C L O V E R F I E L D

[Stephen]

Just seen this and I thought it was great.

[Scott Warner]

did you expect a literary masterpiece adapted for film?

I see this opinion a lot in defense of this film: "What did you expect?"

Have you ever seen 'Alien'? That's what I expect. There's the bar. To paraphrase Ridley Scott, a low budget but well crafted b-movie.

Or more specifically, I care when every single character in 'Alien' dies because all of them are likable in their own ways. In 'Cloverfield' I could care less because none of the characters are likable at all. It is story development 101: I HAVE TO CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTERS IN ORDER TO CARE ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS.

[potatobroth]

Originally Posted by Scott Warner

I see this opinion a lot in defense of this film: "What did you expect?"

Have you ever seen 'Alien'? That's what I expect. There's the bar. To paraphrase Ridley Scott, a low budget but well crafted b-movie.

Or more specifically, I care when every single character in 'Alien' dies because all of them are likable in their own ways. In 'Cloverfield' I could care less because none of the characters are likable at all. It is story development 101: I HAVE TO CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTERS IN ORDER TO CARE ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS.

Yeah, it was a cheesey defense, but I wasn't really defending the movie. I know a lot of people that hated it and their reasons are spot on. Its not a great movie, but it was still really enjoyable for me. Its the same reason I love horribly stupid horror movies or disaster movies, sometimes its just fun to watch things that could never happen.

I didn't feel bad about the characters because this is a 1.25 hour blurry destruction movie. Its not like Magnolia where I cry for each character's dilemas. It's not like Alien where I hold my breath worrying about the feelings of the crew as their friend dies from an alien bursting out their stomach. And although the only time I felt bad in CLOVERFIELD was when Marlena died, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

Enjoyable doesn't always have to equal good. There are plenty of movies that I enjoy watching but when broken down, are just not good movies.

This movie wouldn't have worked for me if it was shot traditionally. I've thought about this and came to that conclusion. What makes it fun for me is the dizzying glimpses and losing-battle aspect.

@Gof
What doesn't make sense? Rather, I thought a large part of this movie was that you didn't know where it came from, why its there, and what it's doing outside of when the 5 kids interact with it. Making sense doesn't factor in when you aren't being told details. That was a nice touch I thought. Rather than having some mega-scientist giving a 10 minute diatribe on where it came from and how to defeat it, it added to a faux realism for the video camera. Again, its not a GOOD movie, but its a FUN movie and one I would recommend for that reason alone.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Spirits In the Material World

[Ally]

I thought it was wicked - the most thoroughly entertained I've been in the cinema in a long time. I did well to avoid all exposure to it in the week from when I first saw the trailer cme out at me from left field to going to see the midnight showing. As such everything was a surprise to me, I nearly lost my shit when you saw the things falling off it... Five stars.

[Scott Warner]

Its not like Magnolia where I cry for each character's dilemas.

You mean you didn't want them to include Marlena's sexually abusive father in there, who tries to kill himself but fails to do so because the monster slaps the gun out of his hand?

I think we often think of good writing as something that is confined to serious movies but it's not - it's the reason movies like 'Old School', 'Back to the Future' and 'Knocked Up' are awesome too. If you don't have a quality script you often have an empty exercise that has to have other things to distract people from that deficit (e.g. big froggy monster, Jessica Simpson's boobs, "From the Producer Of something much better", etc.)

[potatobroth]

Originally Posted by Scott Warner

You mean you didn't want them to include Marlena's sexually abusive father in there, who tries to kill himself but fails to do so because the monster slaps the gun out of his hand?

I think we often think of good writing as something that is confined to serious movies but it's not - it's the reason movies like 'Old School', 'Back to the Future' and 'Knocked Up' are awesome too. If you don't have a quality script you often have an empty exercise that has to have other things to distract people from that deficit (e.g. big froggy monster, Jessica Simpson's boobs, "From the Producer Of something much better", etc.)

Right, and I've never said otherwise. Superbad is one of my favorite movie in recent years because of how well it was written and how fresh and non-formulaic the jokes were.

But a movie can still be good enough regardless. It wasn't on as low a level of Meet the Spartans and clearly wasn't in the same league as Magnolia or Back to the Future. But it was good enough that I was immersed in the idiotic story mainly because the camera was immersed as well. Like I said, had this been done traditionally it would have been more like The Day After Tomorrow, which I thought was boring and contrived. Cloverfield was good enough in its acting and good enough in its framing that it made me want to find out how it would conclude. And while I wasn't holding back tears for Jason or Marlena or Hud, I wasn't laughing either. I just said, ok, so that's how it went down.

[GforGroove]

Originally Posted by potatobroth

@Gof
What doesn't make sense? Rather, I thought a large part of this movie was that you didn't know where it came from, why its there, and what it's doing outside of when the 5 kids interact with it. Making sense doesn't factor in when you aren't being told details. That was a nice touch I thought. Rather than having some mega-scientist giving a 10 minute diatribe on where it came from and how to defeat it, it added to a faux realism for the video camera. Again, its not a GOOD movie, but its a FUN movie and one I would recommend for that reason alone.

Yup. When we got out of the threatre we were talkign about how good might be if there were no characters in the front or they were just running around and escaping from the monster without trying to give any emotional reaction to this activity ha. Just the activity of run from the moster would be awesome.. but no, they prefered to make them feel moved about surviving and give hints about the power of love haha..
The kids dont interact with anything... they dont make sense. The only true thing is that this is the kind of people that lives in Manhattan

the camera is far from realistic!!!! that pissed me off too. Staged naturality is so tasteless.

sorry potato.. no way i understand why they did this. Pointless and expensive. and i love disaster movies and exlosions in manhattan.. but this was ridiculous!.

off from cloverfield thread.