Everythings Gone Green
C
I've been anticipating seeing this movie for almost a year. It's an indie film and I didn't really look for any theaters that were playing it so I just waited for the DVD to be released. The reason I've wanted to see it is because it's the first story my favorite author, Douglas Coupland, has written for a movie (I think). It's set in the vancouver area and follows a young slacker who finds a new job working for a sweepstakes. Involved are his pot-farming parents, a young asian girl who works on movie sets and her sleazy boyfriend. I found it funny because I found a number of different themes and ideas within the movie that were taken almost verbatim from his different novels. Like a giant hodge-podge of his work. I enjoyed watching the different symbolism they used with colors. Almost everything green in the movie is tinted BRIGHT green. It was interesting to see how his novels actually look from his perspective, but even then, I've decided that they are better left as novels. Movies tend to need a little more substance than what his novels can get away with. You might find this movie bland, I would have if I wasn't thinking about some of my favorite reads the whole time. It's definitely worth a rent though if you enjoy Coupland's novels. [The "play movie" button on the title screen of my DVD doesnt work. All it does is play the title screen again after a minute of Production logos. It took me about fifteen tries before I realized it wasn't going to work. If you encounter the same problem, start the movie from chapter 1 from the chapter selection. Cheap indie films.]
Cloverfield
B+
I've heard all sorts of mixed reviews about this movie: The ending was bad. The plot was thin. The camera angles caused motion sickness. The others argue in favor of it's "viral marketing, it's raw and semi-innovative attempt at capturing terror through a video camera and that the ones who enjoy the movie are the people who have been looking for clues within the movies spin-off websites and such."
I'm going to side with those in favor of Cloverfield. The first preview I saw was the teaser they released at the beginning of Transformers. It had no title, it was just the clip of the party and the head of the statue of liberty crashing into it. Viral Marketing. Everyone wanted to know what it was or what it was about. Then they created fake myspace pages for each of the seven main characters. Not corny advertisement pages littered with references to the movie. They were legitimately run, with elaborate histories and conversations between the characters on their pages referencing normal things they had been up to for the following months before the movie's release. Each character's last registered login date is 1/18/08, the day the movie was released and the date of the attack, i think. I noticed a picture of the character Beth hanging onto the side of her surfboard on a mantle at the beginning of the movie. Her myspace page talks about how much she loves surfing but sucks at it. Other websites were created to further the backstory behind the monster and instances when it surfaced (which little is still known about, in fact you barely even see it in the movie). I'm under the impression that the websites were all constructed very carefully and made to be very authentic. It's these minute details that has people going nuts for this movie. They touched on the same things that the Blair Witch did. Make people think it's really happening, even if they know it isn't. It creates a personal bond between the viewer and the character when they perceive them as real people. And it was this bond for me, plus the raw and seamless camcorder footage, that made it hard to watch different characters get picked off. One character's was pretty gruesome, and without the normal Hollywood editing and different camera angles, it really felt like you were there.
So yes, if you got sick during the Blair Witch Project, you'll probably get sick during Cloverfield. It's another experimental attempt at creating a new type of cinematography. It is supposed to be raw and unedited. You aren't supposed to know whats happening any more than the characters who are in the middle of it. It's not a feel-good movie, it's one you watch for it's environments. How they close they can get blending CGI special effects with a shaky, hand-held recording. If you just go into it expecting little, you'll get a lot more from this movie.
