The Big Bad Ugly

J.J. Abrams is a great story teller. I saw Cloverfield today and it was a really fun movie. Something big, bad and ugly attacks Manhattan. They don't know where it came from. Some hole in the earth, some crevice in the ocean, or outer space, but it is rampaging through the city, and it is tough.

The gimmick of the film if very Blair Witch. Young man happens to be shooting on a hand held camera when the thing attacks, and documents the events as they unfold about him and his friends. So, if "amateur, hand held" camera work makes you nauseous, you should avoid this film.

But, if you like J.J. Abrams and monster flicks, this one is pretty good. One nice thing about this film is it doesn't load you down with the science. Granted, I like hearing about the origin of things, but that was only a small part of me during this roller coaster of a film. Being regular folk at a going away party, you don't see the inside of the lab where the government accidentally creates the beast, or the supernatural ritual that brings meanies from other dimensions, or see some horrible leviathan rise from the chemically poisoned deep. Very much in the tradition of Godzilla, monster arrives from out of nowhere and is a bitch to kill. And as the movie progressed, it was committed to the crescendo in tempo, which meant not stopping to explain all things along the way. Again, that small part of me wanted to know why as much as the characters in the film when questions went unanswered, but like them, I will have to come up with my own theories.

I initially got a bad report of this film, and the older gentleman three seats down from me said it was the worst thing he ever saw, but I had a good time. It had some natural humor (considering its naturalistic film technique) and was scary due to good old fashioned story telling and mystery. Not to say some things didn't occasionally jump out at you, but it wasn't all about those tactics.

I won't give the ending away, but I have to say that the ending does seem to follow a trend I have noticed in the genre that it shares with The Mist. When I thought about it, I realized it wasn't so new. Fright films of the 1960s took a similar approach. Speaking of The Mist, that was a film where the government was experimenting with access to other dimensions. Why do they never discover warm and fuzzy dimensions? Access another dimension and it is always something horrific on the other side. Where is the Care Bear dimension? Or the Beatrix Potter dimension? That's what I want to know!

I have long been a fan of J.J. Abrams. I saw all four seasons of Felicity. I loved the show and cast and was impressed that a show about 4 years in college ended with graduation instead of trying to stretch it out with "Felicity in Med School" or "Felicity in the City". And of course there is Alias and Lost.
Lost returns next week! I wonder how many episodes were in the can before the writers' strike...

Total Debt: $15,096
2008 goal Attained: $404 (of $5,500)