Iron Link

UPDATE: Hey did you know it's the 25th anniversary of Return of the Jedi? I didn't, and Star Wars used to be every third and forth word that came out of my mouth. Some wonderful people have put this very, VERY amusing video on the inter-web to celebrate. I urge all fans and former fans of the Classic Trilogy to watch. Those who bear with it get a very fun surprise about half-way through.

A heavy weekend of reviews but that doesn't mean I won't be sending you link goodness. Away we go.

Lists: EW, inspired by Cloverfield, made mention of 22 Goofy Movie Monsters. Why must you hate on Clovie Entertainment Weekly?
They do however have a solid list of 25 best big-screen bad girls (you go Mrs. Iesllin and Phyllis Deitrichson).

Analysis and Tributes: The AV Club has some very nice things to say about character actor Ray Wise.
SC Pick of the week: They also did an awesome list of 18 excellent blockbusters, see the system can work.
Nate over on the filmexperience for whom Michelle Pfeiffer is like Amy Admas to me, has 50 great things to say about birthday girl Michelle.

Funny: Just in time for Iron Man, Cracked provides us with 8 pointless laws all comic book movies follow.
They also tell you how to make a Judd Apatow movie, knowing Paul Rudd helps.
Terminator kama sutra. Internet, I love you.

Friend Pimping: My friend Amir got mentioned in Wired magazine, by the members of Human Giant no less (the youtube generation's Mr. Show don'tchaknow), check it out here.

That's Our Clovie

Cloverfield, as I mentioned in my brief posting about the film, is not the world breaking, genre shattering, experiment that the hype would eave you to believe, nor is it a total wash. Shot in a rough documentary style (think Blair Witch meets Godzilla, yes I know I am far from the first one to make this comparison), Cloverfield does come at this sort of material in a new and potentially exciting way. I know I have certainly not been this eager to see the monster in a film for a long time and director Matthew Reeves knows how to tease just well enough that you keep tense, while at the same time satisfying the eager lookee-loos who are eager to look at this intriguingly designed beastie.

As is sometimes the case in monster films the creature is the most interesting thing going for it. This one certainly has a solid eye for Manhattan real-estate, goes right to Columbus Circle (good central-location) and he seems to have a real affinity for tracking down self-obsessed hipster douchebags. And thank goodness because while there are certainly some intriguing and exciting sequences I found myself hardly caring whether these characters lived or died. The problem stems from a bi-product of being roughly an hour and a half long. We don’t really get a chance to develop the characters. Though I doubt that even freed of the short running time we’d even want to. The central conflict here is the lead character Rob trying to get to his would-be girlfriend Beth who is trapped in her wrecked Columbus Circle apartment. While it certainly makes sense for Rob to go after Beth (their relationship is rather cleverly revealed by the fact that the main part of the film is actually being “taped” over a Coney Island outing between the pair) the problem is why on Earth wouldn’t the other characters evacuate the city. There isn’t enough character to really support a romance and survival is a more than adequate motivator in a film like this. Sill the film is willing to play fast and loose with its characters, which I would appreciate the novelty of if I was invested in a single one of them.

Seeing Cloverfield midnight on Thursday was definitely the way to go, the crowd was very excited and even having to watch half the trailers TWICE didn’t deter the energy in the room (though it did lead to some very inventive swearing-I love ya NY). People gasped and yelped in all the right places and it made for a fun time and contrary to other reports of screenings no one yelled “that’s it?” at the end. I certainly didn’t feel deprived of a solid look at the monster (who has the tenacity of the shark in Jaws: The Revenge when it comes to tracking down the film’s protagonists) and I appreciated the increasingly fatalistic tone as the film moved on. Lots of horrors stem out of national concerns (Godzilla came from the Japanese fear of nuclear fall-out, Gort is a creation of the Cold War) and “Clovie” (yeah that’s what I’m going to call him) is definitely a by-product of 9/11 anxiety; the thought of being helpless and unaware in the face of disaster. The film certainly has ample opportunity to say more but the most we get in terms of commentary is a brief moment once Lady Liberty’s head flies off into Manhattan and mere seconds after the dust has cleared people are taking digital pictures with their cameras and cell-phones. It’s admittedly a light moment and an intriguing one, but that’s about as far as the film goes in terms of depth about commenting on the state of modern affairs. Otherwise it’s just a lot of running and screaming and frustration. This is not a bad thing per se but it prevents the movie from reaching its full potential. This format is capable of telling a lot, I just wish there were more dynamic characters with more provocative things to say about what’s going on. Clovie is fun though and the film has buckets of atmosphere. I say this good for at least one rowdy screening and if I never see it again, oh well.

Late Night Reflections on Cloverfield (too tired for more clever title)

Lets get down to brass tacks, Cloverfield is neither the spastic mess I feared it would be, nor is it the ground-breaking classic some have touted it to be. It's a ride, pure and simple. Your mileage and excitement on this ride will vary. I can't foresee purchasing this film on DVD or even hitting it again in theaters, but I will say I'm glad I saw it opening night at midnight in New York City. It made walking out of the theater a few blocks from Columbus Circle (a very important locale in the film) kind of fun and taking the subway across the Brooklyn Bridge kind of terrifying. I will update with more later when I'm not exhausted.

Cloverfield and the New York State of Mind

With Cloverfield but a day away, a whiny internet casts its eyes on the advance reviews of the film. Various reps from the likes of aicn and chud have checked in with very positive things to say, Jeffrey Wells seemed pleased and Dave Poland could care less. But all this is irrelevant in face of the most important viewer of all in regards to the film's overall success, the non-internet savvy population. The films mysterious nature (Was it a Godzilla film? Alien invasion? Cthulu? Irwin Allen homage? Rampaging Elaine Stritch?) baffled movie and genre geeks for months ONLINE and has whipped up a mighty frenzy, but is the public at large aware of this movie? My guess is no.

The fact of the matter remains that viral marketing campaigning only gets you so far. Wasn't Snakes on a Plane supposed to be huge (it certainly was in the theater I watched it in on opening day but the box office doesn't quite match up)? Same exact story goes for Grindhouse. Both those films had huge internet buzz and both belly flopped. You have to tap all your bases for a film like this and that means posters, TV ads, the talk show circuit etc. I don't see any reason why a quality monster movie can't do well, especially in a dry month like January but you have to get the word out there. With no stars and no look at the monster, joe schmoe has no idea what they're looking at when they see an ad for this movie. JJ Abrams has clout but for a lot of people you have to qualify his name with "the creator of Lost and Alias." I'll admit that I'm starting to see a lot more ads for the film on TV but they're kind of non-descriptive and forgettable if you haven't been informed ahead of time what you're looking at. "See, see!" I shout at my roommates "You can kind of see it walking past that building" or "If you study the frame carefully you can see that girl explode." They remain unmoved. It's the kind of teaser you need to be able to slow-down or pause to appreciate but for good or ill ads on TV exist to be fast forwarded through these days. I've asked many of my non-movie geek friends if they're excited about this film and I've been greeted with blank stares. Uh oh. I rebutt with "haven't you seen the posters with the Statue of Liberty" (in Manhattan they're damn near ubiquitous) and an answer I've now gotten back several times from multiple people was "Oh, I thought that was for I Am Legend" Hmmmm. Having a completely non-descriptive title like Cloverfield is probably not helping the matter. Is that the name of the company putting this headless Statue of Liberty movie out?

One other problem to consider and that is that the advertising showcases a wrecked New York and panicky New Yorkers. Now I am all for using films to get us to evaluate current events or help us process tragedy. I am NOT one of those "too soon" people. War of the Worlds did just fine evoking 9/11 imagery and a deserted New York certainly didn't put off anyone from seeing I Am Legend. But this is a horse of a different color. War of the Worlds did not feature scenes in Manhattan and the buildings remain intact in I Am Legend. This is a movie that specifically shows Manhattan; its infrastructure and citizenry, being menaced by something unseen and terrifying. While I certainly don't mind looking at that kind of very relevant fear through a genre based lens, will my fellow NYCers be as forgiving? As I walked past the Cloverfield poster at my work subway station noticed scrawled across it were the words "Why are you doing this?" It's rare when you get graffiti with proper spelling and punctuation, so I have to believe that this person is clearly troubled by what this film is evoking just from the poster. We're six plus years past 9/11 and while New York citizens still have every right to be upset and anxious about it, I personally don't think a movie is anything to get upset about. Still, it could be a cause for ticket buyers staying away.

Ultimately I won't lose any sleep over the success or failure of Cloverfield. I'd just like it to be a quality genre film. Matt Reeves has plenty of experience directing episodic TV but this is a different animal all together. Drew Goddard has penned some of my favorite episodes of Buffy and Angel (and some decent eps of Lost) but he has only two hours to establish these characters and make us invest in them. Can he do it? Can this film shows us something we've never seen before or it will be a frustrating, nausea inducing let down. Right now I'm approaching with low pulse, guarded optimism, but you can be rest assured I will be there opening night.

Link Hard

It's Friday and you know what that means, time to show off my favorite links of the past week, no time for delay, there's simply too many movies out there (ugh, why do they always hold back so many gems until December):

I've talked about some of my favorite film critic's on the site before; Sarris, Scott, Mitchell, Ebert, Kael, Canby, Sikov and Hoberman but I don' think you've really dug into film criticism until you've read a review by Neil Cumpston, a sporadic contributor to aicn. He got an early look at Cloverfield and shared his insights with the site. Broaden your mind here.

Etan pointed me in the direction of this one. Supernova hot screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) posted her top ten criterion DVDs. I wish everyone did this (oooo THERE'S a feature idea for down the line). Take a look here.

Speaking of Ms. Cody I spent entirely too much time this week reading her incredibly entertaining blog. It doesn't hurt that she's super cute, incredibly intelligent and completely self-deprecating. It also doesn't hurt that she puts up naughty pictures of herself. Her new blog can be found here and the older one can be found here. I would recommend starting with the oldest entry in the old blog and work your way up to the present.

I love the Onion AV Club with the fire of a thousand suns, so you know I get excited when they put up their best of the year list (I've already seen eight of them WOO!). How'd you stack up? Find out here.

A lot of directors grew for the better this year and the IFC agrees with me. Check out who they said followed the first half of Paula Abdul's and MC Skat Cat's advice by taking two steps forward by clicking here.

Thanks to CHUD for constantly pimping this next one. So a couple weeks ago director Edgar Wright hosted this incredibly cool event in LA called the Wright Stuff festival. The man is as good a promoter as he is a director. The line-up was insane and those of us not in LA can still get in on the fun because the good folks at Metroblogging recorded the Q&A's with some of Edgar's amazingly cool guests. Among the luminaries were Shane Black, John Landis, Joe Dante, Timothy Dalton and Paul Williams. You can download these here but be warned the sound quality is not great so try to listen at home or make sure you have very high quality head phones. These are a real treat especially if you like hearing people speak candidly. Shane Black is ESPECIALLY hilarious.

The folks at 30 second bunny theatre are at it AGAIN. This time their target is Spider-Man 3. Good stuff. Click here for an excuse to enjoy bunnies.

And speaking of Spider-Man 3, I found this guy off-I want to say pajiba. I'll be talking about this in my increasingly daunting sounding year end wrap-up (that actually won't be arriving until mid-January) but I really liked the dancing in Spider-Man 3. So in that noble tradition here is one insanely fun swing dance routine.