Cloverfield

[MalReynolds]

Just saw it, loved it. Freakin' loved it.

I'm dead tired, but willing to discuss this movie at length tomorrow.

[Rubin0]

Re: Cloverfield

I just got back from the midnight showing too!

I loved it.

[Vunik]

Re: Cloverfield

Great movie. Change of pace from recent movies, and I really liked the whole hand-held first person camera view. I believe that made the movie more exciting at certain parts.

[Grandiagod]

Re: Cloverfield

Apparently shot from the point of view of a freakishly large puppy with his head inquisitively cocked at a 45 degree angle all cute like.

[Gano]

Re: Cloverfield

Movie was flippin' awesome. It definitely sucked me in so much that I went through the entire movie, then realized I'd been too captivated to even touch the popcorn I'd bought :P

ps Star Trek teaser trailer omg 8)

pps If you haven't gone yet don't wait after the credits, there is nothing there.
[edit] I meant extra vid clips, what Mal said below is true just not really worth 10 minutes of credits.

ps3 Did anyone else think it felt muuuch longer than the 85 something minutes it was?

[MalReynolds]

Re: Cloverfield

There is something. There's an audio clip of Rob saying, backwards, "It's still alive."

Also, Grandia, it's shot like it's from the POV of a tall guy who is running wiht a camcorder. I can see where you can confuse the two,though.

[MalReynolds]

Re: Cloverfield

IN DEPTH REVIEW, HO!

If you haven’t heard felt the hype for this movie, you’ve pretty much been living with your head in your own ass. That’s the only place I can imagine you not getting any residual waves from the intense marketing campaign of this movie.

I was skeptical at first. Walking in to a movie that strictly uses a hand held camera to tell the narrative of a monster attack on Manhattan? Wouldn’t it have been easier to tell the same story, but with a steadicam? The answer is, yes. But would it have been nearly as effective? Oh, hell no.

The movie starts out with Rob, played with boyish charm by Stahl-David, after a night of pure straight up sex with the girl of his dreams, Beth. He’s filming the morning after, including a planned trip to Coney Island – a New York native and she’s never been? I’ll buy it. They were cute together and there was some good chemistry going on.

But SOMEONE forgets to replace the tape in the camera, and the movie jumps forward a month. Rob has just accepted a job as Vice President of something or other (it’s never mentioned) in Japan, and there’s a surprise party. This is a fairly decent round-robin style introduction to most of the other major players in the game – unwilling cameraman Hud (TJ Miller, who I still find hilarious in the well meaning “Carpoolers”) – Rob’s brother, Jason, Rob’s brother’s girlfriend, Lily, and Marlena, played with sarcastic perfection by Lizzy Caplan – the biggest name in the film having starred along side Lindsey Lohan in Mean Girls and a starring role opposite Jason Ritter in 2006’s “The Class.”

You get a good feel for the characters – Rob included – until Beth shows up with her new boyfriend. Apparently after they did the nasty and spent the day at Coney Island, Rob flaked – he was scared that his new job in Japan would drive her away, so he did all the driving away. He never called, never returned her calls, and just tried to avoid her.

Succinctly, as Jason puts it, he was a douche.

But enough with the people, am I right?

Wrong. It’s a good thing this movie establishes the characters because you’re spending the next hour with them as they run, scream, die, fight, flirt, crack jokes – the monster never, ever becomes a main character. Which is odd, considering this is, in fact, a monster movie.

After the **** hits the fan and we’re all treated to eerie 9/11 flashbacks, the movie picks up. Rob and Beth had a huge falling out at the party. During the evacuation of the city, Rob gets a call. Beth is stuck. The Brooklyn Bridge falls, and Rob realizes what is it worth going through something like this if you can’t have the person you love beside you?

Does the movie ever degenerate into a love fest? No. I’m glad to say it doesn’t. But the love theme does drive the central characters to do some crazy stupid things, be it moving through the street while Clovington III trounces military soldiers, or through subway tunnels in pitch darkness, the motivation to not die alone is the fuel that feeds the fire.

Hud is fine following Rob, his “main dude”, because that’s who he needs. Marlena, you get the impression early on as she stares longingly at her phone, doesn’t really have a whole lot of other people. Lily, the one she’s supposed to be with, bites it fairly early on. They’re all attached to each other and the hope that finding Beth will some how make things right, make things easier for them.

Of course, the Gods will never let this be. They’re given obstacles to overcome, tinier monsters to fight, brief arguments amongst themselves, never losing site of the goal. If Rob can find Beth in this time of horror, if he can find his light, can’t we all?

You’re never given a clean shot of the monster until about 1/3 of the way through and then, surprisingly, I found the monster to be overused. The most effective moments in the movie were contained in the same stretch – the subway tunnel crawl and station holdup – that didn’t feature the monster at all. It was mere feet away, above ground, and the constant rumbling helped set the mood, but the idea of the monster was somewhat scarier than the monster itself.

Throughout the film, snippets of the Coney Island trip are played as Hud (ironic as in First Person Shooter games HUD means heads-up-display) turns the camera off and on. It gives a nice juxtaposition to a nicer time when large inverted starfish like beings weren’t leveling Manhattan. Remember those days? Those were the salad days.

Connection is the big name of the game. Trying to find someone you can reach out to and hold on to, through thick and thin, while your city is crumbling around you.

If you’re expecting to learn about the monster from this film – **** off, it’s JJ Abrams. Have things ever been that simple? Be prepared to crawl through video clips, photos, and blogs to piece together where Clovington III came from.

Having seem some clips on line and knowing Abrams’ disdain for Godzilla, I figure the creature was awoken by deep sea drilling. Godzilla played on the fears of the time, creating a monster via nuclear tests – something feared at the time for being highly destructive to both the environment and the people that chose to wield such a power. Following the viral marketing (a chilling cell phone video, explicitly) of an oil platform collapsing makes me believe that the monster was awoken due to our selfish need for oil, and it followed a tanker right in to Manhattan.

But enough about that. Did the movie live up to the hype?

If you can totally immerse yourself in the twentysomething, One Tree Clover or Dawson’s Field aura of the movie, yes. Most of the dialogue flows naturistically, considering the people speaking, and I was amused to find that a good portion of it was improvised.

The camera in the middle of the action puts your right there, in the moment. Once the movie started, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen on the goings-on.

Highly impressive at most, slightly moving at the least.

8.0/10

[Kekeb]

Re: Cloverfield

Lol burning killer hobo.

I enjoyed it. I knew the movie would end like that, but I wanted some kind of backstory or follow up.

EDIT: Like you said, it's J.J. Abrams lol.

[esupin]

Re: Cloverfield

Somewhere deep in my heart, even though I knew I was 100% wrong, I still held on to the tiny bit of hope that this would be a Power Rangers remake. Still, this was much more satisfying than Lost.

[imockthepea]

Re: Cloverfield

I creamed a lot. Probably going to go see it again. I would say this is a need to see movie.

[arsonistsgetallthegirls]

Re: Cloverfield

I didn't like it. Well actually, that's not fair.
Good action/production.
As for the monster, the credits mentioned "monster from 20,000 leagues". Still don't know what it is... BUT! (spoilers)

It completely contradicted itself cinematically.
The first person camera was meant to give the movie a realistic feel, yet the woman on the 46th floor lived for a couple hours while impaled through the chest, was able to get back downstairs with little help, and survived a face to face encounter with the monster AND a helicopter swat-down.

Also, the military mobilized heavy armor after only 15 minutes of "live action recording", and set up a massive underground hospital in like 2 hours. The monster was pretty stealthy at times as well.

Maybe I'm just looking too deep into the cinematography, but it was still a good movie, and worth the money.

[MalReynolds]

Re: Cloverfield

The "hospital" took around 4 hours. They spent quite a bit of time in Spring Street Station and walking through the tunnels.

And the military showed up after the B. bridge went down, which was some 2 odd hours after the initial attack. Not unheard of, but pretty dang fast.

After they leave the hospital, the movie goes back a little more faithfully into "real time mode" like at Rob's party and the first part of the film.

[cC@Zz]

Re: Cloverfield

Just saw this movie tonight. It was great and I was glued to the screen the whole time. THe small monsters reminded me of the alien creatures in that movie "Starship Troopers".

[NFD]

Re: Cloverfield

...So what was the "monster".

[arsonistsgetallthegirls]

Re: Cloverfield

...So what was the "monster".

That's what i want to know.
I still can't figure out what the **** it's supposed to be.