'CLOVERFIELD' SHOULD BE A MONSTER SMASH WITH THE YOUTUBE GENERATION.Byline: GLENN WHIPP WHIPP WhiteWater Head Impact Protection Project >FILM CRITIC It took a decade, but someone finally came up with an antidote to Roland Emmerich's thudding dud of a monster movie, "Godzilla." That corrective is "Cloverfield," which packs its 84-minute running time (more like 74, sans credits) with immediacy, inventiveness and freaky freak·y adj. freak·i·er, freak·i·est 1. Strange or unusual; freakish. 2. Slang Frightening. freak fever-dream visions of hellish destruction. "Cloverfield" is set in Manhattan and features crumbling skyscrapers, rolling dust clouds and huge explosions. It's all about 9/11, just as the classic Japanese monster movies spoke to Cold War-era fears of nuclear annihilation. And like those B-flicks, "Cloverfield" restricts itself to using metaphor in addressing a collective feeling of anxiety and powerlessness. It's the better movie for it. The film opens with a title card noting that the camera containing the government-recovered video we're about to see was retrieved from the site "formerly known as Central Park." We then view footage of Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and Beth (Odette Yustman), still glowing the morning after their first night spent together. Next, the video's time stamp See timestamp. jumps forward a month and we're at Rob's going-away party, where we meet Rob's brother (Mike Vogel); his girlfriend, Lily (Jessica Lucas Jessica Lucas (born September 24, 1985) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her appearance as Sue Miller in Life As We Know It, acting alongside Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum in She's the Man, and acting alongside Steven Strait and Laura Ramsey in ); and Rob's best friend, Hud (T.J. Miller). Hud has been handed a camera and charged with filming goodbye salutations. He ends up shooting the last night in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . "Forget about the rest of the world and hold onto the ones you care about." Those are the last words Last words are a person's final words before death. For a list of well known last words, see or use the link at right. Last words may refer to:
Producer J.J. Abrams, director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard Drew Goddard is a television script-writer best known for working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Alias. In the 2007-2008 season, Goddard is a part of the writing staff of Lost as a regular writer and co-executive producer. had a hand in those shows, which explains the attempt to make us feel something toward "Cloverfield's" lovelorn, yearning characters. (Best touch: Snippets of Rob and Beth's "good day" on the tape that's being erased with the chronicle of the nightmare we're watching.) But you don't go into a movie like "Cloverfield" looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a characterization. You go for the rush, and, with its hand-held, from-the-ground, what-the-hell-is-going-on aesthetic, the film succeeds in putting you in the thick of the night's madness. The monster is never explained and seen mostly in glimpses, but the havoc it wreaks is tangible and vividly rendered. (The Lady Liberty sequence is brilliant.) You can quibble QUIBBLE. A slight difficulty raised without necessity or propriety; a cavil. 2. No justly eminent member of the bar will resort to a quibble in his argument. with the movie's timeline, logistics and insistence upon high-heeled scampering, but there's no denying its impact. Here's a monster movie for the YouTube era where no disaster -- tsunami, fire, Britney -- goes unseen. Whether the chroniclers live to deliver their footage is another thing entirely. Glenn Whipp, (818) 713-3672 glenn.whipp@dailynews.com CLOVERFIELD - Three and one half stars >R: violence, terror, disturbing images. >Starring: Michael Stahl-David, Odette Yustman, Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller. >Director: Matt Reeves. >Running time: 1 hr. 24 min. >Playing: Area wide. >In a nutshell: A monster movie for the YouTube era. |
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