by Pierre Baltadano
Last night, several of us went out to watch
Cloverfield, the newly released J.J. Abrams (Felicity, Alias, Lost, Star Trek) project. The movie has been much hyped about lately and although much was a mystery before the release, and still after, it is basically a monster movie that takes place in New York and is centralized around a group of close friends. I never tried finding out more about it because I wanted to try knowing as little as possible before seeing it. One quick alert - I wish I would have known more about the shaky Handicam-shooting style (ala Blair Witch Project) of the movie because it was dizzying and not for those prone to nausea, seizures, or vertigo...it will mess your shit up if you are; also, don't see it under the influence. Although, this style of shooting made me a bit dizzy, and caused Markus and my sister Liz to want to throw up, I still found it very interesting in how it made a monster movie released in explosive summer blockbuster style seem smaller and more personal. Although monster or takeover movies, like Independence Day, have a group of people at the center of the action, they also have those on the outside, but in Cloverfield you only get one core group in the middle of the action. You see what they see and only know what they know, but especially, you see it from their perspective. You know nothing about what's going on outside of their world and you only get a hint of what is being done about the problem at a certain point of the movie. The characters are also relatively unknowns and I think that that also helps out with keeping the movie more grounded and allows us to relate (as much as one can to a monster movie).
I won't say more about the movie beyond that I feel that it was a success in moving this film genre forward by busting cliches during a time when we are getting remake after remake and prequels/sequels up the ass (yes, even Abrams is doing it by making adding to the Star Trek franchise?). It's fast, personal, and shot for a generation understanding of personal documentation and exposure (i.e. MySpace and Youtube).
Go check it and see how you feel.
