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Cloverfield Press screening - Tonight, Empire

As a whole the film was a decent movie.

It wasn't a monster movie in the sense that it followed the Hollywood monster attacks city hero saves the day, it was more Blair Witch documentary style action. That being said it had all the down falls of Blair Witch with the horrible shaking camera (that almost made me puke). The main guy was rather annoying with his determined goal of the movie.

Random thought - if the head of the Statue of Liberty landed 5 feet away from me, I would not stand around with my camera phone taking pictures of it.
 
Largo said:
Random thought - if the head of the Statue of Liberty landed 5 feet away from me, I would not stand around with my camera phone taking pictures of it.
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:D Thats exactly what I said to my mate as soon as it happened!

yanks :rolleyes: ;)
 
skyscraper101 said:
:D Thats exactly what I said to my mate as soon as it happened!

yanks :rolleyes: ;)
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Ever seen one of these Most Amazing Videos Ever shows on Bravo ? They can fill a whole day with videos of disasters and accidents filmed by people on their mobiles.

It's not just by "yanks" either. :rolleyes: ;)
 
Anyone remember the SE Asia tsunami? Or the pictures from inside NO after the flooding? Or at any handily available volcano going off, let alone all the twister/tornado footage out there...
 
Wookey said:
Any reviews from anyone then??
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A bunch of fairly ordinary New Yorkers (shiny, but not so shiny you want to hit them) have a going away party for a mate. As the party progresses there are clearly some personal issues in the group, involving the sexually, but not emotionally, requited love of the main character. Then there's what appears to be an earthquake, everyone in the party heads up to see what's going in, a huge explosion is seen in downtown NY...and suddenly large chunks of building and the head of the statue of liberty are raining down on our protagonists...

As Largo says, it's a monster movie about people living through a monster attack. There's very little primary involvement of the military. Nothing is explained, no one knows what's happening, other than completing the task of getting to the appartment building of said squeeze.

The first thing that will piss you off is the camerawork. The idea of seeing everything through a single camera is good, and while you know that even the best handycams aren't *that* good, you also forget that it's been made on proper camera gear. But it judders. God, does it judder, jerk, zoom in and out inappropriately, miss loads of implied action while the camera swings round to see, for example, a tail dissappearing. If you can make it past the camera, you'll see the film.

Good sounds of panic. In fact, sound is one of the crowning glories of this film - brilliant use of off camera sound effects give you great implied action (especially when the army pile in). the SFX are seamless as well - what's refreshing is that you don't see the monster as a whole until the end. Some great horror/jump out of seats/get that horrible creeping feeling moments (especially in the subway tunnels).

So, I reckon great film which might make your eyes hurt.
 
Ah, well, that was ... very entertaining.

I guess if you really want to analyse it, it was an interesting attempt to do something different with a genre that is inherently a bit silly. There were some nice ...

No, sorry, forget it. It was a load of old shit. Very entertaining shit. :D
 
fucthest8 said:
Ah, well, that was ... very entertaining.

I guess if you really want to analyse it, it was an interesting attempt to do something different with a genre that is inherently a bit silly. There were some nice ...

No, sorry, forget it. It was a load of old shit. Very entertaining shit. :D
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It's a parable of 911.
 
Saw it this afternoon and fucking loved it. Totally ridiculous, of course, but mighty entertaining with it.
 
Bloody hell, no, anything but that! :D

Seriously though, if you want parable, lets talk about Pan's Labyrinth, that was the bollocks. Cloverfield wasn't rather more ... glaring.
 
I'll give this one a miss. I hate the jerky camerawork stuff. Just end up with a headache.

Also from the trailers it seems, as ever, that everyone involved in a disaster film is a 20 something beauty.
 
Idaho said:
I'll give this one a miss. I hate the jerky camerawork stuff. Just end up with a headache.

Also from the trailers it seems, as ever, that everyone involved in a disaster film is a 20 something beauty.
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That's because it's a party of young NY upwardly mobile twentysomethings.

Also, the monster is in manhattan, so it wouldn't have the same impact if the protagonists were a family watching tv in the Bronx.:)
 
Would be more interesting if it was. I realise that I am in a tiny minority, but I am bored shitless of hollywood formula.
 
Idaho said:
Would be more interesting if it was. I realise that I am in a tiny minority, but I am bored shitless of hollywood formula.
Click to expand...

Then you could watch a movie about some Bronx residents watching the action on tv.:)

That would be definitely non-Hollywood.
 
I loved it. A perfect popcorn blockbuster if ever I saw one, but unique enough to make it a bit more than just another over-hyped Hollywood money-spinner. There's some incredible jaw-dropping moments in it (the skyscraper bridge, the subway tunnel, the helicopter ride) that I think are easily up there with some of the best in film history.

Although I can see how the shaky cam may not be some people's tastes, the result of it for me was to leave me breathless. It's an intense feeling watching everything happen just through the one lone viewpoint, as if you were in the film itself. That feeling didn't leave me when the film finished either, I walked out the cinema feeling like I was in some kind of surreal videotape playback of my own life.

The 9/11 comparisons are so obvious here and if I have do have criticism with the film, it's that perhaps dwelt on too much. I thought at some points that the film-makers were playing on some of the more over-familar scenes from the attacks and laying it on far too thickly. Still, I suppose that's to be excepted from a film that's thematically, was borne out of the way the world viewed the attacks and their aftermath.

All in all, I feel that this is due to become one of those films that will be talked about for a long time to come. I'd imagine that, apart from just a same style of film-making as Blair Witch, it'll probably share a similar legacy to it too. Loved by some, hated by others and debated ad infinitum as to whether it's a piece of genius cinema or just a silly novelty gimmick. For me, as with Blair Witch, I fall into the former camp. :)
 
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