Cloverfield
 

Opens Friday. I am soooo excited, and I have no idea why.

Their marketing people sent me an unsolicited text message. That makes me really cranky.

Is this a movie?

ETA: apparently, it is. Is the whole movie going to be all herky-jerky like the trailer? It's gonna make a lot of people (myself included if I see it) queasy.

I've decided to wait for the initial reviews on this one.

I'm not up for another "lost" style unexplained monster.

If it all makes sense at the end, let me know. Thanks.

No reviews for me, please. I'll be there on Friday!

If it's all jerky hand-held for 2 hours, I'll be waiting for Netflix, thanks.

Ohh yeah. That too.

Is it just me, or are people crazy?

I was lurking around Digg and noticed that people who had seen advance screenings were now drawing what the monster looks like and posting it on the internet. If you're so excited about the movie coming out, would you want to spoil it by looking at some guy's rendition of the unknown monster? Are people actually looking for spoilers? Can't people just wait and enjoy being surprised?

:rolleyes:

It's back to that whole thing that pissed me off about the HP spoiler-thon that went on before the final book.

I'm always into seeing new flicks, especially since I have more time now, so I'm going to see it next weekend, spoilers, possible bad spots, reviews be damned. Oh, hell and high water, too.

Because some people enjoy:

A) Ruining things for other
B) Showing off as a smarty pants.


Or was that more or a rhetorical question?

I am going to see it Friday. YAY!

From what I hear, it's a jumpy movie - so beware.

For that reason alone I will probably not see it.

Well I know the Monster personally....

But that only explains why people would post it - not why thousands of people would Digg it.

Because there are more of type 'A' than you might think?

Digging yourself and others just to be a jerk is this generation's damnable sin.

I remember being very impressed by the teaser trailer. And I really want to see the movie. But the second trailer gave me the impression the whole thing was going to operate under the (cool) conceipt that it was all "real" video shot by civilians in times of Monster Ramgages New York stress.

But it looked like the kind of thing I would groove to for 20 minutes, but barely tolerate an hour of.

Some sort of Blair Godzilla Project?

that was my thinking, yeah.

OMG! I found a picture of the monster!

Very Scary!







(Pssst... It's just a joke. It's not the real monster. You can click, it's OK I promise)

I think I would die laughing if that was the monster.

Here is the real monster!



ok, not really

Not to be confused with The Monster at the End of This Book

My kids love that book!

If this is the monster I anticipate a bunch of really annoyed people

Smokey!

Bear has got a pal who is always on the prowl......
Woodsy is his name you know, he's the anti pollution owl.
Give a hoot, don't pollute!

Wrong Smokey.

There were shirts for that movie at con last year....
also ambiguous... think...

I cannot remember what the depiction was.
LibraryVixen, you out there? Did I send you that shirt??

I wonder if that was the one that looked like a slurpee.

So there's these "concept drawings" around on the web about this monster, and then other sites totally discrediting it as a moosh of other creatures that have nothing to do with Cloverfield (i.e. the face is, quite obviously, the final monster "Sin" from the game Final Fantasy X on the "main" one).

HERE is the REAL monster:

Bob!!

ACK! KEVIN!

I guess we should be thankful it's not the Playboy Bunny outfit.

Damn... I meant to spoilerize that.

Oh God! Please tell me that's a whirlpool and not a kiddie pool.

Actually, it is a redwood hot tub at Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort in San Luis Obispo, CA. Great place to go to rent a spa for an hour or so, get a massage, etc. They have a bunch of individual (secluded) redwood hot tubs scattered among the wooded hillside.

That photo was actually taken on our honeymoon.

As of today, I've added another person to my list of people that I must kick in the balls upon meeting- J.J. Abrams.

Having the shakiest camera in the world doesn't make for drama or cinematic effect- it makes for dogsh!t that should be kept on YouSpew and MyWaste!

The movie had SOME pros to it, but who the frell thought it would make for great cinema to strap a camera to an epileptic? Jeezus! Michael J Fox off his meds could hold a camera more stably.

Anyway, it would have been a really fun movie if it wasn't so annoying.

So in essence what you are saying is that the bubbles are not coming from you. Thank God.

I didn't say the tub was on :evil:

Dude this pic is almost 10 years old, you need a new one

Actually, it is OVER 10 years old.

But, yeah, I do need some new material. I've posted that pic way too many times.

Hmmmm. I need to pack my camera next time I go on vacation. :evil:

Thanks for the heads up. Now we won't go, and Greg won't vomit in my lap :)

Seriously, who could take a whole film of shaky cam???

Just bought 2 tickets to the DLP showing on Friday at the Spectrum.

Shaky cam or not, I can't wait!

So far not one person I know who has seen it (press screenings were last night but I was out of town) has liked it.

Lani really wants to see it and I'm trying to decide if I should talk her out of it.

I'm with you on that. I could't stand the Barf Witch Project. I get car sick easy, too.

Yes, we know. Please keep those pants zipped, K?




Spaghetti Monster! EEEKKK!!!



My thought is if they had to do all that contraversial advertising for a year to get people interested in it so they can sell tickets, then there must be something fundamentally wrong with the film, and they know it.

:D :D :D HahahahahahAHAHAHA! The Most Fun Monster Movie EVER!


Ok, I did not expect to, but I LOVED IT! Great sense of fun and excitement. The hand-held camera gimmick was great. Yeah, some people couldn't handle it and got a little motion sickness. But it was the trick that made the movie, because it was used cleverly to augment humor and action.

T.J. Miller is hysterical as the (mostly offscreen) cameraman. Michael Stahl-David is comptely yummy as the hero. Mmmmmm.


Oh, um, yeah, there's a monter and it attacks New York City and it's freaking indestrucable, and the whole thing is shot with hand held camera as if it's really happening. It has a great combination of verisimilitude and cartoony fun.


(Because of the "realisitc" conceipt of the filming style, there's no musical score. But Michael Giacchino composed a really fun piece for the end credits in 50's movie-monster style).


I really had an exepectidley good time.


Hahahaha, there's a huge, headless Statue of Liberty in the forecourt of Graumann's Chinese Theater. If you go behind it to the west, you can line it up perfectly with the Cloverfield billboard on a rooftop across Hollywood Boulevard for a great 3-D effect.



For a good time, go see this movie!


:snap: :snap: :snap:




Oh, and did I mention Michael Stahl-David is an unbeliverable cutie?? :cool:

I think he's been bitten!

I liked it. Very fun. Saw it with a fun audience.



There is about 10 seconds after the credits that wraps it all up.

D'oh! I didn't stay for the credits. Could you PM me (or spoiler wrap) what I missed?

Spoiler wrap it, please. I couldn't hear the snippet of dialogue at the end of the credits .... too much applause (opening night at the Chinese invariably hosts friends of too many of the film's crew).

Yes please. My audience was quick to the exits with a lot of grumbling and a couple of shouts that it sucked (but as I said in the misc movie thread I mostly enjoyed it). So we were quickly the only ones left and the closing credits music was annoying me and the theater staff was hovering to turn on the lights so we didn't stick all the way through like we usually do.

This post at MousePad says there was nothing after the credits. Is BTD having fun or did they get ripped off?

By request, post credits

The only reason I knew to stay is because the people behind us were seeing the movie for a 2nd time.

Reply to Alex:

BTD: That sucks. Glad I didn't stay for it.

ISM: I didn't see/notice anything.


Among other things the movie did remind me that I do want to see The Host again which remains the best monster movie I've seen in a long time. It's on DVD so check it out if you haven't (its a South Korean movie so be prepared for subtitles).

I didn't notice anything.



On another note, the preview for Enterprise was cool. No wonder LOST! isn't answering any questions. Abrams is to busy making movies!

I second The Host. I bought the DVD on a whim, and I really enjoyed it. On the DVD cover, there is a blurb stating "On a par with JAWS." Well, it really isn't much like Jaws at all, so the comparison is not so useful. But, it's an exciting movie, with humor, humanity and action.

I think I read that J.J. Abrams used The Host as one of his inspirations for Cloverfield. Maybe, maybe not. But I want to see it ... and so on the NFlx queue it goes.

I wouldn't mind seeing it again, if perhaps they issue it on DVD in a special "stabilized" edition. (Not happening, I'm sure.)

Ya know what, fvck spoiler tags. If people click on a thread called Cloverfield after the movie called Cloverfield is released, I think they can expect the conversation to be about Cloverfield.


Be warned.












Because everyone else dies, I think it's implied (but admittedly only implied) that Lily's helicopter gets away and she is the lone survivor.

Much as I'd like some mumbo jumbo about where the monster came from (um, some scientist could say he's from Planet 10, I suppose), I much prefer sticking to the gimmick of everything being from the POV of ordinary people.


If we were involved in such an incident, we would not know squat about the monster. I prefer this type of film to not be in the 50's style of military and scientific POV. For instance, I prefer the Spielberg War of the Worlds because it's from a civilian point of view, to the Pal War of the Worlds that had the scientist as the main character.


Since the explanations are going to be random and rather silly anyway, I rather like the unexplained "reality" of regular people we can identify with, who wouldn't know what the fark is going on.

I just saw it at Downtown Disney, and pretty much enjoyed it. there was a woman behind me, though, who, after every trailer said, "Stoopid." I didn't hear her during the movie, but at the very end I hear, "STOOpid!" I LOLed a little, inside. Shakycam didn't bother me much, but if you're looking for a happy ending, this ain't your movie.
I'm posting from my phone, so I can't open spoilers, I'm curious to know what that bit of dialogue was at the end. I couldn't make it out, but I figured it wasn't just random chatter.
I think JJ Abrams made this movie just so he could finally show a goddam monster! For everybdy who complains he doesn't show the monster on Lost? "Look, there's a monster. Happy?"
I guess I still don't understand why it was called "Cloverfield," so I suppose I'll do a little interweb research on military code names. It does occur to me, though, that since the tape we're seeing is in the possession of the government, a little non-shakycam explanatory wraparound wouldn't have been hard to justify.

I need to think about it a tiny bit more, plus I decided to have a few beers tonight, and wouldn't write what I meant to, anyway. ;)

All in all, I loved Cloverfield. Far better than I expected. I was halfway shocked - and halfway smug with my jaded opinion on other people's movie preferences - that people were so vocal about how awful the film was. I'm sure it had to do with the lack of clearly defined acts, the "realistic" footage, etc... but I felt that the film was raw and real. It's like so many parties I've been to - all the characters were there, just, perhaps a bit over-the-top with its realism... But, I loved it.

I honestly though that at the end they said



Or that might be the beers talking - real beers, smuggled in from California. But, it's a reasonable facsimile to what I thought I heard a few hours ago in a dark, empty theater.

I liked Cloverfield as well. The name Cloverfield was used in the text at the beginning of the film. I think it was a military code name for the tape.

After the first 20 minutes, I got used to the shaky Hud-cam.

I liked how the introduction of the monster with a big thud rocked everyone's world, including the audience's. Very effective.

I often have gripes about the performances of actors in these kinds of disaster flicks. Often it seems that the stakes aren't high enough in their brains and give sort of hokey, dramatic performances that lack realism. I didn't worry about that in this film. It was very realistic, imho.

One gripe that is GC once again beating a dead horse: ad placements. Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew, Nokia, Nokia, Nokia and Sephora, Sephora, Sephora... BLEH!

When I was working at Paramount this summer, I got to see the New York sets trashed for this film. It was neat walking through it. Cars and buildings covered in dust and huge holes in the ground and green screens everywhere. Seeing it also answers my question that I hadn't seen any camera setups anywhere. One thing that did give away some of the monster for me was a huge footprint that was in the middle of the street. At first, I thought they were trying to revive Godzilla once again... Also, last summer, the words "Slusho" was everywhere. One of the characters was wearing a Slusho shirt. It was also the codename for the film on the lot.

I'm glad they used a relatively unknown cast. It added to the documentary feel of the whole flick.

I noticed a couple of could-be nods to old Japanese monster flicks. One, the main character going to Tokyo... and I believe in Rodan, the army was fighting what they thought was the big monster but was only fighting a bug that lived on Rodan...

I was impressed with the special effects. Loved them. And, like in Spielberg's War of the Worlds, the filmmakers realized that a special effect doesn't need to be in-focus and dead center in a shot at all times. It can be out-of-focus and partially seen.

I don't know if this is a sad revelation about me, but I love disaster films. I like post-apocalyptic films, monsters destroy city films and aliens attacking Earth films. Chaos is ichiban in my book.

I'd buy this one. If just to pause and rewind certain areas.

I wasn't too keen on the monster's design. A sort of Humanoid from the Deep crossed with a snake crossed with a spider and a snake... Meh. But I don't think any design would have lived up to my expectation of what it was going to be.

I was also thinking about how extremely long their trip to Coney Island was if there was still Coney Island footage at the end of the tape. And just how long was this piece of tape, anyway? Not to mention that the batteries lasted a long time... And cellphones usually don't work in subway stations, at least in my attempts at making calls in NY and Boston stations.

And I'm also wondering if Central Park was completely obliterated, how did the tape survive?

Cloverfield is the best B-movie in A-movie clothing I have ever seen. As iSm said, it was fun.

:)

Regarding the length of the tape, I was doubly stunned, since, in the opening text, I could swear that it was identified as an SD card. Now that is some SD card!

Heheh, I noticed the product placements, too ... and immediately thought of Gemni Cricket!


But, um, they were on streets of New York where they might actually lean against the wall of a Sephora, and well, a big scene took place in a subway station where you could hardly expect to aim a camera in any direction without seeing an advert.

I'm not saying Nokia didn't pay to have it be their advert ... just that, especially in a film where "really happening" is the specific gimmick, fake ads and businesses would simply not do.





(I aslo "imagined" they looted some camcorder batteries when they did the cellphone batteries, but that doesn't explain how long that tape was .... although, the tape as shown in the film is 84 minutes long in real time ... is that unlikely or plausable?? - - - either way, lots of Coney Island. Maybe they filmed her giving him a blow-job on the tilt-o-wheel, but that part got taped over. Too bad, I'd like to see Rob's junk.)



.

I just read that J.J. Abrams' production company offices are on Cloverfield Ave. in Santa Monica, hence the movie's name which thus signifies nothing.

Can anyone confirm that? Insider-info Gemini Cricket??

According to Google Maps, Abrams's production company Bad Robot is located on the corner of W. Olympic and Camden Avenue and is about 3 miles from Cloverfield Blvd in Santa Monica.

It may just be a street name they see all the time and liked. Also, Santa Monica airport used to be named Clover Field.

Don't know if it is accurate but this page claims to have an email saying
that "Cloverfield" was just a code name and that they planned to eventually announce a different title but then it leaked out and all the movie geeks knew it by that name so they decided to leave it that way.

Yeah, i had always understood Cloverfield to be the Blue Harvest code name ... but G.C.'s on-the-set info above pegs the code name as Slusho.


Eh, who knows? Cloverfield is an odd name for this picture, with zero explanation given. I'll likely always think of it as the code name that stuck. The teaser that famously started the hype on this film did not have a title attached, so i like the idea that the code name just stuck after that teaser got such an amazing reaction.

Apparently there was serious consideration to titling the movie 1/18/08, which would certainly have strengthened the 9/11 comparisons but would have been even more meaningless since the movie is set in April.

A thought just occured to me. When digital projection is the standard, the technology could conceivably exist so that all of the time stamps in the movie would automatically display whatever date the movie was being viewed in the theater. I can't decide if that would be cool or not.

Cloverfield was a government name like Manhattan Project for the monster or the tape... It's at the very beginning of the film.

I don't know if I believe this bit of YouTubery...

Just got back from the movie.

I liked it.

As my faith in the general movie-watching public was confirmed as low... my faith in the LoT movie-watching community has been affirmed.

In searching for something else I've found online that the generally accepted version of the post-credits sound is:

Cloverfield, Cloverfield, Cloverfield... it's the word of the day here in our building. Me included. I can't stop talking about this film.

:)

OK, I am quoting myself because if Alex's link is correct, then it is much more conclusive then what i thought it said.

I saw it last night - I enjoyed it but the camera movement realy made me dizzy and I had to look away several times. It was alot of fun, though. I'd like to see another pov of the events as a sequal - that'd be cool. One without the camera movement. Kinda like Dawn of the Dead etc.

i believe you'd find that this is a stupid story without the camera work. The fact that it was not merely a gimmick, but used so cleverly to accentuate the action and humor that otherwise would have been far less effective is what I liked most about this movie.

Think of the scene where they get in the middle of a pitched battle between the army and the monster on some block in midtown Manhattan, with Hud stuck across the street from Rob and the girls huddling in a doorway. That scene filmed 'conventionally' would have been 1/10th as exhilerating.

Much of the movie used the handheld to great effect ... and the gimmick became the film's greatest asset.

Exactly. That scene, and the subway sequence had me totally holding my breath BECAUSE of the "gimmick". I'm annoyed with people who are saying that the movie didn't explain enough.

Ummmmm you're looking at this from the point of view of some "regular" NYC yuppies, so how in the world will it all be "explained"? How would they be privy to that kind of information? It explained EXACTLY what their experience was.

I mean, say this same movie was about 9/11. Would a person at ground zero know EXACTLY what happened, where the planes came from, who was on the plane, why they hit the towers, etc. etc. 6-7 hours afterwards? Ummmmm NOBODY knew.... I think explaining any more than they did in the film would be a cop-out. Ambiguity can be great in films, and this movie had it in spades. I hate it when they add scenes to explain too much (see, for instance, the brilliant Donnie Darko (original theatrical version), versus the craptastic Donnie Darko Director's Cut, which basically explained everything in a re-edit and completely killed what made the original good to begin with). What would have been added to the film if they had made up something like... "the monster came from the sea, when radioactive waves hit it!" ummm ok, so what?

Of the multitudes of stories about how people are getting queasy watching this film, this one has my favorite headline:

Monster-ful ‘Cloverfield’ does barf-o box office

I seriously doubt that anyone would get sick watching it on a smaller screen.

And the more I think about it, the more I liked the ambiguity in the movie:



Etc. etc. I like how it makes you come up with your own theories.

One thing though that I thought was odd was how the monster, while ginormous, was always like RIGHT NEAR where our main characters were. I mean, Manhattan is small, but not THAT small.

My roommate said that if you plot out on a map the path of the creature and our main characters, they were just going in a straight line the whole time, but I dunno about that. It seemed too coincidental that they were constantly running into it.



I really want to see that movie again....

I can't watch people's home movies, or play first person shooters, on ANY size screen without getting sick. I will never be able to watch this movie.

Wow that IS odd. I would think that because the small screen isn't giving an illusion that the entire room around you is moving, then you'd be okay. I guess you're just one of the hyper sensitive ones. If you'd like, we can re-create the movie for you at the next LoT party using Not Afraid's animals.

"Roar Thurston, roar boy! Roar!"

*Thurston yawns* *Gemini Cricket runs in terror to find his girlfriend*

"Good boy!" ;)

I must warn you, I'm in SAG.

:D

Aaah yes, the cure for homosexuality.

Viagra will help with that.

Chins up!

The movie had the fifth-biggest ever second weekend drop in box-office (after having the biggest January opening ever).


Of course, just about everybody who wanted to see it did so on opening weekend, explaining the above numbers. Perhaps word of mouth wasn't so great ... but since the film only cost $25 Million to produce (and another reported $25 Mill to market), it's already a huge profit-maker.

I think that a big part of it is the negative word of mouth. Perhaps you guys had audiences that loved it, but in the theater I was in people were vocal about their dislike of the film - like they were angry or something.

Everyone who was gonna see it saw it, if you liked it, you liked it, and if you hated it you were gonna tell everyone to not see it - or at least that's the impression I got.

Wow, everyone in the theatre I was in seemed to love the film (except for the two senior citizens who left halfway). But I saw it at the arclight, where audiences are a LOT more sophisticated.

Honestly my expectation is that audiences these days would be smart enough to deal with ambiguity in film, but obviously people are too stupid to think for themselves or have fun with the film. They need it spelled out for them. They need the man in the white lab coat saying "oh yes, and the satellite fell from the sky, it was shot down by the Russians, and it awoke a being from beneath the sea. It grew and grew. Now let's discuss the monster's motivations. Now let's diagram the monster. Here's a 3-D model of the monster, that you can look at in excruciating detail to see exactly what it looked like. Now we're going to explain what happened to New York City afterwards. Now we're going to interview the surviving members of the group you just saw, blah blah blah." It would kill the intensity of THIS film.

Well, maybe some of that would be appropriate for a sequel, but I thought the film was brilliant in exploring a "what would really happen in the first 7 hours if you were right there" sequence. If the filmmakers spell it out in a sequel, them maybe the filmgoing public will like the first one more because they don't need to think for themselves.

It's one thing not to like the movie on its own terms, but to not like it because it didn't spell everything out is dumb.

And if they don't make a sequel, then Cloverfield will be relegated to "cult favorite" status, I suppose.

Just like what happened to Donnie Darko. Ever see that film? The original cut was brilliant, made you go rewatch to figure out what was going on, etc. etc. Then the director (proving that the original cut was a fluke) decided to make a director's cut which spelled out exactly what was happening. One of the worst films I'd ever seen, completely destroying any sense of fun, wonder and ambiguity. Yet I read reviews that think the directors cut was great because they "finally understand what was happening". F**k them.

Truer words. I wanted to beat up that director's cut in a bar brawl.

I am still on the fence about seeing Cloverfield in theaters. I really wanted to see it. I love Drew Goddard. LOVE. But I am prone to get motion sickness watching something like that on a big screen, so I may wait. What most excited me about the plot was seeing a monster/disaster film in the first hours of the attack, when chaos and ambiguity reign, and the terror is paramount because nothing is explained. It's what you would experience if it was happening to you.

That's what so many horror film creators don't seem to get (or perhaps its the studios, and not the writer/directors): the less you know about what lurks in the dark, the scarier it is. There can be a clever/cool set-up (a neglected boy who drowns in a lake while camp counselors are macking on each other; a child molester killed by a mob of angry parents), but the moment you explain *how* those monsters come back from the dead, the moment you try to explain what evil is, etc., SNORE.

There's a reason why people like Goddard and Joss Whedon are fans of H.P. Lovecraft. The guy knew how to tell a spooky, puzzling and exciting tale.

I couldn't agree with you more, Chernie. J and I were totally shocked at the reactions around us, but we just sort of looked at each other and realized that it's probably what a lot of our country's movie-goers are like. I'm pretty happy that Ogden has an art crowd that's into indie stuff, what-not, but I think most just aren't into it.

This reminds me that I have Best of the Fest tickets for tonight! Woohoo!

I don't think I am a stupid movie watcher for wanting to know more.

Monster attack! Blow stuff up! Find tape.

Perhaps it's better left for a sequel. It didn't belong in the beginning of the film, but I am not a stupid movie watcher for wanting to know more, or not liking the pure ambiguity of the movie.

I went into the movie hoping for a monster blowing up NY. I got more. It left me wanting more. Doesn't make me less intelligent then you or make my movie viewing skills less educated then any of you who liked it how it was. I really resent the implications that those who wanted more are stupid. :(

I really don't think anyone said you were less intelligent for wanting to know more...

I know we just talked about it, but I'm putting it here for posterity.

While we may disagree on the beauty of ambiguity in films, the fact that you question these things, insightfully so, proves that you're not some stupid movie watcher - at least to me. Stupid movie watchers are the kind of people that dismiss something before it even had a chance to sink in.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Um, I want to know where the monster came from. I just don't fault the movie for making the monster scarier, and the hand-held camera experience more realistic by not explaining everything that my curiosity rose to.


There's a difference.

Are you curious about more than the movie told you? You're a fine audience member.

Are you angry at the movie for not telling you everying you thought you should know? You're a nimrod.

Then Aristotle was a nimrod.

My personal theory is that the entire movie was an NYU film school project.

Maybe I should see it first.

There's a difference between wanting to know more (or thinking that the movie didn't work on its own terms... but hell, EVERYONE wanted to figure out what was going on, everyone had questions at the end of the movie that they wanted to figure out, everyone wanted to know where the monster came from, etc.) and needing the man in the white lab coat to spell it out in detail in the movie itself to make the film a good movie.

I think people who needed the man in the white lab coat were completely missing the point of the film.

I didn't say "if you didn't like the movie you are a stupid person", because that would be a ridiculous thing for me to say. Sorry if that was the way you took it.

I'm fine with it in this case but the line isn't a solid one. The movie could have been even more authentic and have ended at the 50 minute mark, down in the subway when the battery died or with Hud realizing that he has better things to be doing than worrying about zooming in on things.

Then I'd have been pissed at the movie for starting a story and not getting to what I considered a satisfactory conclusion. And I'd feel whoever was saying "but it was real and authentic" would be a poseur trying to get all hoity on me.

If, at the end of the movie, a person doesn't feel that enough was provided for the overall to be enjoyable that is their opinion. I don't think it is quite to the nimrod level of existence.

Of course, most of the word of mouth I've been hearing is "don't go see it, it'll make you sick."

I read what you said as "if you needed/wanted to know more that was given to you, you were a stupid movie watcher for not appreciating the ambiguity of the movie".

I liked the movie. I won't buy it because I don't think I could watch it again. But I liked it. I want to know more. What happened to Lily's helicopter? What is the monster and what are the lice that came off of it? (they had one in containment). Where did it come from? How did the military obtain in possession of the tape (did the monster die? did it go somewhere else?)?. I didn't like the ambiguity of it. But that doesn't mean I didn't like the movie and it doesn't make me a less sophisticated movie viewer than you.

I wanted to know all of those things too. Honestly BTD I think we're having a communication error here.

What I was initially responding to were the people who disliked/were angry at/recommended against seeing the movie for the sole reason that it didn't spell all of that out. Maybe the movie could have included a little more information, but it would have killed the movie to have an conventional explanation.

Dammit - now I'm wishing someone would do a really GOOD film version of a Lovecraft story.

I kinda liked John Carpenter's "In The Mouth of Madness", which borrows a number of different elements from Lovecraft short stories.

Also, I liked the film "Dagon", which was a semi-faithful film of the story "Shadow over Innsmouth" (and has one really super gross part).

"The Reanimator" was also a fun flick.

There's an excellent Lovecraft computer game called "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" which also takes many elements from "Shadow over Innsmouth", "Call of Cthulhu", "Dagon" and "The Shadow Out of Time".

If you have a Gamecube (or a Wii, as you can play Gamecube games on it) I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend getting a game called "Eternal Darkness:Sanity's Requiem" (try ebay or gamestop.com used games). It borrows a lot from Lovecraft as well, including from "The Rats in the Walls", "The Shadow out of Time" and other stories. It has a storyline revolving around dark beings just outside of our universe trying to break in, and even has a "sanity meter" when you see bad stuffins.

I think "The Music of Erich Zann" would make a lovely short animation.

Hellboy makes good use of Lovecraft, both in the comic book and in the film.

Heheh, Matt Reeves is in preliminary talks with Paramount to direct a Cloverfield sequel (according to today's Variety).

Sounds cool to me!! I wonder if it'll be another "high concept" (i.e. OTHER people that were filming that night, I mean, we saw other people filming in the movie) or a conventional film. It'd be cool if it filled in the questions people had from the first movie.

I also was reading that the name Cloverfield came from the exit that JJ Abrams takes off the freeway to get to work :) Totally funny. (it was just the "code name" for the film, and wasn't initially intended to be the final title)

I don't see how either concept would work. Part of the greatness of the movie was the "what the heck is going on" factor. I'll still go see the sequel but I fear another Blair Witch II.

I hope that the sequel answers questions. And I really hope it's not done in 1st person style. But if it isn't going to answer questions, and will be done in 1st person style, then I hope it's from the prospective of the other people (like Cherny said).

I'd really like to see from where they find the tape going forward. If the characters are still alive, it would be interesting to hear how they were rescued and if the monster was still alive.

Also want to know what was in the water at the final scene.

I want Rob to be alive... and then move to Los Angeles to get as far away from the monster and bad memories as possible ... only to discover that the quasi-radiation from the bomb dropped on Central Park has turned him gay ... and then he meets Me.



* * * *

Oh, and yeah Cloverfield was named for the street in Santa Monica, that's the offramp nearest to J.J.'s production offices, heheh.

I had a hard time enjoying this movie. I started getting motion sick about 20 minutes into it and couldn't shake it. I had to look away from the screen most of the time, only looking back during the more important parts.

It's pretty sad really. Film is a very visual medium but I could only listen to most of it. And from what I could see in my peripheral vision it didn't look like I was missing much. The story was great. I loved the monster. Everything looked so very real. But the fact that I couldn't watch it ruined the experience.

I'm wishing now that I had waited for it to come out on DVD so I could watch it on a smaller screen. And if that still made me sick I could turn it off and come back to it later when I was feeling better.

Didn't toss my cookies, but I did feel very woozy when I left the theater and it took me about an hour before I was feeling fine again.

And now that I've read through the thread...

I noticed that. Yes, to me it looked like foreshadowing. (Is it really foreshadowing if we see it at the end?) My theory is that it's the monster making a splashdown on earth.

I like that there were no answers and everything is left ambiguous. I don't always like to be left in the dark, but I think it works for this movie.

I envision it was the monster and the alien is one of those toys you buy at the mall where it is really small but expands to 5000% its original size when soaked in water.

In fact, these were obvious plants by an alien intelligence prepping us for our new overlords.

It expands 600% when in water, and it has to say "DO NOT SWALLOW!" on the package. Wow.

Watched it last night on Itunes rental. Good, unremarkable monster movie. I'd say the six principals were marginally more likeable than those in Open Water 2.

Replays definitely show a splash at the end. But so what. Either the monster comes to us or we create it. Until I confirmed the splash, I had been fond of thinking that, like the underground river of slime in Ghostbusters 2, the monster was the product of all the negative energy produced by unhappy, obligatory parties and bad relationships. Oh well.

I assume that if one went frame by frame, there would be many other secrets.

I thought it was quite a bit more then unremarkable. I was scared! And that doesn't happen much with me at the movies anymore. But I didn't like the camera work -- I thought it was annoying and harmed the film. Add a Kubrick-style steady cam to Cloverfield and you have one of the best horror movies of the last few years.

My son had me watch that recently. I told him I don't like movies like that, too real. Made to feel real, not a fantasy movie. I thought the story was so sad. I liked the characters and I was sad how it turned out.

I thanked him afterwards for making me feel creepy about going to any big city and worrying about a giant monster attacking it. :p