Cloverfield/1-18-08/Untitled Abrams Film/Slusho/Ethan Haas/Cthulhu/Godzilla/Dragons..

[Reply #40 on:]

I'm not a fan of "shaky camera" stuff. If the whole movie's like the trailer, I'm really not very keen on seeing it.

[Reply #41 on:]

What's the deal with this chick?

[Reply #42 on:]

She's getting raped by the smaller, sexual predator version of the monster...

Or in some sort of weird silhouette play for the survivors. 

[Reply #43 on:]

I've watched enough SG1 to recognize the silhouettes of hazmat suits.

[Reply #44 on:]

 

Originally posted by Kryten:
I'm not a fan of "shaky camera" stuff. If the whole movie's like the trailer, I'm really not very keen on seeing it.

Trailers can be deceiving.
Remember the first trailer for Episode 1? It appeared to be so promising...   

Anyway, judging by this trailer it seems to be some sort of Godzilla-type Monster film shot in Blair Witch Style, but without pushing it too hard.

The approach seems different, too, as the story is apparently told in flashback (sort of). That alone could be interesting.

[Reply #45 on:]

That'd be cool.  The only shadow puppet I can ever make is a bunny.

Hey, and while I'm thinking of it, I think there may be something else in the poster.  The SoL faces southeast.  Liberty Island is southwest of Manhattan.  That means any shot of Liberty Island with Manhattan in the background should show us the SoL's right armpit.  Given the corners of the pedestal visible in the poster, I'd wager that shot could only be made while looking due east, over Governor's Island and Brooklyn.

Manhattan from Liberty Island
Liberty Island from Battery Park
Similar to the Cloverfield poster

Hidden message or pre-release nitpickery?

[Reply #46 on:]

I'm going to say the poster designers forgot to do a little fact-checking.

[Reply #47 on:]

Artistic license. It's the same reason why there's wake in the water and signs of recent beheadment of the SoL although the attack happened the night before.

This is a Heroes blog, but, at the end of the entry for last night's episode, you'll see some pretty funny pictures from the cast. And here's an actual shot from the episode showing Elle with a cup of Slusho:

[Reply #48 on:]

RE: Pixelated face. As that trailer/possibly the movie aswell, was "Release Footage" found at what used to be central park. I'm guessing they're censoring certain important people...

Looks fucking amazing. We might not be getting LOST for a while, so this'll have to do.

Are there any other shots? Cause that looks like generic ice-water-drink thingy.

[Reply #49 on:]

Click on the link and scroll down to the bottom of the blog, It's worth it
 

[Reply #50 on:]

icweiner... out of all the shots, you chose the one without the Slusho title and without Kristin Bells cleavage... what is wrong with you?   

[Reply #51 on:]

Well, that one's a screen cap from the actual episode. Those are very, very nice looking (*nudge nudge*) fun pictures.

Chay: It's either he's important, he's like the centipede from Futurama, or they're shooting for accuracy with the film and, if this was real and he really was from the military, they'd probably blur the guy if he was in special ops or requested not be be shown. If that last's true, then the movie's going to be a sort of top secret file presentation thing, which would be interesting indeed.

Also, Slusho is a fake drink. From what we know, it's an Icee sort of thing. It's only been IG so far, but it would be awesome if they actually make Slusho available.

[Reply #52 on:]

Your mom makes her Slusho available every night.

[Reply #53 on:]

Ooh, icy burn!

 

Originally posted by i_c_weiner:
Artistic license. It's the same reason why there's wake in the water and signs of recent beheadment of the SoL although the attack happened the night before.

Unless there's more than one critter or the critter is going back for Lady Liberty seconds.  I see debris airborne around the SoL's head-hole.  It could also be artistic liscense, though.

This is a lot harder to conspiracize than the first two seasons of Lost.  There's no Vincent to blame everything on.

[Reply #54 on:]

How can you tell, DrT? We haven't seen everything yet.   

 

Originally posted by i_c_weiner:
If that last's true, then the movie's going to be a sort of top secret file presentation thing, which would be interesting indeed.

This actually what I'm hoping for, as it would be a new aspect of the 'gigantic monster smashes big city' genre.

However, it seemed to me that not all of the scenes shown in the trailer looked like they were shot by a moblie phone cam.

[Reply #55 on:]

The footage from the movie is not filmed from a mobile phone but from a video camera. There was a set picture of Hud (the character who films the footage) carrying the video camera.


The Beowulf trailer can now also be seen before The Mist.

[Reply #56 on:]

oh hey look, the OP is that guy i found at unfiction a while back.

has anyone mentioned that jamielovesteddy site here?

[Reply #57 on:]

So I JUST last night went to the theaters to see I Am Legend, after not going to the theaters since this summer, and FINALLY saw the teaser for this movie (even though the full trailer is now released, apparently they're still showing the teaser in theaters, which I'm happy about because I think the teaser is much more grabbing and compelling).
So now I guess I'm joining the rest of you who are drooling over this movie...it looks amazing.

And for those of you looking for spoilers, I'd give up. There are three websites up that have been found (1-18-08, slusho, and tagruato), and the monster definitely has not been discovered (and hopefully won't be before the release of the movie).

Whatever it is, it better be as awesome as it looks.

[Reply #58 on:]

 

Originally posted by JoshTheater:
Whatever it is, it better be as awesome as it looks.

If not, we can always look back fondly at all the hype and say, "God damn JJ Abrams..."  I suppose the rest of the world will find out in two weeks.

I still think the monster howl from the beginning of the trailer sounds like a humpback whale at half speed.  Maybe that's the tie-in.  Maybe the secret ingredient of Slusho! is the most potent aphrodisiac known to whale-monsterkind, and he was just making sweet, salty love with the Statue of Liberty's big, 225 ton booty.

[Reply #59 on:]

 

Originally posted by DrThunder88:
  If not, we can always look back fondly at all the hype and say, "God damn JJ Abrams..."  I suppose the rest of the world will find out in two weeks.

I still think the monster howl from the beginning of the trailer sounds like a humpback whale at half speed.  Maybe that's the tie-in.  Maybe the secret ingredient of Slusho! is the most potent aphrodisiac known to whale-monsterkind, and he was just making sweet, salty love with the Statue of Liberty's big, 225 ton booty.

 

[Reply #60 on:]

That sounds like a sound theory to me.


Luckily, my school's off completely on January 18th to start off a 5-day weekend. I might see it a few times, if it's as awesome as it should be.

[Reply #61 on:]

 

Originally posted by Vanguard20:
     

Hey, "humpback" is whale species, not some whale monster sex act, though it probably could be.

[Reply #62 on:]

COPIED FROM REVIEW THREAD!

CLOVERFIELD!

It was good! I think i was expecting to enjoy it more, but i liked it. Even though it's never clearly explained what is happening i liked the way the story was told. Woulda been a bitch to edit.

Anyone stay till the very end?

Show spoiler

What the fuck did he say!?!?

Best fucking line
"how scary would it be a flaming homeless person came out of the dark right now"

Will comment more when someone else posts.

[Reply #63 on:]

Okay, so I saw this movie earlier today. I really loved it. It was so good!

Review below with Heavy Spoilers:

Show spoiler

I thought this movie was done so well, with the whole single camera concept. I was a little skeptical at first with all the shaking and stuff, I thought it was going to give me a headache. But I quickly got used to it. Really interesting way of telling the story using the camera. It was done well.

The characters were played really well, my favourite being Hud. A few scenes in the movie were really suspenseful which was awesome, including in the Subway and towards the end nearer to the Helicopter scenes. It had a really good storyline to it and I never lost interest or got bored once. No scenes seemed to go on too long and it didn't feel rushed.

Now, The Monster. It looked pretty cool. Especially when the Aircraft bomb it towards the end. It's freaking huge. It's really hard to explain but it looks like a mix of Dinosaur/Octopus/Spider/Reptile thing. To know what I mean you'll have to see it for yourself. Looked really good and the little Crab/Spider creatures it drops from it's body was a good idea. They were a really good creature to have in the movie.

I do have one thing I would've preferred though. I wish they would've kept the monster more of a secretive, mysterious thing until longer into the movie. It seemed like they revealed too much of it all at once and I feel it would have been way more mysterious and suspenseful if we saw less of it. But hey, I'm not complaing, I loved it.

After the movie finished so many people in the cinema were like "huh, what the?" because it sorta just ends all of sudden without tying up the loose ends. But I knew exactly what was going on and thinking back on it, I loved the way it ended. A lot of people I overheard saying it was crap and that they hated it, but I loved it.

Overall, an excellent suspenseful movie. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to go and see it once more. A.

[Reply #64 on:]

Show spoiler

i have to disagree about the moster reveal, i thought it was revealed at a good pace. Unlike Alien, where it was just the one bad guy and few crew members. This was them seeing everything as we would've seen it, news broadcasts, being near it etc. It was really a film for us to feel involved in. Yeah, spider things reminded me of Starship Troopers. I liked the ending too.

LAst words:

Show spoiler

Help Us.

[Reply #65 on:]

Were those last words at the end of the credits, Chay?  I heard something, but I was fidgeting at the time and missed it.

I posted my review in the movie review thread, but I should note I was way off base with the whale monster having sex with the Statue of Liberty-thing.  At least one of the elements of that is wrong.

Show spoiler

So, those who've seen the film, what's the fucking deal?  Are we supposed to have gotten all of our exposition from the official websites or something?  That is certainly a unique way of doing thing, and J.J. Abrams seems like the kind of guy to break boundaries, but they could have at least told us, "Hey, you'll want to nerd it up big time before coming to see the film."

Monster...big, ugly, nothing like I'd have imagined.  Good deal.  I wish I knew something else about it, though.  I'm sure the realism of not knowing what the hell is going on is reflected by the realism of a handheld camcorder, but come on....

Mini monsters?  Now that's just getting silly, and, near as I can tell, just an attempt to put "bump in the night" thrills into a "boom in the night" movie.  Now, I know mini monsters provide the individualized terror that their bigger, more generalized terror-centric counterparts cannot, but this monster seems to have no problem playing both roles.

And 'sploding people?  What the hell are the mini monsters supposed to be doing?  They seem to have eviscerated that dead soldier but also make people explode a few hours later?  Only relevant condition I can think of decompression sickness where gasses in the blood boil spontaneously, but that doesn't explain how the bite is a vector for it.

I also agree with LayZ's pointing out some bullshit with the chopper crash-proof, marathon-running 20-somethings.

We can safely assume the military has at least taken control of Central Park since they were in a position to dig a video camera out of a pile of rubble, but that doesn't explain much else.

I also should mention, I went to the 10:30 AM showing since that was the earliest.  There must have been 12 people in the theater.  At least eight had to have been white guys there by themselves.  I thought, "Yes!  I'm comparatively not the biggest loser in the place."  Then I realized, I was probably in an eight-way tie for biggest loser.

[Reply #66 on:]

Re Last Words:

Wikipedia first has it as

Show spoiler

Help Us.

But now it's listed as

Show spoiler

It's still alive

It's what's said at the very end of the credits through static

[Reply #67 on:]

The only character I didn't HATE was the monster, and I could never see it properly.

Annoying.

[Reply #68 on:]

Never seeing the monster fully is the most realistic way of doing things.

Chay: The last words forwards sound like the former, but backwards it's clearly the latter. It's like the Paul is Dead thing.

Mr. Grumpy Pants was cool. I expected more Cthulhu, but He'd be mad and torture all regardless if He was in the movie of not. MGP's little face-suckers were cool too, yet a little cliché.

The humor in the movie was perfect also, in my opinion. Some characters I liked (HUD, Sandy in the electronics store), while others were just idiots (you know which ones I mean).

And, if anybody's mad about the ending, you should know that the movie's a part of a much larger ARG. Slusho, Tagruato, the Myspaces, JamieLovesTeddy, TIDOWave, 1-18-08.com. There's a good sized universe online that the movie's just expanded on.

[Reply #69 on:]

 

Originally posted by i_c_weiner:
Never seeing the monster fully is the most realistic way of doing things.

Is that supposed to be terribly ironic?  I mean, I'm not the most gullible of souls, but if they switched to an honest-to-goodness aerial shot of a giant monster rampaging through Manhattan, I'm not likely to stand up, slap the director, and scream, "FAKER!"

Actually, I do that a lot.

[Reply #70 on:]

Show spoiler

I mean, one of those hero shots. Like, in the Godzilla movies, you see Godzilla fully in all his glory. During Cloverfield, you never actually see a full image of Mr. Grumpy Pants except for when he's being bombed. I didn't mean you don't see MGP fully at all, just that you don't see him fully without some aerial bombing taking place. Also, I was responding to Coldy complaining that you never see the monster properly. It's not like HUD would be able to get a proper shot of MGP while running away from him.

Speaking of irony, I feel that the final moments of HUD being focused by the camera and the final line in the movie were quite ironic and I laughed during them. HUD was my favorite character, even in death.

I have to say that this is my favorite movie and the one I've enjoyed the most to have been released since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I really want to go see it again, and possibly a third time. 6 times tops.

[Reply #71 on:]

I had no problem with the monsters in the movie. With the camera perspective and not showing the monster fully made it believable. I just know when you're in a "Life or Death" situation, your only thoughts are about survival. Especially when the threat is unknown and you have no idea WTF is going on. I just needed one of the main characters to be like "Fuck this, I'm leaving" and I would've been good.

[Reply #72 on:]

 

Originally posted by i_c_weiner:
Never seeing the monster fully is the most realistic way of doing things.

I know. But since all the other characters were annoying dickheads, there wasn't much else to carry it for me. During the first ten minutes or so before the creature showed up I was almost ready to leave the cinema - what a bunch of knobs those people were, what insipid whining shits.
Added to which, how can anyone stand to sit through another full-length Blair Witch style handheld shitefest? It's been done once, we all laughed about it, and pledged never to do it again... Granted I did sit through it, but not without coming near to an epileptic seizure from all the bouncing and rapid panning.
Realistic? Sure. I won't dispute that. But people's home-movies are annoying and shit. So they turned a monster flick (something traditionally fun) into something annoying and shit. Arty, inventive?... whatever... Blair Witch meets Godzilla... big deal, it's not that damn special... filming your multi-million dollar special effects with your camera frame bouncing so there's a sense of first-person immediacy does not require a vast intellect... and if you remove that irritating and pretentious gimmick then there's very little left.

Would have been better if they'd had some non-cockhead characters.

[Reply #73 on:]

Explosm's Review's of Movies we haven't seen yet: Cloverfield

[Reply #74 on:]

 

Originally posted by chay's head:
Explosm's Review's of Movies we haven't seen yet: Cloverfield

[Sta-Puf Marshmallow Man], a manifestation of evil personified as an image of one of Peter Venkman's thoughts...

No, he wasn't!

[Reply #75 on:]

Thought I'd give my two cents.

My best friend and I went to see it last night after getting totally caught up in the hype. We were absolutely psyched for the movie and knew what to expect.
The movie was EXACTLY what I was hoping for. I was captivated and my heart was pounding the whole time. The monster was incredible and the experience was indescribable. Certainly a movie that can ONLY truly be experienced on the big screen.

Unfortunately, we were in a packed theater with a huge amount of horribly rude teenagers (we're teenagers also, but I'm talking about ghetto white guys) who clearly came to the movie without having any previous interest in it whatsoever.
At the end, they all booed the movie, and I almost stood up to ask them why on earth they would come to a movie they weren't interested in in the first place, then ruin it for those who were enjoying it immensely.
Regardless, they did NOT succeed at ruining it at all, and me and my friend had a blast. The movie was a totally different style and concept and you have to have an open mind before you go to see it. We were blown away.
My friend and I both agreed that we will have to buy the DVD the SECOND it comes out for special features.

Coldangel, when it comes to your annoyance with the filming technique, you have to realize that this is a matter of taste.
I was not AT ALL bothered by the handheld camera approach. Just because you couldn't stand it doesn't mean your feelings are held by everyone else. I thought the style excellently complimented the feelings of excitement and fear. It didn't bother me at all, so that part of your review will have to be chalked up to a personal trait of yours. Because I and many other people enjoyed it GREATLY.
And even if your accusations of the lack of creativity have validity, the fact is even if you take away all that stuff you called a gimmick (although since when is special effects and making the movie feel realistic considered a gimmick even if its not totally original? do they not enhance the film anyway?), you're still left with a thrilling movie with a kickass monster. And then there's the perfectly placed humor that Weiner described.

I give the movie an A+ to those who were interested in the film in the first place, and a B+ for those who just expect another movie that wraps up nicely without really even caring about what it is you're going to see beforehand.

[Reply #76 on:]

There were a few people who, after the movie ended so abruptly, said, "What the hell?" They all just sat there for about 3 minutes after the movie ended expecting something, anything. Nobody stayed long enough to hear the backwards message at the end, though.


Edit: That damn movie Cloversdale.

[Reply #77 on:]

Haaaa.

[Reply #78 on:]

Somehow, "You should've done your homework," doesn't cut it as a valid point in a movie review for me.

So, it's part of the Cloverfield game, I'll accept that.  Now let's play.
Movie questions:
Monster-
-What the hell is it?
-If we can we assume Tagruato's destroyed mid-Atlantic drilling station was somehow initiated to the monster's sojourn to NYC, why did it pick NYC?  Why did it go west?  Why didn't it go ashore in Boston or D.C.?
-What are the mini-monsters in relation to it?
-Why did the blown up chick get blown up after being bitten by the minimon?

Other, recently-changed stuff:
-Does anyone know what the graphic on Tagruato.jp says?
-The TIDOwave page has been "locked" by the Feds (because they do it that way) under what appears to be an investigation into the terroristic destruction of the mid-Atlantic drilling platform (18 USC 2332b is foreign terrorism).  Does the extra "EC" in the "locked" graphic ("realistic locked graphic" ) mean they want to indicate 18 USC § 2332b (b)(1)(E,C)?  I didn't go through much of that page before the movie, so is it likely their fault or was it our favorite beastie?

[Reply #79 on:]

@DrT: My point was NOT that you have to be nerdily going through investigating the viral marketing campaign stuff to enjoy the movie...My point wasn't even CLOSE to that!

My point was half the people in the theater went to the movie without even knowing it was going to be filmed with a single hand-held camera and without being at all aware of the mysterious advertising thing going on for it.
I wasn't saying you need to be going on the internet to know exactly what was going on in the movie.