C L O V E R F I E L D

[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.)

[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.

[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.

[Lx_Nen]

Originally Posted by the mongoose

Does anyone else think that it's insane that NO ONE has leaked any pics of the monster or a detailed plot synopsis? They have done an outstanding job of keeping a tight lock on it all. Bravo Paramount.

Can't wait to check this out finally....

Well, having seen it, it's painfully obvious why nobody leaked the plot.

[potatobroth]

i just watched this again at home and I actually liked it more. I know I'm a hypocrit for typically panning movies that aren't all there, but this for some reason, I really like watching this flick.

[gillenium]

Well, it's more of a ride than a movie. It's hard to critisize a rollercoaster for being thin on plot.

[Professor]

no one has answered the question... where DID this thing come from? in the special features of the dvd, they mention that it's an infant, and it's just rambling around the city scared. also, wtf happened to marlena? did the parasites put parasites in her by that bite? did they shoot her? did her chest explode like alien? why is the monster there in the first place? why is it called cloverfield?

there were moments of good tension. the tunnel scenes were intense. large scale panic on an island is kinda scary. the love story was stupid. the hand held camera was annoying, but I was ready for that.

[BeautifulBurnout]

I saw this a coupla weeks back and really enjoyed it, whereas my husband (who is a huge sci-fi fan) was thoroughly bored throughout.

Discussing it afterwards his main complaint was that it was a film that "only had a middle", no beginning or end. But I think that is precisely what I liked about it so much.

We never know where it came from, what it is, what happens to it because that is not what the film is about. That is almost irrelevant, because the film, to me, is about how people - friends and acquaintances - react to an extraordinary world-shattering event. The event could have been anything at all.

[qirex]

Originally Posted by Professor

no one has answered the question... where DID this thing come from?

I didn't read this thread, but, in the last scene of the movie where it cuts back to them on the ferris wheel you can see, in the distance, the monster falling from the sky into the ocean.

[kagenaki koe]

Originally Posted by Professor

no one has answered the question... where DID this thing come from? in the special features of the dvd, they mention that it's an infant, and it's just rambling around the city scared. also, wtf happened to marlena? did the parasites put parasites in her by that bite? did they shoot her? did her chest explode like alien? why is the monster there in the first place? why is it called cloverfield?

I smell a sequel.