She Exploded, FYI

I think I'm just going to stop pretending, and acknowledge the fact that 85% of these postings are just my thoughts on TV and movies. I'll still try to make them entertaining, but, sorry, if you don't like the movies/shows that I'm talking about.

Last night I finally watched Cloverfield, and I REALLY LIKED IT. For those of you who don't know the premise, it's a monster attack ala Godzilla in present-day Manhattan. It's all filmed with a handheld camera to give the impression that it's just being filmed with a personal camcorder. It's AWESOME. The way they merged CGI effects of the monster and well-known New York landmarks getting destroyed on this homemade-looking footage was pretty amazing. It looked real, and the way it was filmed made viewers feel like they were also running for their lives. I'm going to be very wary of Lake Michigan from now on and will start developing a good escape strategy from the city. Let me know if any of you want to get in on the evacuation plan.

Another thing I really enjoyed--which is certainly a JJ Abrams touch was the idea of following regular people dealing with extraordinary events and focusing mostly on the emotional impact it has on them. This is the same thing that Lost excels at. I know everyone should be paying attention to the mysteries of the island and all that stuff, but I like the extreme emotions. Particularly with the Korean couple, Sun and Jin, who Margaret Cho is so fond of talking about. Their scenes normally make me cry. But anyway, this movie has lots of that too--especially as the friends start dying. The pain of losing their friends never dulls for them, no matter how frantic they are.

Also, I was surprised. I expected the movie to be more gruesome for some reason. And aside from one character who died quite horribly, we don't see too much. This is partly due to the cinematography of the film. I really like how nothing was explained--made it so much more realistic.

I'm a little surpised that I liked it this much. I'm actually considering buying it, because one can never have too many monster movies at hand. And, I guess having never been to New York, it's not going to affect me the same way that a it would for a New Yorker watching the movie. So if you're going to freak out over a monster destroying New York (the start of the madness had the monster decapitate the Statue of Liberty), you probably shouldn't watch it. And, although it doesn't sound this way, the destruction wasn't gratuitous.

Also, the viral marketing campaign for the movie was pretty good, and I'm endlessly entertaining myself reading the characters' Myspace pages during work. Yeah, I'm a dork. But I'm fine with it.