Well Above Average is my go-to person for movies and videos. If she likes it, generally speaking I will like it. If she doesn’t, I listen carefully because it just might be my cup of tea.
However when it came to Cloverfield, it was entirely a different matter. She saw it in theaters and then reviewed it. I can’t say that I like the jerky camera situation at all. Actually they make me motion-sick so I willingly handed this over to Stella for a more honest appraisal that wasn’t tainted by nausea and pepto-bismol. (that’s the fair thing to do, don’t you think?)
Here’s some of her commentary on the movie itself:
Cloverfield is a monster movie plain and simple. It is shot as if it were “found” footage ala The Blair Witch Project–ostensibly the digital camera of one of the characters in the story. Many people found the shaky camera work off putting. It even made some viewers nauseous–my friend Teri walked out after ten minutes. It didn’t bother me. My brother and I debated the technique and I felt it did add immediacy and intimacy to the story.
At 84 minutes, Cloverfield pretty much races along–after the 20 minute long set up anyway. And this is perhaps its biggest…
What about the DVD? Well it’s has the movie and lots of other extras and the extras are almost as long as the movie. Figure that one out.
Here’s what Stella had to say about that:
The DVD extras total about 72 minutes–almost as long as the movie! There’s a “Making of” featurette and one dedicated specifically to the movie’s Visual Effects. While many derided the low budget look of the hand held cams, it is obvious from the featurettes that a lot of time, effort and skill went in to the look of the film. From the creation of the monster to invisible editing cuts to maintain the amateur documentary look of the film, it’s quite astonishing how intricate and detailed this movie actually is.
Stevie Wilson
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