Cloverfield
Monster movie ala the Blair Witch Project (or pretty people being very, very scared and having really gnarly things happen to them).
Like Ratatouille, I got this at Target only (gasp!) I paid full price for it ($24.99). Why so much when it’s not even a collector’s edition. Two words: Bonus Disc. Well, not a bonus DVD, but a CD with a selection of music that was playing during the party sequence. It actually has a handful of songs I wouldn’t mind owning, and since the normal price is $19.99, I think an extra $5 bucks is worth it. I’m still debating whether to get the Best Buy version; apparently, it’s supposed to include a bonus disc with 30min of backstage footage by T.J. Miller, the guy who plays “Hud” in the movie (and its “cameraman”). After seeing bits of him in the special features, I might want it because I think he’s funny and I like funny stuff. But Best Buy didn’t have it so I went with the Target version and the CD.
And since this is probably running thru your head right now anyway: Why don’t I just download the music or get it off of iTunes? Because I’m old-fashioned. I like the tactile feeling of actually opening a CD case and physically inserting into a player. I like having a pre-determined list of songs that I can listen to that I didn’t choose myself. (Ugh, I know. Sooo 20th century…) Plus, I have an innate mistrust of the digital: all it takes is one little virus, one bad electro-magnetic pulse from some yet unknown terrorist organization, one bad spill of Pepsi to render a hard drive and its entire collection of mp3s null and void. Yes, I know, I’m a Luddite. Whatcha gonna do about it?
Back to monster movie: So Cloverfield is J.J. Abrahms’s answer to an American-made Godzilla (because white American men secretly aspired to be Japanese). The big thing about it originally was its mystery; when the first trailer hit, no one could figure out what exactly the movie was about or even its name. (I think that’s because they hadn’t agreed on one, yet. Random fact: Cloverfield was actually the codename for the film during the production; they ended up just using it as its official name and making it part of the universe, hence “Project Cloverfield.”) So everyone speculated on what it was going to be about (live-action Voltron was my favorite). Then, closer to release, the big thing was what the monster looked like and POV hand-held shooting. It was being touted as the Godzilla-version of Blair Witch, meaning theaters had to put up warnings about how the movie cause motion sickness. I saw Cloverfield in the theaters with a couple of friends. One of them tapped out and waited in the lobby for the rest of the movie once we got a good look at the monster. I saw Blair Witch in the theater and felt dizzy and nauseous watching it, too, but Cloverfield wasn’t as bad. A few moments of vertigo, but that was it (maybe it was because during Blair Witch, I was upfront and could practically touch the screen with my toe). SPOILER: After watching it, I couldn’t get over how stupid the Stupids were (what I called the main characters), especially Stupid #1 (the main pretty guy whose attempt to save his not-quite girlfriend gets everyone killed). Yes, yes, he had all this emotional baggage that drove him and having a 350ft monster attack New York really sets your priorities straight, but goddamn: if you’re so stupid you never told her how you felt in the beginning and had her with you so you could be halfway to Jersey by the time they nuked the island, you deserve to get buried under rubble. I’m just glad that Pretty Brown Girl at least likely survived (tho we can’t know for sure, but she has a chance). END SPOILER
The monster: Is pretty damn freaky looking. They did a very good job. I wouldn’t want to be in a major city with that thing running around. My disappointment with the DVD is that they don’t go into more detail about the monster “origins” or take the whole “Project Cloverfield” thing to another level. The DVD is pretty basic; there’s no transitions between menu options and there’s only a superficial attempt at making it seem like government dossier. I like that sort of thing, making the product an extension of the story. Maybe they will if a sequel ever gets made and they expand on the mythology or when a special edition comes out.
