Come on. This isn't about you. It was you who first responded to my post, remember? I was just trying to state a case for those of us who DON'T find this kind of thing questionable or inappropriate.

" It seems a bit weird to say that the Japanese people needed a film of a guy walking around in a lizard suit to deal with the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "

I didn't say anyone needed it; I said some have suggested that's where the original film came from, an attempt to deal with deeply seated fears. One attempt; not everyone's (although the popularity and longevity of this monster suggest it meant something; it sure wasn't the awful rubber suit). People cope with horrors many different ways; some people do it through fictional tropes.

Again, ask: Why do we subject ourselves to horror? Why do we like to be scared? Why is being frightened considered "escapism"?

And I never denied the 9/11 subtext. You'd have to be a fool to miss it. If you'll note earlier, I made the links to "United 93" and "World Trade Center."

Hell, 9/11 is practically TEXT in "Cloverfield."

-- "I imagine most people who watch these movies are looking for escapism and nothing more. Note that many of the people above even deny that there is a 9/11 subtext, so if that's what's appealing to them, it's only on a very subconsious level."

Exactly: The subconscious. That's what I was talking about. Sometimes you want to stir it up, sometimes you want to leave it alone.

And now, like you, I want to leave it alone. Apologies if I ventured out of bounds or made you feel oppressed, Anon., but like many here, I'm just trying to make a point understood.

Mr. Lyden now accuses me of indifference to the quarter of a million people lost in the 2004 tsunami, the less-counted but continuing suffering in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, and the victims of the cyclone that hit Bangladesh last fall.

Methinks he's veered a little too far away from the premise of my post, which was about people not wanting to see a Creature Feature because the buildings the thing knocks down reminds them of the much-exploited 9-11 attacks.

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying the other posts about Gojira's significance in an atomic world, why we're drawn to horror movies, and commentary on which cities are worthy of cinematic destruction. Sorry.

I'm not going to try to compete with you in the empathy game, Mr. Lyden. But I will second (or third, or whatever we're up to) with the other folks who've said they're tired of "9-11"™ (a trademark of the Republican Party) needing to be treated with bowed-head reverence.

Sooner or later, this nation will need to grow up and get on with its life.

>And how much more awesome would this movie have been with a cameo by the Blair Witch?<

Dunno how she would have "appeared," though. Would she have had what was left of the CLOVERFIELD cast standing in a corner of what was left of the Woolworth Building or something? ;)

>Apparently, according to filmmakers, not only do cities not get destroyed, unless it be NYC, but no one falls in love or gets up to hilarious hijinks anywhere else on the globe, either.<

Um, the first attack in the Spielberg WAR OF THE WORLDS took place in Newark, New Jersey, thank you. And LA got tore up nicely in both THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and VOLCANO (the latter a few years back.) Relatedly, it always amuses me (as a NJ resident) that whenever NYC gets blowed up in the movies, everyone assumes that all of New Jersey (including those parts a good 200 miles away) and upstate New York have met the same fate. ;)

>The thing would hit ground on Long Island, Brooklyn, hell, even Bayonne before heading up the East River.<

Yeah, but why wouldn't such a creature be drawn to a place with the most amount of noise/heat/lights? Anyone could tell you that that is hardly Bayonne--though it could be Newark...:)

...instead of the way the film introduced its disaster-genre narrative using the cliché of the young man who must prove his worth to the woman he has mistreated. Notice what they're talking about when the monster shows up? "You're not good enough for her but she's in love with you anyway and you have to prove to her" blah blah blah....

If they wanted to make a film about post 9-11 fear, why not just make it about survival, pure and simple, and leave out the "rite of passage/becoming a hero/proving himself to a woman" narrative structure? I would have respected the film more if they had simply made it a story of some kids trying to rescue a trapped friend....

I enjoyed the psychological conventionalism of this film - it was, for me, familiar turf. In other words, it smelled of my urine.

No, not quite.

But ---

You COULD go out on a limb and read into the narrative framing of Rob and Beth, as lovers, whatever...Perhaps Rob did awake some kind of female ur-beast, maybe some shibboleth was passed from Hud's lips, maybe all of this is mere exaction for the spoils of the virgin. Every rite of spring has its symbolic violence, right?

I really enjoyed this "Cloverfield".

Kings of Leon are a lot of fun live, too. They had a bunch of tracks during the party scene.

Oh, and whomever stood around for the final credits roll...The overture was awesome.

Probably half of the film's budget employed Mr. Tippetts and company. I'm guessing at least 15% went to renting out Skywalker Sound to record the "ROAR!!!" theme.

Cool.

-PerpetualApexPride

This is an environmental horror story based on the story of a couple of days ago in which George Bush gave the Navy the full speed ahead on blasting the hell out of whale and dolphin eardrums using ultra-sonar waves. So now it's "Fuck you, whales!" and the Navy drives all the whales insane, and they all beach themselves and die, but, well, fuck 'em, just fuck 'em all. And that's the official line as they continue their tests.

But then the ultimate sea beastie, who has also been driven insane by the tests, finally surfaces, going Raawwwrraoooorrrr! Which roughly translates as "Fuck me? Fuck you!!!! Whatcha think about that?" Buildings topple, everything is blowing up. And then all the people are crying and dying and talking about how innocent they are and how they don't deserve it, and how terrible it all is that one species seems to be so dedicated to wiping out another species, and how it's so unfair and everything.

That's what Cloverfield is about. I haven't seen it, and should therefor not be entitled to utter an opinion about it, but that's my theory about Cloverfield, and I'm sticking with it.