Cloverfield: Friend to Bulimia
January 16th, 2008
“I’m getting ready to go home and puke, sooo…let me know if you puke.” Thus spoke my buddy Brodie about twenty seconds ago when I hung up the phone with him. Cloverfield ended…lessee…about fifteen minutes before that epic statement, and I’m still feeling queasy. Not the “woah, that guy just vomited his own eyeball and I’m disgusted,” queasy, but more like the “I shouldn’t have ignored the slight chunking of the milk in my breakfast cereal but I really wanted some Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” queasy. Now I watched Blair Witch without a hitch (So stitch that bitch and itch the glitch. Word.) but this movie had my legs feeling wobbly when I made my way out the back entrance of the theater and basked myself in mid-winter cold air. It’s beginning to wear off though, so while it’s fresh in my head, I’m going to tell you a little bit about one of my most anticipated movies of the year, and I’ll keep it spoiler free, or at least enough so that I don’t ruin the movie for you. Don’t worry, I hate spoiling movies. My wife hates me for it, she wants spoilers, but I say thee nay! Her loss is your gain.
Aside from the last two hours of nausea, the biggest thing I’m taking away from this movie was the amazing sound work. I’m not the guy that notices sound effects, but let me wish a hearty congratulations to whoever did the sound on this flick. Whatever kind of hand-held camera the characters were using to film probably cost someone a testicle for how well it was picking up audio. But I digress…
The monster was cool. The effects were pretty killer. The story was…mostly about running away from the monster and around a devastated New York. There is a subplot that carries things along and keeps people moving, so it isn’t a single gigantic monsterfest. If you’re looking for something more along the lines of Godzilla, where the creature is all over the place once the ball gets rolling, you may want to keep going. The creature isn’t the showcase. I think the showcase is going to be watching people hurriedly trying to get out from the center of their row and down to the bathrooms without oral eruptions. The secret name of the film should have been vomitorium. Who needs ipecac?
But…yeah, check it out, it’s worth a watch, just have a strong stomach, or be ready to simply close your eyes for a minute. Get a big bottle of water, take frequent sips, and breathe deeply. It’s only about 80 minutes long, you can do it. I don’t have it in me to say this was an amazing movie as a whole, but it was full of amazing individual moments: a view from inside a convenience store as a huge dust cloud rolled down the street, and a single, dazed and slow-moving silhouette of a person moving zombie-like down the sidewalk in the midst of it seen through the front windows from relative safety, or the initial shock of walking through a pristine plastic tunnel and emerging into a frenetic triage unit. It’s these little images that stick out about the movie. As a cohesive unit, I’m give or take on it, but just to experience those moments, the sounds and sights that will never be the same at home make this one worth seeing.
2 Responses to “Cloverfield: Friend to Bulimia”
1Joe
January 16th, 2008 @ 2:50 am
I completely agree. Be sure to bring a vomit bag. JJ got us again; as usual JJ fashion there is a lot yet to be explained.
This leaves me wondering if another movie is in the production really soon.
Follow the clues (the multiple web sites), and it’s leading to something, what I hope we’ll find out soon.
Enjoyed the extended trailer (Cloverfield Movie); hopefully this will lead to another regular produced movie I could watch without closing my eyes every so often.
I do not want to give any spoilers but don’t expect to learn why, who, where, or how things came to be….. This flick is only about the characters only or the video tape that was found.…..
A must see…….
2Brodiemash
January 16th, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
Yep…..didn’t puke, but it did affect me enough to not enjoy the movie to it’s max. I def need to watch it again…..when it’s released on DVD, of course.
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