This letter is associated with the following article:
Letters
Friday, January 18, 2008 12:00 AM

"Cloverfield"

Do we really need the horror of 9/11 to be repackaged and presented to us as an amusement-park ride?

Read other letters about this article

  • Friday, January 18, 2008 11:52 PM

    cloverfield

    i couldn't disagree with you more. i felt this movie was absolutely fantastic. while i will admit, it's definitely not for everyone, i really feel like the whole of the movie was on screen. i don't think they were trying to send any message about how we as a culture deal with traumatic events, rather i think they wanted to make it look real. let people actually connect with it, and lose themselves in the movie, which i know i did.

    if there is any statement made in this film, it's that it is possible to take any genre, including a genre of which i cannot think of one good movie to come out of, and make something spectacular.

    let's say michael bay had taken on this same project. this would have been an epic US military vs whatever comes after us explosion-fest with absolutely no substance. what this movie did is focus on a specific group of people caught in the middle of the mayhem. you still get to see the military shooting it and the battle that goes on between them, but that's not the focus of it.

    personally, i think this film is revolutionary and is one of the most original told story i can think of in a movie. sure, you could compare it to blair witch, but blair witch was just two hours of "look, we made a movie that's meant to look like a documentary." Cloverfield actually puts substance, characters the audience cares about, and they kept it intense through the whole thing.

    i love movies. i watch as many as i can, and in today's market, movies (movies like this anyway) are driven completely on special effects. they lack depth, character, and most of the time story. i don't think i've been as sucked into a movie like i was with this one since i was 12 years old watching Jurassic Park.

Most Active Letters Threads

530

Do Obama officials know what his Afghanistan plan is?

What explains the completely contradictory statements from key aides on a central plank of the war strategy?
408

America's regression

It's almost impossible to find a nation with as many torture advocates as the U.S. has.
332

Palin: Birthers have "fair question" about Obama

Of Obama birth, the ex-governor says, "the public is still, rightfully, making it an issue" (Updated)
128

Is my kids making me not smart?

Stay-at-home fatherhood dulls my intellect to a nub. Excuse me while I ponder the subtext of "Hippos Go Berserk"
126

Trig, the anti-abortion straw baby

Sarah Palin's son is being used to demonize pro-choicers

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon