J.J Abrams "Cloverfield" project.

I absolutely loved Cloverfield. Until I went to see it. I really dug the idea and the trailer will go down in film history. In the theater the whole thing just didn't hold up for me. It was a combination of things that just blew it for me. The set-up took forever; the acting was not believable; the labored, never-ending, unrealistic exposition of back-story by all the on-camera characters... And worst of all..the mama monster and the crabby monsters just look like CGI to me. I wanted to believe it but it didn't work for me. There is a scene where a news report shows ENG footage of the crabbies attacking the military, and the footage looks like an outtake from 'Starship Troopers' with the obviously CGI bugs. And the big reveal at the end when you get to look right at the giant CG monkey-face crab...I was way disappointed.
 
Mattykins said:
Look at this little break down from IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/ratings

Also, most critique sites I look at are giving it between 7 to 8 out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 75%.

Maybe do some research before stating 99.9% of everyone hated the film. :D
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I never said 99% of people hated the film. I'm suggesting 99% of people have never made a film that has been shown on a big screen. Maybe you should read the post before making comments about it.
 
So you are saying you don't take yours, 99% of the people on this site, movie reviewers like Egbert & Roeper, actually 99.99999999% of the people on this planets opinions seriously? Interesting.
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Yeah, I can see where you mentioned 99.9% of people never made a film that is on a big screen. I am sorry for the confusion.
 
Wow. For whatever reason the debate over this movie seems to cause some real aggression. It seems either you hated it or really dug it with very few in between.

I guess it is what it is. It's a black and white cookie. You like one side or the other or hate the cookie all together. Go figure.
 
Mattykins said:
Yeah, I can see where you mentioned 99.9% of people never made a film that is on a big screen. I am sorry for the confusion.
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Hmmm. I sense sarcasm. BUT part of my post was a quote of the person I was responding to. You should of read that too. Matter of fact here I will break it down for you.

Robertson6 wrote--when one of you makes it big like JJ and makes a better movie, or even one that releases to an actual theater I will take your opinion more seriously.-

To which my reply was--So you are saying you don't take yours, 99% of the people on this site, movie reviewers like Egbert & Roeper, actually 99.99999999% of the people on this planets opinions seriously? Interesting.

Get it now?
 
lol.

I may be standing in front of a firing squad by admitting this but I ALWAYS read Ebert's reviews and almost always agree with him.
 
I read Ebert as well. However, I don't read most reviews until after I see the movie, but I really enjoy his Answer Man.

Okay, back to fighting about Cloverfield. GO!
 
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Barry_Green said:
Exactly. I don't know what people were expecting, but I thought Cloverfield was fun. It's "blair witch" done right, sort of a mix of Blair Witch meets Godzilla. No, it's not gonna win Oscars. But at least it was very different from most films (hey, Hollywood trying something different? About time.) and it was fun.
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Agreed, but I do believe it deserves an Oscar! The oscar for sound design. This was a blockbuster monster movie without a musical score for 2 hours. This is simply an amazing achievement.
 
Didn't even notice that there wasn't a score...

... I mean, I know people are baggin' on it, but this and Blair Witch really are the beginning of a new "art form" in movies. It's not a "scripted narrative," it's not a "documentary," it's not a "musical"; it's a new thing, maybe we'd call the genre the "found film" movie.

The rules of this genre appear to be that there's no musical score, no recognizable actors, the entire film has to look like it's salvaged footage from a real event. It's about as significant a shift as the "Dogme 95" stuff. It's too early to tell if this'll catch on; "real time" films haven't really caught on, nor have "one take" films, so maybe this'll go nowhere or maybe it'll be the beginning of a new genre.
 
I'm open to new perspectives, and style, but I've been dragged through hype for long enough. A good movie is a good movie, and hype can only bring out enough people.
 
Well, I wouldn't consider Blair Witch anything new. In fact, the consumer camera shot approach was already done by a couple of direct to TV movies before the Blair Witch Project. I remember seen one about an alien invasion.

The Blair Witch Project was a hype driven movie, which worked on the audience's ignorance of the narrative- everyone believed the reality of the story. It was terrible in cinematography, and fairly ridiculous. It had, however, a very climatic ending.

Cloverfield is taking the Blair Witch approach and actually assume its movieness. Its a blockbuster movie, and it was always marketed as such. But it was done in a balsy, fresh way. I agree with Barry. It is as close to a Dogma 95 monster movie as we'll get.

Or you might call this movie a "First Person Monster Movie". It works similar to a Disneyland ride, like Star Tours. You like those rides, you'll like this movie.

Want to see a "First Person Movie", entirely shot in one take, shot with a Steadicam, to see how Cloverfield would probably look like? Rent/Buy the movie "Russian Ark". A great film, but, sincerely, it would look completely out of place in the movie's context.

EDIT- While The Blair Witch sequel completely bombed due to the lack of substance of the original, the sequel to Cloverfield, if done right, could be another blockbuster. This is a movie that, I believe, will have 100 million plus in worldwide revenue, and can make a sequel earn twice as much.
 
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I cant believe they got $30 million dollars to make this cr@p. I guess reality tv, youtube and myspace really have let the youngsters today accept "low quality video cr@p".
 
Well, Its not actually revealed where it comes from. You just glimpse

SPOILER ALERT

something moving or splashing into the water on the last scene when the two main leads are enjoying their trip in Coney Island.
 
I loved this movie. Hated the first 15 minutes though, but once it started rolling there was no turning back.
 
It came from the water. My take is it's an HP Lovecraft monster, Cthulhu (as it's been talked about endlessly). Being that this monster did have drones, and so does Cthulhu, that's pretty much what it was.

Note: The Myth slept at the bottom of the ocean for millions of years, then awakened to pretty much eat everyone.
 
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