Who's going to see Cloverfield? (warning - spoilers)

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:44 pm

Noise Monkey wrote:He makes a mean chicken pot pie.

If they provided the recipe in the credits, I'd watch it.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:46 pm

Because love is fucking complex.

Jim North wrote:Wow, that's weird. It was giving me a full body massage.

Treating critics as some sort of monolith with bullshit excuses and generalizations. I don't hate Penny Arcade because it's happy, I hate it because it sucks.

Nanda · Post by **Nanda** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:50 pm

rkolter wrote:Dunno. Why is the woman staying with her husband, if she's getting her fulfillment elsewhere?

That would depend on the story, kolter. The point is, this is often the reality of these situations, and it's almost never represented in media as such, because in our society, if a woman strays from what is expected of her, she is usually much more severely punished than her male equivalent. Men have affairs in films and nobody blinks. A woman has an affair in a film, and inevitablty something awful happens to her. Or, if she does make it through alright, it's because her husband has been set up as a bully or a philanderer. We have a really warped view of women in this country, and it shows in our narratives. Want to make a popular horror film? Just hack up a few naked, screaming women. Viola!

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:04 pm

yeahduff wrote:Treating critics as some sort of monolith with bullshit excuses and generalizations.

Wow, that's . . . not what I pulled from it at all. Especially since it says stuff like "Of course, not all critics use angst as a benchmark for quality" and seems to put a hell of a lot of the blame on the creators themselves for inundating the market with super-angsty pieces. Further, towards the end they talk about how the opposite effect is starting to take place as a backlash.

And hell, what they're saying seems quite a bit in line with what you pointed out before (that people don't like Juno because it's supposedly glossing over something that's typically seen as negative) anyway, which is why I posted a link to it. I may be reading into this wrong, but it would seem to me that you're suddenly offended by your own side of the issue.

I don't hate Penny Arcade because it's happy, I hate it because it sucks.

I don't see how you could hate PA for that, since "happy" isn't a word I'd even remotely consider using to describe it. I've been reading it for a few years now and "gleefully sociopathic" would be the closest I'd dare to get.

Jessi_B · Post by **Jessi_B** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:15 pm

yeahduff wrote:Because love is fucking complex.

A truer statement has never been spoken.

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:17 pm

Jessi_B wrote:
yeahduff wrote:Because love is fucking complex.
A truer statement has never been spoken.

Heh, yeah.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:03 pm

Maybe I skimmed too much, and maybe the more nuanced information was at the bottom of the page, as is typical, but that's what I got out of it. Maybe I'll take another look at it later, but I'm taking a nap now.

Jen_Babcock · Post by **Jen_Babcock** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:31 pm

I just saw this movie last night, and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. Maybe it's because I live in NY and so I know all the neighborhoods and how to travel around Manhattan (like getting from SoHo to Columbus Circle going up the 6 line is quite a trek), but it really creeped me out- much more than Blair Witch (if we're all comparing this movie to that b/c of the way it was filmed).

Anyway, I'm not sure how scary this would be for people who don't live in the city. I have a feeling that if I was living in Los Angeles, I wouldn't really quite realize how stressful this movie is.

It made me think that if the city were under attack by something and I had to leave Manhattan, what would be the best way. In my neighbhorhood, it would be easy (it also helps that it's practically in the Bronx), but if I was trying to evacuate from my boyfriend's place in the West Village, it would be more difficult. I'm guessing I would try to take some sort of tunnel to New Jersey. Otherwise I would run toward Chinatown to take the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn.

Of course, lots of people would probably be trying to cross all the bridges to Brooklyn, so unless I was right there, I would probably have a very slim chance of surviving if the island was going through some sort of air raid (or alien monster in this case).

Anyway, if the movie made me think of all the ways I could try to escape the island, it did a pretty decent job of freaking me out.

That said- I don't know if I would recommend people to actually pay money to see it in theaters.

Swimmingtrunks · Post by **Swimmingtrunks** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:37 pm

Wasn't planning on seeing it, but ended up paying a little too much to see it this weekend. Not saying it wasn't good- I liked it. I just have problems finding a movie that really is of enough quality that I don't feel ripped off for paying over $6 to see it.

It was kind of predictable- I expected things to happen, and while they didn't generally happen when/how I thought they would, character deaths- and the ending, especially- came as no surprise to me. Also, the actual story being told was a little on the lame side.

That being said, I think it was very good at being the movie it was meant to be. I was compelled by the general concept- seeing the monster movie not through third-person, or the hero's eyes- but following the story of innocent bystanders, who just happen to have the bad luck of being caught up in it. Aside from a camera and an admittedly far-fetched rescue, these guys are the extras in the now more than often digitally-created crowds. The story of an extra isn't really ever going to be as compelling or satisfying as the story of the hero, but the concept of it- I like it. A lot. I was talking with my friend today, and we were discussing- since they are planning on making this thing a franchise- how interesting it would be if, instead of making your typical sequel, they took the same situation, the same turn of events, and showed a completely different account of it.

Problems I had with it (SPOILERS):
I can hold up my suspension of disbelief for monsters appearing from nowhere, people exploding from bites, etc- but I just couldn't accept that someone impaled through the chest would be able to run down the street shortly later- at a pace to match her healthier friends, no less. Surviving the helicopter crash seemed like a really big stretch too.

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 5:06 am

swimmingtrunks wrote:since they are planning on making this thing a franchise- how interesting it would be if, instead of making your typical sequel, they took the same situation, the same turn of events, and showed a completely different account of it.

According to what I heard, they are planning to do just that.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 5:11 am

ivstudios wrote:
swimmingtrunks wrote:since they are planning on making this thing a franchise- how interesting it would be if, instead of making your typical sequel, they took the same situation, the same turn of events, and showed a completely different account of it.
According to what I heard, they are planning to do just that.

That would be awesome. They should do St. Louis next! We never get attacked by monsters.

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 5:48 am

Well, I think what swimmingtrunks meant (at least how I interpreted it, and what they are planning on doing) is it would be the same exact attack as in the first movie, but it would be retold from someone else's perspective.

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:16 am

rkolter wrote:
ivstudios wrote:
swimmingtrunks wrote:since they are planning on making this thing a franchise- how interesting it would be if, instead of making your typical sequel, they took the same situation, the same turn of events, and showed a completely different account of it.
According to what I heard, they are planning to do just that.
That would be awesome. They should do St. Louis next! We never get attacked by monsters.

you had that black hole monster.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:53 am

And Kurt Warner.

Swimmingtrunks · Post by **Swimmingtrunks** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:36 am

ivstudios wrote:
swimmingtrunks wrote:since they are planning on making this thing a franchise- how interesting it would be if, instead of making your typical sequel, they took the same situation, the same turn of events, and showed a completely different account of it.
According to what I heard, they are planning to do just that.

Awesome. The only problem with it being, the premise miiight get a little redundant after a couple of sequels.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:41 am

legostargalactica wrote:
rkolter wrote:
ivstudios wrote: According to what I heard, they are planning to do just that.
That would be awesome. They should do St. Louis next! We never get attacked by monsters.
you had that black hole monster.

That monster sucked. I want a good monster.

Noise Monkey · Post by **Noise Monkey** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:04 pm

swimmingtrunks wrote:
ivstudios wrote:
swimmingtrunks wrote:since they are planning on making this thing a franchise- how interesting it would be if, instead of making your typical sequel, they took the same situation, the same turn of events, and showed a completely different account of it.
According to what I heard, they are planning to do just that.
Awesome. The only problem with it being, the premise miiight get a little redundant after a couple of sequels.

The story can't be about the monster, anyway. There's only so much you can do if the story is just "a monster attacks". The real hook needs to be in the story that unfolds because of it.

Now, they just need to find a story to unfold...

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:22 pm

(spoilers below)

There seemed clearly to me to be multiple monsters - the big momma in the city wreaking havoc with paws that reach twenty stories up buildings and span ten stories across, the smaller one in Central Park that would waste it's time eating one guy, the whatever it was tentacled thing that hit the bridge, the small spider-monsters... I could see several sequals with this array of monsters attacking cities.

Desperado · Post by **Desperado** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:09 pm

I'll probably go see this either this week or the next. Looks interesting to say the least.

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:20 pm

Finally got to see Cloverfield today. Good stuff, enjoyed it. Only two problems come to mind . . .

SPOILERS AHOY

First, there were several lines of dialogue that were either lame, cheesy, cliche, or a mix of all three. The scene where Rob finally meets back up with Beth in her ruined apartment was especially bad. It was like listening to a bit in a poorly written romance novel, not at all believable under the circumstances. Fortunately, all the best lines were given to cameraman Hud.

Second, the noise that the parasite spider things make. They're scary little critters and all, but it kind of takes away from the moment when they let out something that sounds like it was ripped straight from a badly made 70's action cartoon. If I want to hear the Herculoids, I'll watch the Herculoids, thank you.

But the rest was pretty damn cool. Definitely a buy when it comes out on DVD.

rkolter wrote:There seemed clearly to me to be multiple monsters - the big momma in the city wreaking havoc with paws that reach twenty stories up buildings and span ten stories across, the smaller one in Central Park that would waste it's time eating one guy, the whatever it was tentacled thing that hit the bridge,

This was all the same single monster. The spider parasites (it's been confirmed that they're parasites, by the by) are the only other monsters running around.