The Hot Blog

Say it ain't so! And I was SOOOO looking forward to seeing 27 Dresses...

I heard it described as "the prettiest people in New York deal with a monster attack"

Sounds like a review to me, if for no other reason than because you got your point across.

This movie needed to have been made United 93-style, more verite and character actor, less hotties and jokes.

And JJ is producing a Star Trek movie. I hate this business.

I was digging JJ, but I don't understand how you can make a Star Trek movie without Shatner, when Kirk is the nexus of the plot and Shatner wants to be in it??!!

I'm sure they could've afforded him...

From the AICN rumors it sounds like they're going to turn Kirk into Felicity at Starfleet Academy...

This will not be the reboot we all hoped for.

The funny thing is, I heard Bryan Singer did Superman in a play to get Star Trek. Why didn't he just ask for Star Trek?

Than maybe we would've got a great Star Trek movie instead of a shitty Superman movie and a potentially shitty Star Trek.

Plus this will be the very last chance to ever get Nimoy & Shatner on screen together as those characters again, and they're going to not do it...

As a Star Trek fan, if they fuck this one up, I'm going to purposely download it in protest...

Anyone surprised considering Jeffrey Wells' gushing review posted a couple days ago? :) I tend to believe David in this case because I've been skeptical of this project since I first saw the teaser... it's going to kill next weekend.

Cloverfield sucks? Next Dave's gonna tell us the sun will come up tomorrow--in the east!

Jesus. As a very long time reader and non-poster this has to be the dumbest, least imaginative and witless non-review of any movie I have read anywhere in a long time -- if this is indeed referencing the new Blair Witch Godzilla movie. The movie I saw was very much a one shot thrill ride, more than likely not worth a second viewing and annoying visually most of the time, yet highly entertaining and creative with some great set pieces. It does its job. Oh yes, and the pretty people were represented in force; how did that work out for them? Love you DP, but really, between this and your take on There Will Be Blood, I have to wonder...

Aww man, I was actually kind of looking forward to C-Field too. Crap.

I tend to ignore anything somebody says when they say stuff like "this has to be the dumbest, least imaginative and witless non-review of any movie I have read anywhere in a long time". I mean, really?

Anyway. Noah! 27 Dresses is actually good if you're a fan of that sort of movie. If not then there's no way to make you like it. But, yes, it's shockingly a "romantic comedy" that is at least mildly "romantic" and "comedic" and Heigl/Marsden actually have chemistry. Marsden, it must be said, steals the show along with Judy Greer. That movie is gonna be big. The showing I saw it at was sold out (incredibly rare for a movie like that, opening weekend or not) and the crowd loved it.

It's really nice when someone, who had previously written off as nothing more than a "omgsohot" teen fantasy actor like Marsden was for many years, does a complete 180 and becomes an interesting, talented and charismatic actor. I hope Marsden gave his agent a big giant bonus for Christmas.

But back to Cloverfield...

Marsden was terrific in SUPERMAN RETURNS...for what it's worth.

I had completely forgotten that he was in that movie. Hell, I'd forgotten Kevin Spacey was the villain until I checked out IMDb just now.

SPOILER - The monster believed, or early incarnations by the same designer, for those interested. Rumor is you never really get a clear look at the thing. The dvd should be insanely loaded with backstory material.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v447/ignatz/album%2034/cloverfield3flat.jpg

http://www.ranchoweb.com/public/i/?http://img5.ranchoweb.com/images/hyenatraxvegas/cloverfieldmonster.jpg

As for Singer & Trek, Berman was still in control at the time and was going ahead with Starfleet Academy. Singer made overtures, and stalled on X3 waiting for an answer, but Abrams had the inside track due to MI3. So before Berman was officially gone, Grey had met with Abrams about taking it over. Singer then took Supes. Like Emmerich and Godzilla, Burton and Apes, Ang and Hulk, somehow these cats convince themselves to take projects they are totally in appropriate for. I can only presume it's agent influence.

I don't know that it will open to over $40 million. Is anyone outside of the blogosphere / AICN orbit really pining for this movie? I see Cloverfield as potentially being Snakes on a Plane 2, and we all remember how that turned out in the real world after months of internet saturation. There was a rumor doing the rounds that the first trailer for The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be attached to Cloverfield, but even if that's true, i still don't see a $40 million bow for this one.

I can't stand the way Abrams/his staff writers write. Every line, every page, every word is big-loud-stupid, like their ridiculous climaxes are supposed to carry the weight of the Second Coming or something. Seriously. Go read Abrams' draft of Superman. Or his revision of Eagle Eye. Or a Lost script by Drew Goddard, the writer of Cloverfield. They all read like this...

-- AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT WE COULDN'T BLOW YOUR MOTHERFUCKING MINDS ANY FURTHER --

-- HOLY FUCKING SHIT SOMETHING SO OBVIOUS YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T THINK WE'D STOOP TO USING IT IN OUR FUCKING SHOW! HOLY FUCKING CHRIST!

...that said, Martin S, one of your posts that had to be more than a year ago about the development of the X-Men films is one of the most interesting things I've ever read here. I still look at it from time to time for laughs.

1) Contrarian David Poland once again emerges from a long sleep. Welcome back Contrarian. How were your holidays?

2) If you hate on Felicity. You obviously had no idea what the hell Felicity is about. Fucking hell. Kirk is JJs way to produce an oversexed version of the character. It has nothing to do with anything involving Keri Russell.

3) Nevertheless; pretty people have problems with monters too. How dare anyone think otherwise!

Fark.com thread from Friday past . . .

Cloverfield gets the kiss of death: Harry Knowles thinks it's the best thing ever

In other words, he's pushing it bigtime 'cause he's getting a pile of swag from Paramount.

Harry liked Godzilla, nuff said.

Believe me, IO, whatever movie this is, I will not be lonely in my position.

The thing that will eventually drive me off the web is that if anyone else says anything before you, when you go in a different direction, someone will call you "contrarian." It's not only personally insulting, but it is exactly what drives so many people to taking extreme positions... because they feel they need to stake out a claim rather than offer their own sometimes muted opinion.

My position on this film was well established before anyone else published word one about the movie. Or as someone else who was in the same screening I was said to me yesterday after hearing about some reviews of this unknown film, "Were those people shown a different movie?"

And yes, I think the movie will open like gangbusters, not because of reviews from geeks or anyone else, but because there hasn't been a thriller in over a month, they have done a sensational job of selling it as a mystery, and $40 million just isn't that much in today's opening marketplace. They can do that on kids alone. Frankly, the only mistake is showing it at all. And they could have navigated that by saying, "We want to maintain the secrets of the film."

Or as a girlfriend once said when rejecting an offer of lingerie, "You know the secret at Victoria's Secret? The quality sucks and the stuff falls apart after one washing."

Based on what little I've seen, it seems to be fatally lacking a sense of humor, which is almost de rigueur for films of this nature nowadays. Plus, as has been noted elswhere: just how many times can we see Manhattan stomped into kindling?

Heat; do not get all upset about being called a contrarian. Especially when I was being silly and responding to your rather pointed review. If you are going to take a movie out in such a way. You earn such a response back. Nevertheless Chucky; where do you pull this stuff from?

Cadvra,

it is funny how many times we have seen New York blown the fuck up in film. I was thinking back to all these disaster/monster flicks, and the cities that seem to get the most stompings are:

New York

Just think about the number of movies New York has been menaced by aliens, robots, and objects falling from space. Off the top of my head you have Cloverfield, The Day After Tommorow, Independence Day, Deep Rising, Armageddon, War of the Worlds, Godzilla. And that's just off the top of my head.

That means Roland Emmerich has blown up New York in three separate films. There are others, mostly from aforementioned films.

Los Angeles
Washington D.C.

These cities don't see as much devastation. We all remember the shot of the Alien Saucer striking the capital and the White House being blown to tinder. Los Angeles seems to get blown up less. Volcano comes to mind.

You don't really see too many disaster movies happening in other places. It's not like they stage many end of the world/invasion films in Chicago or Phoenix.

London has been blasted to bits in a number of films, though the brits seem more prone to plagues and zombie outbreaks than alien invasions.

Paris only gets blown up in cutaway shots, unless you count Team America: World Police. It's funny how these films have the story take place in one area, and then cut to an iconic shot of the Eiffel Tower before a giant laser beam blows it up.

The one massive Alien invasion flick i can remember that didn't take place in a major metropolitan area is Signs. But i wouldn't plan on seeing too many alien invasion films happening in rural Pennsylvania anytime soon. They're too busy with apartment complexes filled with wicker monsters.

JBM, I believe that's a compliment so I'll take it as such.

Knowles has been doing the Abrams altar-worship routine since Mori cost him Superman. That changed AICN forever.

If Clover does crazy money, I wonder what the Toho response will be. Sony has the Godzilla rights through a gentleman's agreement, but nothing on paper. I wouldn't be surprised to see Uni jump on them to do a remake of Kong v Godzilla for 3D Imax, (Avengers and possibly Silver Surfer are being looked at for the same).

I didn't think the box office for Fantastic Four Dos would warrant a solo Surfer flick. Unless the DVD rentals were through the roof.

Anghus; the FF films are a franchise and the DVDs do sell well. So it's possible that the Surfer could have it's own flick. Nevertheless; Cloverfield may or may not be a good movie, but I have no freakin IDEA WHY they had to set the movie in New York. Outside of the fact they wanted to destroy the Statue of Liberty and use the shit for promotional images. Why we still do not have a moritorium on gaffling New York on film remains a mystery to me.

I remember Mori's Superman review, but how did that change AICN?

What happened behind the curtain that changed AICN forever?

i think the reason that manhattan gets trashed more than other american cities is because it has more iconic architectural landmarks than any other city (well, dc maybe...but, dc doesn't have the allure of nyc)......it really has nothing to do with 'promotional images' but images in general...at least, that's the way i've always seen it......

Destroying NYC is the point of Cloverfield, the monster is the macguffin. Setting it somewhere else would have been beside the point.

Well, if aliens came to earth it would make sense to blow up NYC considering it's the most populated city on the planet.

The best thing JJ Abrams has ever done is Felicity and it's the one that is most resoundly dismissed because it's not fanboy porn. But even Felicity, like all of his shows, went ridiculously downhill at a point.

nyc is nowhere near the most populated city on the planet....it's around #15, i think.....

You dumb douche. Next time you should try watching the movie without your head shoved up your ass.

PS I saw Cloverfield a couple weeks ago. It's NOTHING like The Host. Unless you consider any movie with some sort of weird creature in it to be like The Host. In which case, E.T. was just like The Host, too.

PS part 2 I question if you've actually even seen the movie. If you did, when and where?

Wow.. "dumb douche"... a powerful intellect enters the Hot Blog arena!!! Welcome!

I second the request for more details as to how Mori kept Abrams from making Superman (I remember him trashing the script) and how this changed AICN forever. This sounds fascinating. I need to get more.

Meant to say I need to get out more.

David,

I haven't seen Cloverfield, but I've been under the impression that it's not meant to be considered a movie in the traditional sense in that it has a conventional plot. I also would expect that any character development that occurs would be on par with the CD that you'd see in any amatuer video taping of a tramatic event.

I certainly respect your opinions so I do have a question for you:

Does the movie succeed or fail in its premise that this is discovered film footage taken by an average person of some horrific event?

Thanks in advance,

Greg Holden

gh - There is no serious effort to maintain the idea that the video is real. There are editing effects, etc, but it is all way too slick to be given creedence as, say, the first Dogma horror film that simply adds CG to the conceit. No one would ever believe for a second that any of it felt real. Forget about the monster movie part... the party that opens the film is as Mumblecore-on-steroids as you get.

Really, I would have been perfectly happy being "reality bored" by the thing. But the idea that the camera just happens to go on and off when the "real person" might want to cut to the next idea is so poorly done that it never feels like anything but a style exercise.

And then the choices in the horror movie part are also big movie choices, often like Poseidon. There could be enormous drama in simply trying to get someone out of a two story townhouse that is falling apart and shaky as the attack goes on. But instead, we get bullshit 48th floor jumping between buildings, injuries that magically stop affecting behavior when convenient, ghosts from the tape that's being taped over which are unconvincing, etc.

And the idea that the filmmakers weren't trying for high drama is absurd on its face. They ramped it up and made a mediocre extended episode of the plane crash in Lost... with a monster... and less reality. This movie doesn't want to fail to make you care about its characters (unlike Zodiac, which for better or for worse, was skillfully disinterested in much emotion other than self-hatred) and it doesn't want to fail to thrill you with the effects and stunts. It wants to be "the new thing" while topping" the old thing." But all it does is play with "its thing."

It's not a condemnation, just a reality. Mori's Superman coverage was the first time that AICN proper, not a spy, stopped a big movie in pre-production with talent behind it, (Michael Bay/Brett Ratner/JJ Abrams). The project was in turmoil since it was conceived in the late 90's with Burton and Cage. Mori jammed a stake through it's heart because he laid out the entire script, scene for scene, and literally strangled it in the cradle. If not for his coverage, that would have been the Superman film made. De Bonventura was not on the fence at that point. WB was already in the star-f'ing, excuse me, "dream casting" stage. Abrams wigged out, claimed it was a rough draft, held a grudge until Lost exploded. This was the reason a lot of people believed, and still do, that Hurley was supposed to be Harry. Ratner has always hated the site, even though Harry has tried to play nice on several occasions.

It caused a problem, because you could no longer tell if it was a fanboy site or subterfuge. The site's tone then went from spy/scoop to a very popular blog. Harry, in one column, talked about how AICN was a proto-blog because the concept didn't exist and no one knew how to categorize the site before then.

The vast majority of info now comes directly from the sources involved. The Watchmen coverage, for example, came from Snyder and the producers, not a mole in WB. The only interjection I can offer is that there was a great defensiveness born from a fear of irrelevancy whenever anyone would tell them to stop acting like outsiders when they were clearly in the mix. From then you can see how Harry, and more so Mori, have really matured as people especially in the past 2-3 years.

In other words, Superman was always a rushed project, even if it took close to a decade to make. WB now realizes they F'd up by not taking the head of demographic steam Smallville created and using that as a base. Like the show or not, you could have produced a better film with half the budget and equal returns.

The latest thing I'm waiting for is to hear Bale and Nolan jump ship from Batman 3 due to JLA. For Bale to take the Terminator gig would have been like Jackman signing for Bond during X3 production and telling FOX he's still coming back for a Wolverine spin-off.

As for Cloverfield/NYC - Jeffmcm has a valid point, re - the monster as Macguffin. The filmed mainly in Cali, so they could have picked any city. The exploitation factor to fool critics into thinking there is some kind of subtext seems pretty high. I'm just hoping for an explanation as to how something coming from Japan ends up in the Atlantic...

Dave, just the other week I was wondering what your tolerance level was for mumblecore. To me, it's the antithesis of filmmaking.

No sh*t Smallville would have been a better start for Superman "Returns".

Dave, thanks for the reply. I'll have to wait and see this film before rendering any opinion. However, the concept of "discovered" film could certainly work if the producers/directors faithfully stick to their premise. Blair Witch was a failure in this regard, but I did appreciate the attempt.

One thing this type of film presentation can't be is slick. There needs to be a raw element to the filming that consistently reminds the viewer that this was a real event taped by a real person witnessing something impossible and yet tragically real. You can't have it both ways.

Questions: What's the motivation for someone whose running for his/her life to keep the camera recording in the first place?

I'd also like to see some other city besides NY get wasted. I'm just outside of Philly and if there is a city that needs to get toasted once in awhile it's Philly...anyone whose ever tried to get a Comcast customer serve rep on the phone would be thrilled to see the new Comcast skyscraper have its film debut at the claws of
a giant, slimey sea monster that politely swam up the Delaware river.

"Zodiac, which for better or for worse, was skillfully disinterested in much emotion other than self-hatred"

Wait - whuh? I must have missed this a year ago in whatever 'review' you wrote of that movie, but I found a lot more going on in that movie, emotionally.

Off-subject, I know.

Congrats to Jeffmcm for winning the kewpie doll. From the Clover prod notes...

While the filmmakers wanted to create as much of that excitement and realism as possible for the audience’s enjoyment, they were also extremely conscientious about the implications of these sequences. “In a lot of ways,” says Reeves, “the monster is kind of a metaphor for our times and the kind of terror we all face. So it was important to find a way to approach those feelings without diminishing or exploiting them, and to do so in a way that wouldn’t be disrespectful.”

The film carefully avoids crossing the line from realistic scares to all-too-painful reminders of recent events – through a unique point-of-view experience, humor, and Reeves’ reconnection of the audience with the characters throughout the film. The visual effects teams even took care that the collapsing buildings in the film were older-looking structures that did not evoke the style of the structures that were attacked six years earlier.

Stirring up uncomfortable feelings is not entirely without purpose for a monster movie, Abrams notes. It’s a standard of the genre. “’Godzilla’ came out in 1954 in the shadow of the bomb being dropped in Japan. Culturally, you had people living with this terror they had experienced – but in the guise of something absurd and preposterous. My guess is that it enabled people in Japan to have a catharsis.”

“To me, that’s one of the most potentially impactful aspects of this movie,” he continues. “It takes so many images that are so familiar, that are potentially horrifyingly scary, and puts them in a context that is ludicrous and laughable, so that people can experience catharsis in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re going through therapy. People have a hunger to experience that, and to process the terror we all live with in a way that doesn’t feel like you’re getting a social studies lesson. And at the end of the day, whether or not that’s something they’re aware of, this movie allows them to have that release. And for younger kids,” he says, “you just have one heck of a great monster movie.”

Don't review genre films anymore. Please. You're very wrong about this movie.

seriously.......a bad call on this one..... and, martin.....

'The film carefully avoids crossing the line from realistic scares to all-too-painful reminders of recent events...'

bunk......jus' sayin'....

This reviewer is a hack. Your reviews of genre movies have been terrible giving Sin City and 300 negative reviews while giving Golden comapss a positive one? So far there have been 8 reviews out including several new ones just after tonight's screening (and no I'm not including Harry Knowles) and all of them are raving about this movie. You are so wrong about this movie. Cloverfield is probably the best monster/disaster film in American movie history. It is unbelievable that you gave it a negative review. How do you sleep at night David Poland?

300 deserves every bad review it got.

Just for clarity - I didn't write any of the above. It's from the production notes. My Italics HTML got screwed up.

But, yes, I think it's bunk too. And the prod notes make me side with Poland. There's way too many conceits that people seem to be giving a pass to because of Tippet's and the VFX work, (which shouldn't be surprising). Sasuke Kaneko started the human POV with his 90's Gamera series and one Godzilla film, GMK. If he had a fraction of Abram's capital and creative control, he would have done this same gimmick for Toho or Daiei years ago. But the guy will never get the credit he deserves because the audience for Cloverfield, (high school/college), would do a retro-comparison between his films and Clover, and FX-wise, Tippet trumps all.

I hated Sin City with a passion. That movie pissed me off, and i'm predisposed for comic book films as im a huge fan and generally like them.

It was an ugly film, like watching gray mud with a series of stories that made no sense.

i thought 300 wasn't bad, but i didn't love it. I did feel it was overrated because it was a pretty simple story that excelled in style but the story was pretty uninteresting. I also found the humpback guy unintentionally hilarious.

DP, I believe I saw a completely different movie than the one you saw, as I had the complete opposite reaction to the movie.

This is by far the most intense movie I've sat through since maybe Jurassic Park, back when I was 12 years old.

Actually, thanks for coming back to this, Brack, because even though I didn't like the movie I see that Poland isn't really accurate about several of his points above. Unless bad acting + video camera = Mumblecore, that label is not to be found in this movie; the opening title sequence is not particularly long; the monster design is pretty good; and this movie shows absolutely no sign of wanting to be like The Host in any way.

^^^ This wouldn't be the first time Dave had his head up you know where.

How can he be wrong about whether or not he likes a movie?

"How can he be wrong about whether or not he likes a movie?"

His points are moot at best.

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