Cloverfield

So, I just got back from a matinee showing of Cloverfield, and it's only now, 3+ hours after the end of the movie, that I'm getting over the feeling of being punched in the stomach.

Movies don't normally affect me this way. I had consciously avoided looking at much of the advance press for this one, not wanting to inadvertently come across a spoiler that would ruin the experience. Yes, I'd heard that this was the "Blair Godzilla Project", and even though I've never seen Blair Witch, I got the idea of what to expect. I also read my friend Richard's spoiler-free assessment of it, and I agree with him on one key point -- if you are susceptible to vertigo, or at all seizure-prone, DO NOT see this movie. So, since I suffer from neither of these conditions, off I went...

DAMN

damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn damn...

I'm not sure exactly what it was that got to me. Maybe the first-person camera perspective, which reinforces the idea that you are not watching the movie, but rather are experiencing it. Maybe the dialogue, which had a stark, bare sense of reality, right down to the black humor comparable to that which my friends and I often use to break tense moments. Maybe it was my intimate knowledge of the locations involved, since my childhood was spent growing up just outside of NYC. Maybe it was the idea that, while I pray each day that no one I know will be confronted by a tragedy of horrific proportions, part of me thinks that if such a tragedy were to happen, whatever the cause, it would play out something like how this movie was presented....

... and that terrifies the hell out of me.

This movie was a reminder that, in real life, people die, often without reason, and that events in our lives usually yield more questions than answers. I hope that Roland Emmerich and the creative team behind the Godzilla debacle of a few years back are watching this movie and saying, "THAT's the movie we meant to make".

It amazed me that this movie, with no soundtrack to speak of, had over a dozen music credits. I can only assume that most of these were background music during the party & flashback scenes. I'm already hearing speculation among fans clamoring for a sequel, and I'm on the fence about it. Such a piece would have to be done right to be effective -- maybe a "documentary" retrospective?

Oh, and for anyone who disputes the effectiveness of the reality portrayed by this movie, I'll leave you with this -- a less-well-known piece of amateur film taken on the day of our most recent, and familiar, real-life tragedy. I don't normally like to invoke this memory, but this is it in its most genuine form. Twenty-six minutes, no agenda, just a witness: