camera's viewpoint also sucks the viewer in and makes you feel like you're there-- in the tunnels, my heart was pounding; same with the scene in the park after the chopper crash, when Hud retrieves the camera and the monster is standing over him-- I was sitting in my seat holding my breath and thinking "OhGodpleasedon'tlookdown, ohGodpleasedon'tlookdown!" It was so quiet at that moment in the theater, I think that was true of most of the audience. There were definitely some effects shots that evoked memories of 9/11 and made me shudder a bit, especially given the 'you are there' viewpoint, but it wasn't gratuitous-- just about the right amount of mayhem you'd expect when a 25 story tall monster is smashing its way through Manhattan.
I will probably catch it again with friends at some point, because nobody wanted to go with me to the midnight show, and I just really want to get another look at it.
~Philly
With the exception of some bizarre temporal displacement (crossing HOW many city blocks in mere minutes?) the movie was fantastic. I love the big ugly monster genre and this was by far the best of it's breed if you're willing to accept that you are watching a movie about a home movie about an event. The Americanized Godzilla movie turned out to be a metric butt-load of suck and we have been without monsteriffic destruction for too many years.
The military scenes were the best. You weren't watching the scene from three camera angles, you were in there and it was great. I felt more involved in the movie as a result of the first person point of view even if the jerkiness was a little disconcerting at times.
load "$",8,1
I just posted a review on my blog: http://blakeyrat.com/2008/01/19/cloverfield/
... the monster sucked! All I can say about the monster is that it's a good thing the cast and crew kept it such a tight-lipped secret, because if they'd released photos of it I think it would have hurt their chances at the box office. Yes, gentle viewers, New York was being destroyed by a monster that not only had killer lice, but literally could not stand upright. Being one hundred feet tall? Scary. Waddling around on flippers? Not scary. The two even out to give the general reaction, "eh." When the reaction to the main character of your film is "eh" (and let's face it, people go to kaiju films to see the monster), then you got problems.
I'll paste the text here, but I'm still thinking of going back and revising it.
---
The one sentence review: Cloverfield is unfortunately kind of disappointing, and bring your Dramamine if you're sitting close to the screen.
Look, I like kaiju movies. I like serious Godzilla, the Godzilla of the 50s and 90s. I like crazy Godzilla, the Godzilla of every other decade. Yes, even Godzilla's Revenge. (What? It's funny... don't look at me like that.) I like crazy Gamera, and I believe honestly that Gamera truly is friend to all children. I like the serious Gamera of the 90s, which are still pretty crazy when you think about them, just with more gruesome effects. I even like Garuda, even though it's not really in the same genre.
I'm also the first person to proudly say that despite its name, kaiju movies are an American invention, damnit. Even if you don't think King Kong counts, there's still this awesome little flicked named The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms which not only fits the genre's conventions perfectly, but was released a year and change before the original Godzilla and had special effects by Ray Harryhausen and was written by Ray Bradbury and you really can't beat that.
So what I'm getting at here is you'd think I'd enjoy Cloverfield simply by default, and I didn't really. It had some moments that were truly worthwhile, but the film as a whole just didn't gel for me for whatever reason. And it didn't help that...
Spoilers Ahead
The second problem is that Cloverfield doesn't explain anything. Where does the monster come from? I dunno. Why is it in Manhatten? No clue. How come when the little killer lice bite you your head explodes? Shrug. I'm ignoring the questions that apply to all monster/horror movies, such as: "how come weapons that can penetrate 20 thick reinforced concrete are useless against fleshy creature?" and "why the hell are they just standing there gaping when they're in mortal danger?" Even Spielberg's War of the Worlds gave a BS explanation for the alien's presence. (They buried the spaceships a million years ago, then teleported into them under cover of a thunderstorm... God that movie sucked.)
Cloverfield also makes use of the new popular technique to make movies and TV shows look "more real" by not using a steadicam at all. Actually, the entire movie is a first-person viewpoint from a camcorder held by one of the characters, which flashbacks provided by the un-erased parts of the tape he was recording on, so that when the camera jogs or skips you see a few minutes of what it recorded a couple weeks before the events of the movie. I thought that was pretty clever. I'm not a huge hater of the hand-held camera look like a lot of people are, but I do want to warn you if you're going to see the movie that this camera movies. There are several-minute long scenes of it pointing randomly downwards while the characters are running. There's one shot where the camera falls 40 to the ground. (I want to know what model that is, damn it's durable.) Unlike, say, I Am Legend or Battlestar Galactica which are filmed with hand-held cameras that are held pretty steady, the camera in Cloverfield really, really moves. I sat too close to the screen, don't make the mistake I did.
So, in short, despite some exciting moments, I think the negatives of Cloverfield outweight the positives and I left the theater pretty disappointed.
Comment of the year
exactly. there were a couple of times where i had to look away so i could shake my head and refocus my eyes. i didn't get dizzy, but that shaky camera does wear on you.
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
if you think that the blair witch project sucked than you're an idiot who has no idea how to involve themselves with a film. i hope you morons keep away from the theaters. we don't want you there. go and pirate the films instead and hopefully you'll get your ass sued.
Am I the only person who reads terrorism symbols into this?
The monster attacks unexpectedly, resulting in some very 9/11 moments. People run and try to help others as they can.
Then the military runs in and tries to kill it, but can't. Nobody knows what it is, and it drops small agents wherever it goes that are hard to find.
Though, with regards to movies older than 25 years. . , I also watched "My Dinner with Andre". That was awesome!
As for this Cloverfield thing. . . I love a good monster movie, but Abrams is such a clone, I think I'll go to watch it knowing that half the fun will be in trying afterwards to pin down exactly what it is about his story-telling style which makes me feel as though my brain is being forced to into a lower-functioning state where the panorama of human reactions is reduced to black & white mono with Dolby Noise Reduction. Is he a reflection of the American public today, or is he just a tool being used by the Powers That Be to force everybody's brains to 'think' like a bunch of anti-depressant junkies. 'Lost' and 'Alias' were both so entirely fake and offensive that I think the man might actually benefit from a dose of electroshock therapy in the hopes that it might perhaps jump-start the rest of his cognitive awareness, --if indeed they exist somewhere in his cranium.
Can you imagine living in a world where canned emotional responses are the norm? I'd seriously want to shoot myself, though of course with the mind being what it is, you wouldn't even be aware that your brain was only firing on one cylinder.
But there have certainly been some productions in the last decade which were fantastic. --The animated Miyazaki features have all been well worth the rental price.
-FL
Babysitters anyone? And if you are fortunate to have relatives near by, particularly grandparents, they'll watch the child(ren) for free. Grandparents love time with their grandkids.
Rob was going to Japan, right? The company he was going to work for makes Slusho, a new drink out of Japan. They hired him to help translate the brand to an American audience. The secret ingredient is something called "Seabed's Nectar". Apparently this part was mined from the sea floor by Tagruato Industries. While they were mining it, some kind of accident took place in the days leading up to the attack on New York. The drilling rig collapsed, presumably because the monster was woken. The "news footage" is here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9a8_1199705318
As a further tie in, the tanker that exploded in the harbor was a Tagruato ship. It seems that they woke the creature on the sea floor, ala gojira, it followed a tanker to the city, and voila.
From Abrams:
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
+1 WTF: Spit coffee out my nose!
Live theater and musical events are best enjoyed together, though. They both offer something which can be called a shared experience. --The atmosphere and the uniqueness of a performance in a small club, and the buying drinks for each other and getting cuddly and checking out the other characters and dramas unfolding in the joint and all that. That's when you call a sitter.
-FL
I agree. Although there was only one part in the camera work that got me (running off of the bridge). Huck (the guy behind the camera) was great! He's even better in Carpoolers. The ATM and swapping episodes were phenomenal.
OT, but if you have the chance to go out and see a movie soon, try to find a movie house with "There Will be Blood." Critics and movie goers alike have been stunned. Caveat: it's 2 hours 40 minutes long, and not really a date movie (unless you significant other can appreciate good film).
I'm finished.
I really like it until the end, which I thought was stupid. So they "got to the choppa" and we think they are safe. Then the idiot pilot decides the best course of action is to fly parallel to where the monster is rather than flying away from it, and somehow it manages to jump and knock the down after getting a bunch of bombs dropped on it.
They survive the crash, yet they don't notice the monster's approach at all (even though you could hear it thumping around for large parts of the film, nice and atmoshperic) until it is literally standing above them. Then it only kills one of them, and lets the other two off.
Overall though, it thought it was good. Could be nasty if you are too close to the screen though with all the shaky-cam!
Signs was pretty close to that.
Is it ever possible to depict any New York disaster movie that won't somehow evoke images of 9/11? Yes, of course the images are similar, but I don't see it always as an allusion, at least not the only one. And yes, I'm in NYC and I was there during 9/11. Not that that gives me more or less of a right to talk about it.
The plot was alright, and the movie had a good balance of intensity & lulls in action, but the shaky cam is unforgivable. I don't go to the theater to watch amateur home movies, it wouldn't have been that hard to make the same movie with a tripod-you can still suck the viewer into the film without making them ride a vomit comet. I wanted to like it, but I don't want to see more of this shaky camera crap.
I thought it was a really good movie. I like the clips from a "previous recording" cut throughout the movie that added character development and background.
It was clearly well-directed, and had a lot of good camera work from the standpoint of composition. I didn't get the impression that they were trying to pass this movie off as low-budget (and having seen it, I would be really surprised if it was low budget). The handy-cam point of view is used entirely for cinematic effect, and not as an attempt to hype the movie. Don't miss this movie just because you think they're trying to hype it. It's an exceptional movie.
The movie is filled with action and suspense, and is the best scary movie I've seen in a long time. It's also the best "giant monster attacks city" movie I've ever seen.
I sat at the front of a very large movie screen, and I did not get a headache. Neither did my identical twin brother (for what that's worth).
Shaky cam is great for shows that are viewed on smaller screens, but when you blow it up to a 20 foot movie screen, the picture moves too much and gives people motion sickness.
I bet it will look fantastic on DVD.
Apparently the Cloverfield monster did something to her mouth. It's a cartoon that explains it all in graphic detail.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
The Host (, Goemul - "Monster") is a 2006 South Korean monster film, which also contains elements of comedy and drama films. The film was directed by Bong Joon-ho, who also co-wrote the screenplay, along with Baek Chul-hyun. Starring in the film as members of an unremarkable family thrust into the middle of extraordinary events were Song Kang-ho, Byeon Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona and Ko Ah-seong. The film has been accused of being anti-American, due to the portrayal of Americans in the film, and was lauded for this content in North Korea, a country where anti-American sentiment is high. - Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Host_(film) I have not see Cloverfeild yet but I think the plot might be the same and I did hear that they were going to make the Host again.
Thomas Galvin
I not quite sure what the attraction is to shakey-cam style. I saw Blair Witch and spent about 50% of the movie looking at the seat in front of me or at the floor. A friend of mine that was working in a theater when BWP was out said he had to clean up at least two piles of vomit after each showing.
Seriously, what sort of person do you have to be to create a movie that causes people to throw-up, leave the theater, or sit there with their eyes closed?
I'll pass on Cloverfield until it hits video. At least watching movies like that on a TV are easier on the eyes...unless you happen to own a 150" plasma TV.
Guess you never saw Men In Black, then.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
forgive me if I missed some of the movie, the camerawork made my friend puke at one point. one part didn't really click for me:
***SPOILERS BELOW***
it seems like they crossed the brooklyn bridge into brooklyn just as the bridge gets destroyed. then, they decide they need to get back into manhattan... and it just sort of happens. "oh look! were in the station for the 6 train!" Was it that they never made it across the bridge to begin with, or did they teleport across the east river? just wondering.
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
of the guy's name holding the camera the whole movie. Hudson, or "HUD" as he was called. :)
Run with Scissors!
Pretty decent suggestion. Must be nice to watch a movie without any questions/complaints/interruptions, save all that for later.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
1) The smaller monsters were a genius twist and were VERY creepy. It changed the whole feel of the monster movie from what I was expecting. As soon as I saw the CNN footage in the electronics store of the smaller creatures falling off the bigger one and attacking the soldiers, the whole movie changed for me...it became much more creepy. During the subway tunnel scene I looked away from the screen and everyone in the audience was bunched up in their seat.
2) Hud, the camera guy, kept the movie fun with his commentary. Good balance of action and humor. BWP had no humor element. Cloverfield kept the right balance here.
3) Explanations aren't important in these kinds of movies. Why Manhattan? Why couldn't the bombs kill it? Where was it from? Why did her head explode after being bitten?...Who the hell cares? Working in answers to these kinds of questions in the plot of a monster film is soooo cliche. It was shot from the perspective of civilians caught up in the event. If I were directing this, I may have added a epilogue or press release at the end of the film, but I wouldn't have incorporated these answers into the film.
4) The reality-based/civilian perspective on the monster movie is what makes this movie fresh. That is the novelty of this movie. To my knowledge, this hasn't been done before. The camera work, admittedly, was hard to watch (I wish they would've stabilized it more), but I think this form of narrative is extremely powerful.
If I were ranking the best monster movies of all time (a genre that, granted, is not made up of great films), I would put Cloverfield in the top 10.
It should read "Posted TO CmdrTaco" not "Posted BY CmdrTaco"
The only reason I know anything about this movie is from blog stories and comments. They seems way out of proportion for a movie with nothing special to it. It does not seem like a movie that has build-in mass appeal like the Simpsons Movie, so that does not explain it. It got a lot of advertising, but so do many movies that never see this kind of internet coverage.
I'm really suspicious that some marketing company has paid a bunch of people to go out on the net to try to pump blogs full of comments and submissions. Things like that tend to have a snowball effect, causing legitimate fans the initial marketing created to add support to it. My best shot at another explanation for this kind of coverage is that the traditional media marketing was designed to elicit this kind of response. However, it seems there is more going on then just that.
For anyone wondering a little bit more about the aftermath of Cloverfield, 1-18-08.com has a new picture or two as of the premiere.
Registered Linux User #449434
Every second reviewer comments on the bland, flat, two-dimensional character portrayals in this film. Classic Abrams.
You cannot hope to tell a good story unless you have some insight into human nature and behavior rather than just walk around with a handy reference card with a list of expected auto-reactions which have been programmed into brainwashed people. Abrams is a sleepwalker, and it is evident in his work. Cloverfield sounds like a film which was a good idea brought to us by a man who had his soul surgically removed by the CIA, (probably while working on 'Alias').
I remember meeting lots of American kids while traveling as a youngster, and most of them had this pathetic, (and I mean that in the agonizing, "Oh, you poor thing", way) zoned out "I live in the Matrix but haven't figured it out yet" brain-shocked look in their eyes. To be fair, some of the kids I met were very cool and very aware, but most were total and absolute sleep walkers, utterly lost. (Hmm. 'Lost'.) --Otherwise good and well-meaning people born into a highly artificial environment with no real reference points. A world where their souls were drugged into zombiedom by a highly controlled lucid dream culture. Very, very weird. I see it in other cultures, too, but there's a real hold on the minds of the American twenty-something which is very powerful and yet hard to put your finger on.
And it's not real! That's not what real people are supposed to be, and Abrams hasn't figured this out. He films the sleep-walkers in their little separate soul cages as though that was it. --Wall to wall plastic people living a few inches under the surface at all times. I don't even know how to articulate it other than as I am now doing, but it's totally disturbing and frustrating. People under plastic wrap, guided entirely by the machine mind, acting through life without any connection to their real selves. Ask them what they want, where their passion lives and they look at you, lost and confused. That's not how it should be. The good thing is that if you poke at it a bit, they begin to break through and wake up. What do you WANT?!?! WHO are you?!?! WHY are you doing what you are doing?!?! WHERE IS YOUR FIRE?!?! Do you FEEL it or are you simply going through the motions? It's right there inside; touch it! Connect to it. It's that brilliant white flare in your chest. Listen to your instincts and do whatever it takes to pull out of the luke-warm waters and WAKE UP!!!!!
-FL
I guess that depends on your definition of camcorder? The camera's used on Cloverfield for the "camcorder" shots, were prosumer models. I think I've heard Sony F23's and Panasonic HVX200's. Which are both $5k before you start adding on fancy lenses. In addition there are some very small professional cameras that are used by news crews that are shoulder mounted and weigh under 10 lbs.
That said, this definitely wasn't filmed with a $500 best buy special.
http://loews.bipnet.com/reelmoms/
http://www.rookiemoms.com/watch-new-movies/
--
$tar -xvf
Great idea for having your aliens land in the middle of nowhere, but I think you've been beaten to it.
This is why the thought of having kids fucking terrifies me. I'm also a little skeptical: Your kid endures 3-4 hours of shopping with a smile?
Offtopic response: Blind shower grope? I'm having a bout of alopecia and as a result I currently have no eyebrows[1] and only one upper eyelash, not to mention that it looks an awful lot like I shaved a map of Ecuador into my pubes. So, my face is substantially worse than most people's at diverting water away from my eyes. When it rains, I get water in my eyes. I also look a bit like an alien, but that's just an aside. Despite this 'disability' I still have exactly zero trouble opening my eyes in the shower. Here's my hot tip: Rinse the soap/shampoo/jizz/whatever off your face.
[1] Actually, the bit in the middle above my nose hasn't fallen out. I tell people I shaved the rest as a protest against men plucking their monobrows into duobrows. I'm all mono and no brow, baby.
Ob. Cloverfield: If the "plot" is of the same standard as Lost, I'm going to burn every cinema in the city to minimise the chances of people even telling me about it.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
15 years later that child in therapy...
"Every time a movie trailer comes on or I go past a theater, I have to go shopping. I can't figure it... my credit cards are maxed..."
I had serious trouble with Halo and Halo 2, but after taking dramamine before a few weekly sessions with friends, I found that I could tolerate those games even without medical assistance. Still, a few early scenes in Cloverfield had me looking away at a fixed point.
Kiddypoo?!
To me (a UK resident) that means kiddyfaecalmatter!
And your hair smells like strawberry ???!!! WTF?!
First, I have not seen the movie, but that will have no bearing on this post.
The fact that people involved with LOST were involved with this movie is a definite 'must see' for my fiance and I. I'm not a general fanboy, but I am a LOST fanboy. I haven't missed an episode yet. It's my Startrek. I've read about a 1/3rd of the postings here, and the fact that the monster viewings aren't saturating is a dead on LOST trademark. That I don't have an issue with. I love antecdotal storylines, like I (heart) Huckabee's, and I love offbeat or even cerebral antecdotes like Pi. I am also so sick of movies where the military gets involved, does everything they can (which is nothing to these monsters) and all end up dying anyway. Boring. Can we save all that time for the people that count? Us? I get it, our military is weak compared to a larger terror. (See: the current war). War of the Worlds had a very plausible, if fantastical bio for how the ET's machines got onto Earth, although I think that the fact that one of the machines ascended from the exact center of an intersection was a little silly and unbelievable. And like another poster said, the machines had obviously been planted there many years before those cities, or even humans existed, there were some that came out of the ground in the country and harassed farmers (no one is safe!).
Want a somewhat cheesy monster movie with story, plot, horrible character acting and dialog, monsters that harbor tank busting rockets and destroy large cities and annihilate our military? Try Dragon Wars D-War. (minimal shakycam business!) The dragons are cool, there's another angle on what dragons are before they become dragons, and did I mention tank busting rockets tied to the backs of monsters?!?! WOOO!
Anyway, I'll go see Cloverfield, and chances are, all pretentions will cessate now that I've read plenty of positive and negative reviews on it. Good thing I don't have any inner ear disorders...
for my camcorder. It just kept going and going and.....
So I have not seen Cloverfield. I don't plan on giving Abrams any of my hard earned money. But I am curious to know if he has found a way to once again justify torture in this new film. Since he did it in Alias, Lost, and Mission Impossible: III, I wonder what he did this time. I do know that he had better not be planning to do so in Star Trek XI. Hundreds of us have already asked him to declare he won't do so publicly and the number grows each day: http://trekkies.againsttorture.com/ The larger issue about what messages pervade pop culture about torture and other violations (i.e. "24", of course) - and how that is USED by politicians to attempt to excuse illegal practices is one at the heart of the struggle to protect civil and human rights in the US.
Had to leave about half in or my large lunch would have been on the theater floor. As such, would some kind person reveal what happened?
...because its at the bottom of a page that already has too many comments, but I hated the movie and this is a chance for me to complain.
I felt like I was watching the viral marketing campaign for the movie that SHOULD have been made. There is this huge, awesome monster with interesting biology slaughtering New Yorkers in droves. We have no idea where it came from, how it arrived in manhattan, or how its going to be gotten rid of. It drops parasites cooler than the monsters you see in most films. But we don't get information about any of that. We're stuck with Dipshit-with-a-handycam chasing Douche-bag around as he tries to find Cute-but-kinda-skanky-girlfiend to tell her he loves her before she dies because she's too lazy to pick herself up off a piece of rebar.
Also, the Pepé LePew effect drives me nuts. The characters run frantically around Manhattan for 90 minutes, and yet, somehow, the monster is never more than 50 yards away.
(On the other hand, that one chick exploded. That was kinda cool.)
Mod parent 'troll' if you want - at least they didn't film it with a shaky-cam!
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
My general principle is, if the first 20 minutes suck, it's not going to get any better. The dialogue in the first 20 minutes was awfully lame. The situation was illogical. How many 23 yr old guys get a VP job in Japan? Who are these people? Why are they so dumb? Why do we care about them? Mightnt we be better off with them smashed to a pulp?
I was one of the fortunate few who got to see this at the Lucasfilm Premier Theater in San Francisco this Tuesday. Best theater I've ever experienced...digital projection, awesome sound system, comfortable seating...it was a treat! I liked the movie. It was pretty good...maybe not great, but definitely worth the price of a ticket. The monster was very cool! I only have two complaints. 1.) I needed some Dramamine for some of those shaky camera shots. Maybe the point was to make you feel disoriented, but I think it detracted from the experience as I had to look away at times. 2.) I thought the last shot of the monster made it seem smaller than all the other shots. This thing was as big as a sky scraper in the beginning and it looked significantly smaller during the closeup shot. Anyone else notice or is it just me? Maybe the camera was zoomer in.
Last time I checked, taking of 'lots' of Dramamine results in some pretty heavy hallucinations. Those might not have been 'special effects' you were seeing!
And by the way, Star Trek is fucked. Abrams is a hack, despite being the industry golden boy right now.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
> It's Blair Witch's first person camera work, applied to a small (for the genre) budget monster movie.
You know, if you tried REALLY hard, you could probably come up with a description that makes this movie sound even more wretched. For instance, you could say that all the major characters are in high school, or that the special effects are a lot like the ones in Star Trek: The Motion Picture...
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
And what is the explanation for the huge explosion at the beginning where the head of the SoL comes flying off? Surely just breaking the statue did not cause that huge explosion?
I realise it's trendy to criticise the fuck out of every movie that comes out, but I thought it was great fun. Positives: 1. A sense of realism about the whole thing (stemming from the flawed bits and pieces the camera-wielding doofus was able to capture) 2. Clear Lovecraft mythos homage 3. Good creature design Negatives: 1. Handheld camera makes lots of people nauseous (didn't bother me, but hey) 2. Patchy acting 3. Implausible stunts 4. Annoying name Now I want a prequel in which investigators try to prevent cultists from summoning the monster (guided by the Necronomicon). The prequel ends with the investigators taking down the last of the cultists on Liberty island, too late, and seeing the wake heading towards them, the head of the statue flying towards the city . . .
Basically that sums up the flick right there.
Various elements of the film have been done before.
That chick popping - werd up!
The camera shake was completely overworked. We get it: guy holding his personal camera... thanks for drilling that in for two hours.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Doesn't that imply there is more than one site? Which to me means alien invasion.
I can understand a lone sea monster run amok, but if it is an alien, wouldn't it have technology greater than thrashing its bulk around to destroy things?
Heh, here's a thought - maybe it is of alien origin, but nothing more than the space-faring version of blue ice.
That that sounds about right. Just some amusing shit to watch.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Walked into a normally scent-free theater today to see this thing. I sit down and I smell something...shall we say...off. A bit like vomit. I unfortunately chalked it up to some guy in the next row eating the vastly overpriced concession pizza. After watching this for five minutes I should have gone with my gut reaction, if you'll pardon the pun. Seriously, take a Bonine before going to see this or wait till it comes out on DVD.
This movie deserves all of the hype that it will receive. I was able to see it today and it was one of the most amazing movies I have seen. It was the perfect length and every aspect of the cinematography was spectacular. I have seen/heard plenty of complaining about the dizzying camera movement but if you really think about it would the movie have been as unbelievably amazing if it had been a still cam? As I was walking out of the theatre, several people said it was terrible and expressed their dislike of the camera movements and said they felt sick. At the theatre I went to, a warning was posted at the box office about the "roller coaster like views and possibility of nauseating effects." Sure it might still have been decent without the shaking and humanistic movements of the filming but its Blair Witch like style was the best decision in conveying what was going on in the film and added the perfect touch to the film. Sure the acting was a little awkward but that adds to the effect, what normal person wouldn't be a little awkward in the situations that they were thrust into acting. All in all I think that nearly every aspect of the movie was perfect and Cloverfield took monster movies to the next level of excellence.
Will it win awards? No.
Fun? Yes
Exciting? Yes
Cool? Yes
The camera movement make you not feel good even if you play FPS games? Yes
Great action and graphics? Yes
Worth watching? Absolutely
I saw the movie Cloverfield last night (opening night) with a few of my friends at their suggestion. I walked into the theatre knowing almost nothing about the actual story, just that the "Lost guy" (Mister 'figure it out for yourself', J.J. Abrams) had produced it, so I knew generally that whatever it was, it was going to be fairly outlandish. Once the motion sickness wore off and we had some dicussion about it, we came to the conclusion that this is actually a very good movie!
I had no idea that the whole movie was going to be the 'camcorder tape' style, and after about 10 minutes I was like, Oh, no... but I gave it a chance, and was entertained. I don't think people who say this movie was acted poorly aren't putting themselves into it enough. Think about it: if Armageddon started falling all around you, do you know how you would react? No one knows and that's an aspect of this film I like a lot. People with their camera phone's; some running just like in Godzilla; some paralized in shock or fear; miliary flyin' in everywhere. That's exactly what would go down if that happened in NYC.
A good movie by no traditional standard whatsoever, but it was an extremely intriguing concept executed brilliantly. Excellent special effects, , keeping the audience guessing, some humor breaking it up, lulls where you stop and feel the true terror, characters dying off one-by one; all the perfect ingredients for a great horror movie. Why not?!?!?!
So all you haters that went into the movie with great expectations: Sorry, but you did it to yourself. Try and look at this movie, or anything created by Bad Robot or J.J. Abrams, for what it is... Also, for what it's worth, Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls) gets my vote for "Best exploding abdomen after beating an alien creature to death while it was attacking a guy who had a camcorder that somehow magically survived the event and never ran out of battery" award when the MTV Movie Awards rolls around.
Nay, I say. To me that part of the movie was moving because of the wonderful character exposition and development up to that point. It actually took me a few seconds during the film to realize that Rob was putting on a brave front and *pretending that his brother was still alive* for his mother. Choked me right up.
I think the monsters were a direct mix between the monster faces of Resistance: Fall of Man, the bodies of Gears of War, and the minion types falling off were a lot like Final Fantasy 10 when Sin or various Sin-spawn shed scales/minions...
I thought the first 15 minutes or so (at the party mostly) was boring - the action started getting good with the scenes where the military shows up and things start going boom. Sounds like just about everybody hates the retarded camera thing - I got used to it enough to watch the movie, but that doesn't change that the camera sucked 90% of the time. I think it would have been a much better movie if they had used traditional camera crews, then the audience could focus more on the action and interactions/relationships of the group(s) of people. Using the handy-cam for a few parts of the movie would be good though, such as when Rob films waking up with Beth and the scene through the tunnel where they use the night vision on the camera.
As for the Star Trek movie, I'm barely even like Star Trek, but at least the trailer got my attention, and they made the Enterprise look pretty cool during construction - I saw that and was happy to see a space exploration movie in the works...
Wow! I never knew I had so much in common...I have a 3.67 month old at home, and my dear spouse gave me permission to sneak off to a matinee of Cloverfield today. It's the first movie I've been to since we got pregnant.
Man, it was fun. I'll skip most of the negatives; they were slight in my view. Finding that my head had turned sideways a time or three was the only bad thing for me, but I thought it was funny. I do the same with flight sims too sometimes. I probably shouldn't be a pilot! But on topic, this was a good way to make a classic monster movie seem fresh. The lack of explanation is better than the hokey pseudoscience of the standard fare. Dang good. And the way the moster was revealed a bit at a time worked fantastic.
What's with all the negativity about the upcoming Trek movie? All the old Trekkies are as bad as the old farts I see at car shows--if it's not Shatner or a '69 Camaro that looks like state of the art from 1987, they poo poo it. Go to hell. I like new takes on things. I hope some day a creative mind gets ahold of Lucas' rights and does a fresh angle on the whole Star Wars world for the big screen.
I think most people that end up disappointed are missing the point of the movie.
The movie is about the people caught up in the attack, not the monster or the military or the government. It's strictly about the people at Ground Zero.
Luckily, I don't suffer from any form of motion sickness so the shakycam effect didn't phase me at all. If anything, my main gripe was that I wish Hud, the cameraman, would've just panned around during certain key moments when I knew some stuff was going down just off camera.
I accept the fact that we still don't know about the monster at the end because the characters we followed the whole movie didn't. I sincerely hope the rumors are true that Abrams and crew have an option for a follow up and get to tell the story from another perspective to shed more light on the monster and it's origins.
I didn't get a headache watching the movie, didn't even come close. Just wondering if it is or is not normal to get a headache watching a shaky film? My eyes seemed to adjust to the shaking after a few minutes and didn't take note of it again till I came back to /.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Monopod. The foot doesn't have to touch the ground for it to stabilize the shot.
Miraculously, Manhattan is devastated, but the mobile phone network survives, just enough to make the whole movie a Nokia product placement.
Spoiler...
.
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My favorite line was Hud's right before the Helicopter crash. "They hit it! Yeah! That's the shit! Yeah that's the shit!" *OHNOTEETH*
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
"Monster appears in deserted area" has been done many times. My favorite is "The Navy vs. The Night Monsters". Monsters appear on tropical island. After various adventures, people on island get on radio and call in an air strike. Jet fighters are dispatched, blow up monsters. Final scene shows black smoke rising out of jungle. No more monsters.
The 1950s were a very confident period in the US. After winning WWII, no conceivable monster or monsters looked like a serious threat. '50s SF reflects that.
To all the monster movie fans that didn't enjoy it, I think I know why: It's not a monster movie. Just like 'Titantic' is not a movie about boats, 'Cloverfield' is not a movie about monsters. It's a love story, that takes place during a crisis, the crisis happening to be a monster terrorizing the city. So you get all the elements of the monster movie, but from the perspective of 1 person. The first person view helps connect the individual to the scene. Instead of watching people run from the monster, you are the person running. It gives an entirely different feel to a story. I liked it. :)
I thought for awhile that ALL the positive buzz on the intarwebs was astroturf. Some of it seemed obvious.
;)
Then I snarked sarcastically at someone on another site who said it was the most awesome movie she'd ever seen.
Turns out she was born in 1990. She's 17. I'd said, awesome? Try 'Blade Runner' (I just got a copy of the 4-disc version, which is why that came to mind)
She'd never heard of it.
I'm guessing part of the problem is how many people don't even know what they're missing. Alright, so cheesey action hero stuff is lame, understood. Do you really need to have NO point and nothing beyond people fleeing and getting pwned? I can see that's more postmodern and less pretentious than the cheesey action hero stuff, but is that honestly the best you can do? Can't you want more?
Ah, I'm SUCH an old fart. Depressing.
in b4 'shut up noob'
So Marcus Theaters, the only decent theaters in milwaukee, screwed up and broke some contract having to do with sweeny todd, and now they cant show cloverfield at all. The only non marcus places showing it are this tiny arthouse theater that has gross seats and shitty sound, why bother, and the mayfair mall theater which i refuse to go to for saftey reasons. Guess ill be waiting for the DVD...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I love how nobody mentioned the third rail *at all* when they were in the subways. I guess it could have been shut down because of the outages, but even then, they were pretty intermittent. A simple "Stick to the right because of the rail" would have sufficed, or a "Apparently, the electricity has stopped flowing". Seemed kind of silly to be scared of flaming bums when there is enough volts to fry you ten times over two feet away.
In my opinion this movie was good. I enjoy how it was a sorta.. documentary? spoiler: at the beginning it shows that it is a government video they found from the area, Project Cloverfield or whatever.. Since the government found the video they would have to use it with a first person point of view.. If they head it steady it wouldn't be as realistic.. The monster attacked Manhattan by chance.. obviously the creators would want it in a highly populated area which everyone at least knows of. At the end of the credits i believe it said It's still alive or something backwards.. Also at the end scene where it flips back to beth and rob at cony island, the camera goes to the side and you see something fly form the sky into the water (the monster obviously).
If you didn't like the shaking then oh well? It boosted the storyline and helped it show from a first person.. if you are getting attacked and your city is being destroyed, you are not going to hold the camera steady at all..
The monster in my opinion looked great.. I haven't really seen any monster like it.. a giant hunched over space/sea thing that has parasite bug things that fall off its back is amazing.
I loved it too and was skeptical going in.
I think I'm seeing a trend in movies like this that focus on a small group of "normal" people swept along in some extraordinary, but familiar circumstances - either fictional or historical. Contrast Cloverfield with Godzilla, in which the protagonists are not normal - they're at the heart of the story. Another couple movies that used this idea successfully are Titanic and Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Got other examples?
...where he didn't make the cut:
"I've had it with all these motherfucking zombies in this motherfucking mall!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking wizards from this motherfucking school!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking mutants from this motherfucking school!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking hobbits with this motherfucking Ring!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking Agents in this motherfucking virtual reality!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking androids from motherfucking Skynet!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking icebergs in this motherfucking ship!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking dinosaurs on this motherfucking island!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking talking pigs in this motherfucking farm!"
Lines I would have paid good money to hear:
"I've had it with all these motherfucking Sith in this motherfucking galaxy!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking wedding rehearsals with this motherfucking piano!"
"I've had it with all these motherfucking ghosts in this motherfucking hotel room!"
But we know he's hit the bottom of the barrel if Uwe Boll ever rejects him despite the line:
"I've had it with all these motherfucking goombahs in this motherfucking sewer!"
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
I can't say I liked or disliked the movie. It was interesting and sometimes cool. Often it was lame. It quickly gave me a headache thanks to the Blair Witch style filming (a camcorder with lots of running). It was sort of gritty with a lot of washed out colors and it was hard to see what was going on. The movie really didn't have a plot - like the Blair Witch Project it was mostly watching people run around and react to things. You didn't really have a chance to become emotionally attached to the characters so while the movie was sometimes frightening you didn't care much when even the major characters bought the farm. It was a bit depressing because you never got to see what happened and the movie basically ended on a low note. The special effects were okay, and not to distracting, but nothing great. I can't see very many people seeing this more than once or bothering to buy the DVD but it was worth seeing once. Good for people that don't like to think when watching a movie. I liked seeing it with some friends but I know my wife would have hated it.
While overall I as unimpressed by Cloverfield I do think that if War of the Worlds was done with something closer to this style it could be very compelling. It'd go well with the history of WotW. Given a chance to get attached to the characters and a little more plot, I think this style could make the movie feel very real. Maybe limit the use of this filming style to the part of the film where the shit is hitting the fan so you get more of a difference from the staging part of the film where everything is peachy - might help to reduce the headaches if limited too.
I'd say this movie is overhyped but doesn't suck total ass.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Since when did we talk about movies on /.? Especially ones that aren't already firmly embedding in the geek/nerd subculture.
No doubt, someone will try to claim that the photography was Cinema Verite.
It wasn't ! It was Cinema Bloody Shit.
Not just amateur quality, but infantile !
The acting was juvenile.
The plot was ill conceived.
The dialogue was absolutely retarded:
e.g. Person1: "Hammer down is at 0600 hours". Person2: "What time is that?". Person1: "6am" Person2: "I knew that!". No wonder the USA is in utter decline with this state of educational ignorance amongst its' College Graduates.
How dare the film-makers (and film distributors) launch this crap upon the public, with little warning or trailers to forewarn of how bad this movie is.
Every one who attends should demand their money back from cinema management when exiting.
Whatever it is, it makes me want to read books instead.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
In the category "movies that make you physically sick", I nominate Richard Linklater. I had to leave after 15 minutes the flickering fuckfest of Waking Life (and cheap philosophy 101 theme). I thought my eyes were going to pop off their sockets from trying to focus on this mess. A Scanner Darkly was slightly more watchable but I had to regularly keep my eyes closed in order to finish the movie.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I hated the BWP and loved Cloverfield. It was a stripped down giant monster movie and nothing more, nothing less. The shaky cam felt right with the tone the movie was trying to achieve, and was spectacularly used especially in the subway tunnel sequence. Also I thought it was an urban legend that people get nauseous with stuff like this. I was in a packed theater right by the main exit, and nobody left during the movie. Weird. Guess Wisconsinites have iron stomachs.
For starters, if you don't like scary movies, if you don't like monsters, you're not going to like this movie. I don't know why critics who don't even like the genre are giving it such bad ratings. I don't go for British costume dramas, you don't see me criticizing those movies for being exactly what they are.
As for the people who are in the target this movie is aimed at and don't like it, just what exactly are you demanding/expecting? I don't know how bad the hype was, I studiously avoided all mention of the movie once I heard there was the chance it could be good. What was I expecting? Godzilla from the pedestrian's point of view. What did I get? Godzilla from the pedestrian's point of view. We already knew from the very premise of the video that this was being presented as a horror journal. Can you say the original Dracula novel? Can you say most of HP Lovecraft's stories? People are complaining that there wasn't a tidy ending. You knew from the trailers that this would be a camcorder movie, you knew from the start of the film that the footage was found in an abandoned camera so the people recorded on it probably didn't end very well.
I thought the movie was great. Yes, there are certain plausibilities that must be abandoned in order to give you really good fear scenes. If these people were smart, they would have bugged out and never seen anything. If Hud was normal, he'd have dropped the camera during the flight. We wouldn't have had a movie then. Does anybody complain about the hero in a war movie making it through the majority of the movie when people are dropping like flies all around him? No! Even if a unit takes 90% casualties, 10% made it through the fight. The camera is tagging along with one of the ten percenters, no use following the life story of the guy who takes a bullet in th face the moment the landing ramp drops on D-Day.
That being said, the only plausibility criticism I have to levy against it is the girlfriend surviving the impalement thorugh the shoulder, then keeping up with her friends as they run through the city. That girl should have been on death's doorstep next to the flaming bag of doggie doo. They should have left her pinned beneath wreckage she didn't have the leverage to move but which did not crush her severely. That would have enabled the rescue and run without straining plausibility. But that's really a small nitpick. I mean, compare it to Starship Troopers -- my biggest nit from Cloverfield, woman impaled through shoulder but not suffering from the injury, that's the smallest of the stupidities in that movie.
Cloverfield was a great monster flick and delivered exactly what was promised. For the genre fans who are haters, please provide your example of a better movie.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The monster was supposed to be Geddy Lee but was changed because they thought it would be too scary. http://geddyleeisslusho.blogspot.com/
I left the theater wondering what happens next? Does the monster win, or are they able to destroy it? What did that mean about "dropping the hammer" on NYC? Were they going to nuke it, or just use a lot of bombs? The bombs they showed were not effective.
And I assume that the little monsters are baby versions of the big one, and that they bite people and implant eggs, which they grow very quickly into new monsters and burst out of people? Doesn't that seem like what they were implying? So there might be a danger of infections spreading elsewhere.
They had two theories for where the monster came from: the ocean, or space. Sea creatures generally would not evolve to function on land, both because of the whole air breathing thing, and more importantly because there is no buoyancy on land so their bones would not be strong enough to carry them. However if we are talking about something that can fly between stars, maybe engineered to cause destruction, that opens up a lot more possibilities, and makes the super-tough hide that much more plausible.
Also, is the monster intelligent? We didn't see much sign of it but the little ones seemed to understand the benefits of stealth, and the big one could have had an enormous brain.
Why did it attack the Statue of Liberty and tear off the head? Just general trouble-making, part of the overall destruction program as it moved up onto Manhattan?
Anyway I left the theater with a questions like these, which I suppose was the point. But I wouldn't have minded a few more answers. Maybe there will be a future version, Cloverfields, related to this movie as Aliens was to Alien, with lots of monsters attacking lots of cities and the human race being faced with extinction.
What does he do, destroy the city with soundwaves from a giant rap-blaring boombox?
Exactly the comment my wife made the instant the first credits appeared. I was not so harsh. It's definitely more exploration of the "Blair Witch" first person form which was and still is waaaayyy over rated IMO.
BWP was pure hype and a total waste of time. This one was just barely interesting.
Won't buy the DVD that's for sure.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
How did a 15 year (+ 4 month) old get a credit card?
What ruined my suspension of disbelief was the fact that there wasn't a single "fuck" in the entire film.
THAT was the most unrealistic element of the entire experience. They should do an unrated DVD release with the word "fuck" copiously inserted into the audio.
OK, it wasn't terrible. It was a good movie, worth the watch definitely.
I had three problems with it though.
1) The camera never ran out of battery.
2) The monster was freaking invincible. It seems to be a cliche that in all godzilla movies, the monster wears an exoskeleton made out of freaking depleted uranium.
3) The ending was really dissappointing. After the camera-guy got killed, and they were sitting under the bridge, I wanted to see the monster getting destroyed. The ending was.. too realistic, and too abrupt, you know?
My 2 cents:
1.At the very beginning of the movie it claims that the following movie was discovered on a SD card in the camera. If the whole thing is on an SD card how did he over-write the old movie but still manage to have some clips at random parts?
2.The movie shouldn't have been 80 minutes, it should have been longer to help develop plot and story line. They put an effort into showing that being bit was a really bad thing but the example is the only time it's done. Those lice-monsters are pretty much used only once during the subway incident (the building scene didn't really use it, as it just sat there pretty much and got killed). Its like they tried to combine multiple ideas but never gave any idea enough time to get off the ground. Hell, I felt like the movie was chopped up and I got the edited version with parts taken out.
And honestly that guy carrying around the camera is damn annoying at times, just wanted to punch him and tell him to shut up. He killed a lot of the movie with his constant rambling.