"Cloverfield"

Okay kiddos, I saw this fine film yesterday, and needed some time to think about it before I wrote about it. Now, writing about screen writing is always somewhat problematic when dealing with just the finished product, as it is hard to tell how much of the screenplay survived the vetting process of editing and directing.

Let me say, from the top, that this is a fantastic way of re-imagining a genre film. "Cloverfield" is a monster movie, but instead of being from the point of view of the monster or the military or the "hero", this film is from the point of view of one of those little people running around and being squashed and eaten in other films. From that standpoint, I loved the film. However, I felt the story relied a little too much on being vague. I think there is a fine balance point where it becomes annoying, as an audience member, to know so little. For a while the mystery is fun, but the realization that you won't be privy to some of the important details of the movie made me irritateds, and were I to use the cries of Foul from the audience as a judge, I'd say I was not alone. When we, as an audience are invited along for a journey, there is this implied notion that we will be able to know the conclusion of the film.

The filming of the movie was done through a pseudo handheld version which, on the one hand was cool and different, but on the other was frustrating and distracting. I'm sure, in a sense, it was effective in limiting the budget, no soaring camera pans, no steadicam, but it also very limiting. I would be interested to find a copy of the script to see if this filming style was stipulated by the scribe or was a brainchild of the director.

Okay. So I might touch on this topic again in the future, I did appreciate the notion of the different perspective in a genre that has, like it or not, relatively established rules about what make up the movie. Perhaps I can do little piece about that....
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T