"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
You know, maybe work, with the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead and where I spend most of my time staring at a computer screen all day, isn’t the single best place to be after getting my pupils dilated at the eye doctor this morning.
On the plus side, even after a decade of not going to the eye doctor, my lens prescription hasn’t changed a bit.
“The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.” – Randy Pausch
Link via Waxy.org Links.
Assume that everything beyond this point is a spoiler.
It’s tough talking about Cloverfield without resorting to spoiler warnings, if only because there isn’t a whole lot left to the movie when you move beyond that. Comparisons to The Blair Witch Project are all but inevitable, given their shared shaky-cam style and “found footage” plot device. And, to a point, that comparison holds; both films serve, as Roger Ebert wrote in his original review of Blair Witch, as “a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can’t see. The noise in the dark is almost always scarier than what makes the noise in the dark.”
Except then Cloverfield up and shows us what’s making that noise, and in fairly large detail. Which I guess is where the comparisons to Godzilla come into play. The monster here is more interesting and believable than a man in a big rubber suit…but both have the disadvantage of being much less terrifying on-screen than off.
Actually, if I had to pick any one movie to compare this film to, it would likely be Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Both are panicked flights from hostile (and ultimately unknowable) alien threats, viewed from the ground-level — again as Roger Ebert writes — “through the eyes of a few foreground characters.” And both are a little exhausting after awhile. I didn’t have a lot of trouble with the shaky camera work myself in Cloverfield, but I also wasn’t too disappointed when the movie ended after about eighty minutes.
In the end, I feel like Cloverfield took a lot of what was good in all three of those movies, but also didn’t skip what was bad about them. And I think that none of those bits and pieces really add up to a memorable new whole. (I own a copy of The Blair Witch Project. I don’t think I’ll be owning a copy of this one.) There are things the movie does well, a few buttons it knows how to push and keeps pushing, but ultimately I thought it was a little bit of a letdown.
In his review of Woody Allen’s new movie, Cassandra’s Dream — which a friend of mine described as “Match Point for blind people” — Roger Ebert asks:
What is fiction for, if not to manipulate the possible?
I just finished watching The Oozing Skull, the first DVD from Cinematic Titanic, and by and large I really liked it.
I think it would be tough for this first outing not to feel a little uneven — or to have built up expectations so high that it doesn’t disappoint on some level. Mystery Science Theater 3000 has come to occupy such an exalted position in the memories of its fans, that almost any of the similar projects to come after it — and there have been a lot of those lately, haven’t there? — can’t help but pale in comparison. But, more often than not, I thought that the CT crew succeeded in what has to be job number one: making with the funny.
Over at Anvil & Sprocket, John bemoans the lack of spontaneity in the presentation and, even more so, the lack of host segments to tie the film together:
The host segments also gave the players the opportunity to connect with the audience, often speaking directly to the camera. That gave us a sense of character which is very much lacking in Cinematic Titanic unless you’re already very familiar with the players. But in the context of CT we have no reason to like these people-shapes or care about their commentary. Cinematic Titanic uses the “shadowrama†technique in an entertaining fashion, but the show is desperately lacking in personality. Sparse. Cold. Impersonal. And I just don’t see how that gets fixed without bringing the lights up now and again.
I see where he’s coming from with that, but I worry that maybe he’s unfairly punishing CT because it’s trying to do something different. It isn’t MST3K — for both creative and budget reasons, I’m sure — and I’d prefer to judge it on its own merits than on what I miss about the old show.
Keep in mind, the original show could be pretty hit or miss sometimes, too. By and large, I thought this was a solid and funny first endeavor, and I look forward to more.
I think the riff-less MST3K.com is the only new venture from the old crew that truly fails on any major level.
I completely agree with John’s complaint (echoed elsewhere) about EZ Take’s no-frills packaging, however. That end of it leaves a lot to be desired. Word is that CT is looking to make this and future movies available via download (either instead of, or addition to, the DVDs), and it’s only an issue over copyright that prevented them from doing so this time. Given that there are no bonus features on the disc whatsover — and that it’s a minor miracle it arrived in the mail unscratched — download may be the preferable option. Especially if it helps bring the price down a few dollars. Seriously, for sixteen bucks plus shipping, I don’t expect a lot, but a paper sleeve at least would have been nice.
As for the movie itself…well, it was pretty uniformly dreadful. Although I was amused to see Angelo Rossitto, who had a long if not exactly distinguished career, and who some people might remember better as the Master in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.