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Cloverfield Hype & Movie Thread *Spoilers Ahoy!*

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U

UpperCaseN

Member
yeah, when people ask me about this movie and if I liked it, I always take a cautious/mixed stance even though I loved it. some of my friends hated it, the others liked it a lot. I hate it when people come back to me with an opinion like, "OMG, you liked that shitty ass movie? That movie fucking sucked, what the hell is wrong with you?!" rather than something intelligent
 
B

brandonh83

Banned
Buttonbasher said:
I guess The Early Show just had something on it about Cloverfield making so many people motion sick.

Was it really that big of an issue?
Click to expand...

Some people just get motion sickness much easier than others. I don't really think that's a flaw in a human being, it's not like motion-sensitive people get sick by choice. But for me I didn't have that problem at all, I'm used to it from riding rollercoasters and doing crazy shit like jumping off 50+ ft. cliffs at the lake (into the water of course). So I'm pretty much immune to it.
 
C

Confused101

Member
Buttonbasher said:
Was it really that big of an issue?
Click to expand...

A few people walked out of the theater I was in and I never saw them come back in. I'm assuming it was from the motion. One of them actually heaved in the walkway leading from the lobby to where the seats were. Everyone noticed it as we were walking out.

I was actually affected by it and I had to keep looking away from the screen to steady myself but I didn't have to leave. The girlfriend wasn't affected at all even though we were very close to the screen.
 
A

artist

Banned
The motion sickness is expected, I mean they shook the camera as much as they could to make it realistic but IMO it was overdone .. I too kept looking away during some scenes to avoid getting a headache. And I'm not one of those sensitive ones who complained of motion sickness during the Bourne movies. ;)

I liked the movie, my opinion is between Love or Hate kind of responses this movie has drawn largely. One thing is certain that I'm not going to buy the movie on disk (Blu-ray) as I'm not going to rewatch it. :D
 
K

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
Buttonbasher said:
I guess The Early Show just had something on it about Cloverfield making so many people motion sick.

Was it really that big of an issue?
Click to expand...
I went into the movie girding myself for the possibility after reading the initial impressions here. But it was just standard shaky cam footage for me, no hint of motion sickness. I always avoid the front rows of the theater though and head towards the middle, so I expect that helps.
 
D

dasein

Member
I just came back from watching it for the first time.

I haven't read a thing on this thread since 2 days before the first initial pre-screenings (the Gainesville one).

Some initial thoughts:

- They showed the monster way too many times, especially that zoom at the end was absolutely devastating overall for the film.

- While at times it looks good, the CG really stands out at times. This killed the believability factor several times. You mess up the believability, you mess up the essential telos of the film.

- They survived the helicopter crash?!!? For pete's sake, c'mon.

- Part when he tells his mom his brother died was really well done.

- "BITE!! BITE!!" How the hell did the army/medics learn so quickly about the implications of the bites?

- Loved how the film leaves you hanging.

- Hate how the film ends with love.

- Hud wasn't acting the way humans would probably act under such high-adrenaline conditions. At least it seems to me that he was unrealistic in that sense, though I ain't no socio-psychologist.

- Scale ratio of monster-to-surroundings (buildings, tanks, etc.) seemed to shift. Sometimes the monster seemed utter huge, other times it didn't.

- The camera is too high quality. What are they running around with? a Panasonic P2? Probably not a P2 since THE DAMN HEAVY DUTY CAMERA SURVIVED BOTH A HELICOPTER CRASH AND A DAMN MONSTER BITE YUM.

- When the first time the soldiers pop out of nowhere in the alley to shoot down the monster (after the Asian/Mexican man warns them to turn back) my adrenaline really pumped. It felt real for a second, like I was in the middle of the action.

My rating:

6/10
 
T

Tr4nce

Member
@ dasein:


- They showed the monster way too many times, especially that zoom at the end was absolutely devastating overall for the film.

I agree about the last shot, but before that they showed it just perfectly, imo.

- "BITE!! BITE!!" How the hell did the army/medics learn so quickly about the implications of the bites?

Could be because of the fact that many civilians were already bitten, because there were many victims in that little hospital. Secondly, the bites could have only come from those parasites.

- Hud wasn't acting the way humans would probably act under such high-adrenaline conditions. At least it seems to me that he was unrealistic in that sense, though I ain't no socio-psychologist.

It has been said that people who are filming, are really having some kind of tunnel vision, which could cause that. People behind the camera feel like their in a different reality. Much like that one camera dude who got hit by a rally car in real life, but he didn't jump aside. That's how it works I think.

- Scale ratio of monster-to-surroundings (buildings, tanks, etc.) seemed to shift. Sometimes the monster seemed utter huge, other times it didn't.

I absolutely have to agree with you there.
 
Z

Zombie James

Banned
Does anyone have a gif or something with the thing falling in the water at the end? I went to see it tonight and totally missed it, didn't see a thing.
 
S

SpeedingUptoStop

will totally Facebook friend you! *giggle* *LOL*
fallout said:
Uh. It lasted for 90 minutes.
Click to expand...
Why does no one seem to understand that a camera usually isn't on when it's not filming? I mean seriously, far too many people can't seem to grasp this concept.
 
F

fallout

Member
Sanjay said:
this is film is just bad, people looking to much into it, kind of like how people do so with lost.
Click to expand...
Actually, I preferred the movie before I knew about all of the viral marketing stuff. Of course, I've always had this desire for movies to be a little more subtle, so I guess there's that bias on my part.
 
A

AdventureRacing

Member
I liked the movie, but heres just a few thoughts i had about it

- I would liked to have seen how this movie turned out without the shakiness. I didn't hate it or anything just would of been interesting.

- I'm not a big fan of hero characters in movies like this. They are trying to show how normal people would react and to be honest i strongly doubt that the way these 4 reacted in the film was anything like that. The 4 of them basically faced up to almost certain death to try and save someone who was almost certainly dead.

- I also agree with dasein that the scale ratio was a bit off and all of them surviving the helicopter crash was ridiculous.

- I hated the way that Hud died. Firstly there was something i didn't quite like about the monster singling out 1 person like that. Second of all if a monster that big and powerful decides to kill you surely it can do a better job. This thing can just walk right through the middle of buildings yet it really didn't seem to do all that much to Hud, it just picked him up and dropped him. Honestly i thought this was the worst part of the whole film.

I would of thought that if that monster attacked someone it would of seriously fucked them up but apparently not, hell i didn't even see any blood on him.
 
C

ckohler

Member
AdventureRacing said:
I would of thought that if that monster attacked someone it would of seriously fucked them up but apparently not, hell i didn't even see any blood on him.
Click to expand...
I didn't see his lower half-either. Chomp chomp.
 
N

Nicodimas

Banned
I'm sorry you won't ever get to have the fun that I have.
Click to expand...

I agree I alway feel sorry for people that can't enjoy things for what they are. Every movie going to have its mistake should you analyze it to death.
 
W

wandering goat

Member
I thought it was a good experience, though I had motion sickness big time in it. When they got to the subway, I had to look away for a long time and felt I might have to go to the washroom and vomit, but didn't. Through the rest of the movie, I looked away whenever there was a lull in the action. That kind of soured me on the movie. The three friends I was with also had the same problem, having to look away / close their eyes at times. I'm not normally a motion-sickness person either (really the first entertainment product it's ever happened to me on).
 
F

FF_VIII

Banned
I saw it yesterday and thought it was ok. Not bad by any means, but not that good. I'll put my feelings into good/bad because that's the right thing to do.....?

SPOILERS




+ Statue Of Liberty head rolling down the street
+ The scene on the bridge where the guy's brother dies
+ Marlena saying "I don't feel so good" then being taken away to explode :lol
+ The helicopter scene. Especially the part where they bomb the monster and he goes into the building.
+ The scenes with the monster
+ The camera guy being eaten


- I hated the shaky cam.
- The party scene. Too long and unnecessary.
- I didn't care about a single character, I wanted them all dead because they where annoying.
- Watching nothing for about 20 minutes until something finally happened.
- It didn't really feel like a monster movie. Since you hardly see him. It was like that douchebag trying to find his girlfriend, but there's a monster attacking.
- How did the camera guy (I don't know his name nor care :) not see the monster?
- When they see their friend getting eaten instead of running they go back for the camera.
- The ending sucked. It's like it left you with more questions instead of answering any of them.
 
D

Deku

Banned
I think the movie's short running time hurt it.

There's also a real imbalance in the unveiling of the creature. At first, we could barely see what it is, and the movie basically flaunts it in your face in the last 30 minutes. Keep in mind this is an 86 minute movie with the first 20 or so minutes acting as a pre-monster setup.

We have at best 30-40 minutes of 'real' panic. The old adage that you fear what you don't see more than what you do see is true here. I don't know why they revealed the monsters so soon.

Did they no see M. Night's 'SIGNS'? That was a relatively short movie too, but we didn't really see the aliens until the very end and it was such a fantastic setup.
 
E

El Pescado

Member
FF_VIII said:
- It didn't really feel like a monster movie. Since you hardly see him. It was like that douchebag trying to find his girlfriend, but there's a monster attacking.
Click to expand...

I think that was actually the point of the movie.
 
S

Sanjay

Member
did any one else also think of Transformers while watching this film or was that just me...

hell that film got load of stick and to me both these films have similar concepts.
 
B

BobTheFork

Member
Still need to see it this week, but I find it strange that no one seems to be allowed not to like the film here. Reading back a few, every single reason for not liking the film has been totally laughed at. Hope I like it :p
 
Christopher

Christopher

Member
FF_VIII said:
I saw it yesterday and thought it was ok. Not bad by any means, but not that good. I'll put my feelings into good/bad because that's the right thing to do.....?

SPOILERS




+ Statue Of Liberty head rolling down the street
+ The scene on the bridge where the guy's brother dies
+ Marlena saying "I don't feel so good" then being taken away to explode :lol
+ The helicopter scene. Especially the part where they bomb the monster and he goes into the building.
+ The scenes with the monster
+ The camera guy being eaten


- I hated the shaky cam.
- The party scene. Too long and unnecessary.
- I didn't care about a single character, I wanted them all dead because they where annoying.
- Watching nothing for about 20 minutes until something finally happened.
- It didn't really feel like a monster movie. Since you hardly see him. It was like that douchebag trying to find his girlfriend, but there's a monster attacking.
- How did the camera guy (I don't know his name nor care :) not see the monster?
- When they see their friend getting eaten instead of running they go back for the camera.
- The ending sucked. It's like it left you with more questions instead of answering any of them.
Click to expand...

That's what the movie was about...
 
F

Freeza Under The Shower

Member
bggrthnjsus said:
read this elsewhere
From some other source
"Hi guys. I'm going to explain the movie for you since I actually paid attention to the viral marketing.

Slusho is a drink made from an undersea lifeform/nectar/entity. It isn't known exactly what this ingredient is, all that is known is that the creator of Slusho had a dream about finding it and evolving from a small fish to a huge whale.

Slusho. Bet you can't drink just six. Such a challenge would implicate that the product is hugely popular all across the world, yes? Yes.

The creature itself feeds on the Slusho material, which possibly caused it to evolve to it's current state. Or, retardedly, it could TURN OUT TO BE MAN or something of that sort. In any event, Cloverfield loves Slusho. A combination of undersea mining (Chuai incident, go to youtube) and the satellite crash causes it to become disturbed to some extent.

It walks into New York and goes HMM I SMELL DELICIOUS FOODS. The Slusho material continues to exist in people when consumed. It smells and starts to consume people. Here's a hint: look at the way Cloverfield and the parasites (which I assume are either smaller, un-Slusho-evolved forms or some sort of remora eel type creature) eat people. When they first go into the quarantine type area, they see a person whose stomach has been eaten. Hud's lower body is consumed, and Cloverfield spits out the rest of it. Marlena inflates from the stomach.

It all comes back to the drink and whatever the fuck is in it."

"Rob was going to be the VP in charge of making Slusho americanized for, well America. Slusho was made by oil companies finding some seaweed or some shit on the ocean floor that tasted good at freezing temperatures. That same comapny has a satelite crash.

Meanwhile, a big monster that has lived peacefuly underwater has mining waking him up every morning. On top of that, he gets it in the head by a satelite. So he comes up on land and tells us all to STFU by knocking down everything.


The End."

still haven't seen it, but find the viral marketing/tie-ins pretty neat.
Click to expand...
'

That does actually tie in rather neatly to the whole party ("go get another drink").

But it does sound like the same plot element used in Godzilla ("we smell like fish") combined with Oddworld.
And of course a Chimera head (Resistance) for the monster. That was the first thing I thought of when you get to see it in the movie

It's a good thing the movie doesn't bother with all this rediculious explaining. It would be a bad movie if it had.
 
G

ghostmind

Member
Finally saw it in a digital theater - INTENSE - the audience was very quiet and into the experience too.


I need to watch this again - Paramount have better made nice with Blu-ray by the time this releases to video...
 
J

JdFoX187

Banned
Was reading yesterday's paper this morning after a couple people told me to read this Cloverfield review. I finally found it and I still cannot stop laughing. The sad thing is, I work at the same paper as this guy, so I heard him do nothing but complain about how horrible the movie was going to be before it even came out. So brace yourselves for an intense amount of stupidity:

“Cloverfield”: a group of handsome yuppies try to escape a giant monster attack, and one of them has a camera. As cinema, it’s remarkably well-made. It takes the idea of Godzilla seriously — which is to say, apocalyptically. “The Blair Witch Project” established that home movies could be bloodcurdling. The first-person style works and is used to great effect here.
“Cloverfield,” however, is also extraordinarily cruel. A sadistic, vicious film. I found it manipulative and sociopathic. This would not have angered me if the movie had not also been so evidently clever. I loved the marionettes, but hated the puppetmasters.
There is no musical score. But after the moviemakers have wiped out Manhattan and ruthlessly stomped out every one of their model-actors, something remarkable happens. As the credits start rolling, a bombastic orchestral score begins to play. It gets louder, bigger. I sat there, listening, until it dawned on me this theme was meant to be ironic.
Sure enough, the last musical credit for this film — separated from the main body of credits by a large, purposeful gap — is for a composition called “‘Roar!’ (Cloverfield Overture).” I knew the film had made me angry, but I didn’t know why until that moment. The exclamation point did it.
Sorry. After 9/11, you can’t play xylophone on ruined Manhattan skyscrapers and then get away with a cutesy, Tarantino wink. Doesn’t work that way.
I don’t mind being played. I don’t mind movies about terrorist attacks, or films that cite the Twin Towers. What I do mind being milked on the cheap by the winsome. The director, writer and effects wizards evoke September 11 in every frame of “Cloverfield” in the most calculated way possible. They hate their characters and dislike the audience. How malicious. The worst impulses of my generational cohort are on display here: I saw the same selfish, sneering, insulated suburban vanity that leads well-heeled American youth to take endless pictures on MySpace, write narcissistic screenplays with indie soundtracks, and make movies like this one. Great craft. No heart.
ZERO STARS.
Click to expand...
 
B

brandonh83

Banned
Hud should've hummed some music during the action. And hum the Gone With the Wind "Tara Theme" during the romantic moments.

But seriously, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. No musical score. Wow. And besides, it does have awesome music during the credits.
 
J

JdFoX187

Banned
Indeed, dumb review. The guy also said National Treasure: Book of Secrets was one of the best movies he had seen all year, and ended up giving it four stars. I almost choked on my coffee when I saw it.
 
E

Escape Goat

Member
i didnt care about the characters and I really hated Beth. She has the audacity to show up to the party with some douche, gets impaled and then calls Rob.
 
B

brandonh83

Banned
Teh Hamburglar said:
i didnt care about the characters and I really hated Beth. She has the audacity to show up to the party with some douche, gets impaled and then calls Rob.
Click to expand...

I liked the characters but yeah that's hilarious :lol
 
Cauliflower of Love

Cauliflower of Love

Banned
Just saw the movie, pretty cool shit.

Now, is there somewhere I can go to get a comprehensive lowdown of all the viral marketing shit they put up for the movie? The wiki page sucks.
 
C

Cranehand2ndComing

Member
I ended up sitting directly in front of a group of like 7 kids ranging from probably 10-15. I had to get up and move to a further row early on in the movie, and when the whole helicopter crash scene happened, they made sure to loudly express their excessive disappointment in the lack of a "Hollywood" ending. Fucking assholes.
 
P

Prime crotch

Banned
Teh Hamburglar said:
i didnt care about the characters and I really hated Beth. She has the audacity to show up to the party with some douche, gets impaled and then calls Rob.
Click to expand...
I wanted to punch Rob on the face when he wanted to hurry to Beth's place after they got out of the subways. Still that dickness is what made the characters more real I guess.
 
B

Barkley's Justice

Member
i wanted to leave in the beginning. at the party? i was like, "oh fuck -- i cant take a whole movie of this." luckily it didnt last much longer.

i enjoyed the movie. it's certainly flawed: the painfully awkward "character development," the contrived devices to deliver exposition, the jaw-droppingly dim maneuvers intended to "keep the camera running". but man, i got home and someone was like, "did you see the spark in the sky at the end?" and i was like, "what?" then i started googling shit and came up on the viral marketing backstory and shit like that. i enjoyed how the internet acted as an extension to the story. granted, this isnt anything new. but i still enjoyed it.

if they were really hardcore, they'll let people download the movie for free in april and then have you buy the bonus material / alternate cameras that may have been recording the same ordeal, etc.
 
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