Wednesday, May 14, 2008

All Shook Up

I know that when Angie isn't interested in a movie I want to watch (which often involves Vampires, Zombies, or other monsters), I watch it when she's not around. Cloverfield was just such a movie the other day. Dylan saw it in theaters and said that it stunk - he hated the handheld camera thing. I think that the movie was made without much use of a script in an attempt to make it as realistic as possible, since it is filmed from the point of view of a handheld video camera from the participants. If you've seen The Blair Witch Project, you know what I'm talking about.

The result? It is OUTSTANDING! The movie is creepy, scary and really entertaining. You won't see Academy Award acting and you'll need to get past the fact that there are about 100 times in the movie where any rational person would have left the video camera behind, but other than that, the movie is very compelling. The monster is believable, the action is awesome, and you couldn't have a better backdrop than the island of Manhattan. The beginning attack scene with the collapse of the Woolworth Building is reminiscent of the September 11th attacks. The destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge is amazing, the bombing of the monster is very cool, and the monster is shown in much more detail than I would have expected.

I could see why the camera shake could be annoying, particularly on the big screen, but at home it was fine. Really creative, and well done. If you are into that kind of flick, you'll very much like it.

Now, what is up with the name, Cloverfield?

SL

2 comments:

The Jon-Paul Lessards! said...

From Wikipedia:
"The film was titled Cloverfield from the beginning, but the title changed throughout production before it was finalized as the original title. Matt Reeves explained that the title was changed frequently due to the hype caused by the teaser trailer, "That excitement spread to such a degree that we suddenly couldn't use the name anymore. So we started using all these names like Slusho and Cheese.[12] And people always found out what we were doing!" The director said that "Cloverfield" was the government's case designate for the monster, comparing the titling to that of the Manhattan Project. "And it's not a project per se. It's the way that this case has been designated. That's why that is on the trailer, and it becomes clearer in the film. It's how they refer to this phenomenon [or] this case," said the director.[13] The film's final title, Cloverfield, is the name of the exit Abrams takes to his Santa Monica office.[14][12]

One final title, Grayshot, was proposed before the movie was officially titled Cloverfield. The name Grayshot is taken from the archway that the two survivors take shelter under at the end of the movie. Director Matt Reeves said that it was decided not to change the title to Grayshot because the film was already so well known as Cloverfield."

UR welcome
xoxoxo NYCil

Unknown said...

Thank you...dork!