Cloverfield

[BatWing]

oh my stars and stripes!

this film beats blair witch and godzilla 2000 put togethor!!!

[spoiler]i've seen the monster and it does looks like one of godzill'as enemies.
then theres these little things that fall off of it.
and one bite from them, bam! you blow up![/spoiler]

[Mod Edit] Fixed. [/Mod Edit]

[ow_tiobe_sb]

Try this tag on for size: [spoiler] :mellow:[/spoiler]

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and [THIS SPACE AVAILABLE FOR LEASE TO NEW DUAL TITLE TENANT]

[B A D]

I saw it last night. I was working during the day where the monster squished. It gave me the heebie jeebies.

There is some debate on what the staticy phrase is at the end. Anybody care to take a stab?

[TheMarvell]

I, too, thought it was awesome. Great movie to start the year with. :D

[GhostMachine]

The staticy phrase after the credits has been "decoded":

[spoiler]The static has a voice saying something like "help us", but apparently someone recorded it and played it backwards, and it also has someone saying "Its still alive" near the end.[/spoiler]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have seen what the monster looks like. Meh.

[Pyroclasm]

Saw it this morning.  It is probably the best movie I've seen in quite sometime.  The monster is fantastic.  The movie kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.  I thought the shaky-cam was going to ruin it, but truth be told, I got so lost in the unfolding story that I didn't really notice.  No one in the theatre spoke during the feature.  It was just dead silent except for the occasions when you'd hear a chuckle when "Hud" would say something inappropriately funny.  I've never seen an episode of "Lost", but now that I've heard of the name "J.J. Abrams", I not only feel the need to track down that show on DVD, but I'm eagerly anticipating his Star Trek movie as well.  If you are on the fence whether or not to watch, just get off that fence now and head straight to your local theatre.

[bredon7777]

How bad is the "Shakey Cam"?  Cause about halfway though Blair Witch I had to go and vomit so if its as bad as that, this goes off my "must-see" list. . .

[Podmark]

I sooo want to see this. Almost went tonight but I didn't have time.

[Figure Fan]

After seeing Cloverfield, here are two opinions:

My brother's: "Cloverfield was absolute *expletive deleted*. Don't even bother".

My best friend's: "Cloverfield was so awesome! I loved it!"

:blink: Looks like I'll have to see for myself. LOL

[GhostMachine]

How bad is the "Shakey Cam"?  Cause about halfway though Blair Witch I had to go and vomit so if its as bad as that, this goes off my "must-see" list. . .

I'd say avoid it. One of the posters over at Byrne Robotics went to see it with his girlfriend, and he puked about 20 minutes into it, and almost did again around the 50 minute mark. His girlfriend almost threw up, too.

NOT a movie people who get motion sickness should see.

[Pyroclasm]

If you are susceptible to motion sickness, you may not want to see it.  But only for that reason.  You'd be missing out on so much more.  If you tend to sit close to the screen, I suggest you sit further back.  My wife has a tendency for motion sickness.  She would simply look away if the images started to bother her.  Which worked fine since the shakiness only really happened when people ran.  She sat through the entire movie and enjoyed it immensely.  This is something you really have to see once in the theatre.  It's huge.
Although I don't always agree with Dustin Putman, his review of Cloverfield is spot on:
http://www.themovieboy.com/reviews/c/08_cloverfield.htm (Careful.  Some very minor spoilerage.)
Although I leave out specific details, I put the following in "spoiler" tags just in case people want to be completely surprised:
[spoiler]This is not a typical Hollywood movie.  It doesn't follow the exploits of the military as it tries to stop this juggernaut.  It doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the monster.  No scientist will have his audience informing scene of how it was formed, where it came from, why it's here, or how do we stop it.  The protagonists are not specially trained nor do they hold the secret to defeating the monster.  Most importantly, it doesn't give you a "jolly" feeling, nor do you feel empowered.  It's like "Marvels".  It's a story told through the eyes of a layman.  And it doesn't get much more layman than "Hud".  I think this is a problem for some people.  They want to leave a the theatre feeling like they partook in some sort of victory.  They don't want leave feeling humbled or unsafe.  And although it is obvious in the trailer that it doesn't have a happy ending, some might feel that they had their hopes dashed.[/spoiler]

Speaking of the cameraman's name "Hud" (Hudson), I liked the way it has a second meaning as "HUD".  Like your screen is in a video game-- your view of that world.

[bredon7777]

How bad is the "Shakey Cam"?  Cause about halfway though Blair Witch I had to go and vomit so if its as bad as that, this goes off my "must-see" list. . .

I'd say avoid it. One of the posters over at Byrne Robotics went to see it with his girlfriend, and he puked about 20 minutes into it, and almost did again around the 50 minute mark. His girlfriend almost threw up, too.

NOT a movie people who get motion sickness should see.

Waiting for video it is then. Thanks.

[TheMarvell]

before the movie began, the theater manager and a local sheriff spoke to the audience and demanded everyone have their cell phones turned off as soon as the lights went down, for if they saw anyone with their cell phones on, they'd kick them out immediately. I can only assume they didn't want anyone taking pictures of the monster or recording it.

I've never witnessed this before. Usually theaters in my area don't give a damn, lol.

[The Pwime]

i was very close to throwing up on multiple occasions...


interesting movie, though.

[steamteck]

The shaky cam was no problem for me and my wife. We just wanted to see a real monster movie instead of the incredibly frustrating " slice of life" version. The concept could have worked in a short film but didn't have the strength t carry the film for us.

[thanoson]

I liked it lots. Bad day for those folks. Kept wondering when the battery was going to die in that camera.

[Spam]

Or if it were ever going to run out of film. =p

But I thought it was a good movie. There was some things that I think they should have done, but other then that, I thought it was enjoyable. I don't think it "reinvented" the monster movie genre, but it certainly tried.  ^_^

FORIAMSPAM!

[Pyroclasm]

Kept wondering when the battery was going to die in that camera.

Or if it were ever going to run out of film. =p

The movie wasn't one continuous shot.  Since it is supposedly "unedited", and it was approximately 7 hours between the first attack and the final scene, there were a lot of lapses of time that were not taped (not film).  I think I would have liked if they maintained the date/time in the lower left corner just to let us know how much time was passing between scenes.  My sony digital handycam has a 60/90 minute tape.  The running time for the movie is 84 minutes.  If you subtract the government warning and the credits, the tape probably ended at around the very final scene when the camera cuts out.  The battery on the handycam lasts between 30 & 45 minutes.  Considering it would be wise for anyone taping anything to have a couple of spares, I just assumed Hud switched the battery during one of those lapses in time. ;)  I just want to know what kind he used since it did take quite a beating. :D

[thanoson]

That wasn't Hud's camera, so I doubt he had extra batteries on him. Still, I liked the movie.

[GrizzlyBearTalon]

:gbtclaw

Gotta say I really liked this movie a lot. I have always wanted to see a big monster flick done from this of point of view.

The Shaky Cam didn't bother me at all in this one (I don't get motion sickness I just hate Shaky Cams heh). I think it was like watching a well done home movie, in that the camera only gets shaky if you are doing something awkward with it like running or jumping around when it would basically be impossible for it not to be that way.

[Kommando]

I pretty much liked it for all the reasons Bamph listed in his spoiler.  This was not meant to make you feel good, just messed up in every way.  I wish more movies were like this.

[Podmark]

Finally saw it tonight and really liked it.

Shaky Cam gave me a killer headache though, but I still feel it was worth it.

[GogglesPizanno]

Normally I don't like JJ Abrams. His stuff to me is always a great concept with poor execution (except for the one episode of Felicity someone made me watch with the "bus" scene.) Since he only served as producer and it was written and directed by others... I can only assume his name all over it was a marketing thing to get the movie made and released.

So I was surprised how much I liked it...
Yes the shaky cam can be nausea inducing if you are sensitive to that stuff.
But it was way more suspenseful than most of these types of movies are.
The movie is really a very simple concept, but it sticks to it and pulls it off incredibly well.

My only beef is that I felt like it had a few too many endings... and given the run time, I think part of that may be due to padding so that it at least approached a traditional theatrical running time -- its a pretty short film.

[stumpy]

Well, I decided to go see it tonight before it left the theater. I liked it.

[spoiler]I really liked the non-typical aspects of it, as mentioned in Pyroclasm's spoiler. I had sort of a clue things were going to be more character-driven than monster-, battle-, or phenomenon-driven when the first half hour or so of the movie had nothing even vaguely "science-fiction prelude"-esque happening. No character who was a biology grad student; nobody's kid brother looking up genetics conspiracy sites on the internet; no evil corporate cliche talking about how it was okay to dump toxic waste into the river to save a buck; and no development of a cop / military person who is tough as nails or has a drinking problem, but still has a heart of gold.

Frankly, at first, I was perplexed at how long they were spending on build-up in the party scene. I actually looked at my watch about ten minutes in and thought, "Unless one of these booze-hounds is either a handmaiden of the monster or turns into the monster itself, the pacing here is never going to work." But, once I figured out the movie wasn't going to be all gore-shots and 'splosions, I was drawn into the little social intrigues they developed. And, that work establishing the characters was well used during the chase-and-rescue part of the movie. And, they kept that part of the movie going the whole way through. There was never an abrupt "now we're done with character development, except for a few one-liners, and it's all machine guns and monsters from here on out" moment.

As for the shaky-cam, it sucked, IMO. I didn't get sick or anything, but it was an annoyance. I know what they were going for, and I am not opposed to the idea of that device for first-person storytelling, and I really like how the "flashback" shots of their trip to Coney Island served as a poignant backdrop for (and continuing development of) the Rob-Beth relationship that motivated the last third of the movie. But, I still found the shakiness to be irksome.

Random thoughts:

• I did sort of want someone to tell Hud to shut the heck up a couple times. Setting homeless people on fire? Yeesh. Yeah, yeah, it was endearing, but there's a reason I don't have friends like that.
• They did a pretty good job of developing Marlena, considering she was kind of a support character. At first, when she was blowing off Hud at the party, I was thinking, "Well, to blazes with you then, honey. You are sitting there looking bored out of your skull and then you decide to skip out on the first person who bothers talking to you?" But, by the time she succumbs to that case of indigestion, I was feeling for her.
• I had the same thoughts about battery life as everyone else and I imagine most everyone who saw the movie must have thought about it at some point. I wish they had taken the ten seconds to show Rob's brother handing Hud couple of spare batteries and saying, "Just keep these in your pocket in case the 'low-battery' light starts to blink." They never even would have needed to mention him replacing them later on; just the knowledge that he could have would have been enough.
• I found myself thinking there is no way they would have been the only ones hiding out in the subway.
• That girl who played Lilly: yummers!

[/spoiler]

Anyway, excepting motion sickness-prone people, I recommend seeing it while it's in the theaters. I have a feeling the experience will be very different at home.

[Kommando]

You all knew it was coming...

Cloverfield Monster by Hasbro with 70 points of articulation

[BentonGrey]

That.....doesn't even look like the monster.

[stumpy]

It really doesn't. I can't quite figure out if it's just the coloring or if it's more that the movie creature didn't seem so skeletal...

There is something to be said for thoroughness though. I wasn't expecting a "Statue of Liberty head accessory".  :blink: