When you say "more than half the country" do you mean "more than half the people you know"?

Just wondering.

As for the movie...I'm not one of the pre-fans that obsessed for months, but it had piqued my interest. I really like a good sci-fi monster movie, but I'll wait until I see more reviews so I can find an average and then decide if I should see it, wait for it to get to the $3 movie place, Netflix it, or wait for my sister to buy it and then borrow it from her.

Swellesley:

In your head-up-my-ass NewYorkerism, you miss the fact that the earlier poster is, like you, also a prong from the Five Boroughs.

Dissing Cleveland! What newfangled thing will you clever city folk think of next?

I went to the funerals of the people in my own extended family post 911. Get over your pity party selves. Cloverfield will be the biggest piece of shit ever put on a screen.

Dark screen? check

Fake bad writing (or maybe just bad writing)? check

Jittery? check

Looks like a cell phone camera? check

Pretending to be YouTube pretending to be a stoner talking about a movie? check

No plot or story? check

Some hot chicks (we think, it's too dark to tell)? check

Typical JJ Abrams all wind up no resolution ever waste of time? check

Characters you wish would just immolate themselves? check

Hey I bet they could turn this into the next season of 'Lost' or 'Heroes'.

Two questions to those who have seen it. Is it really only 75 mins long, and if there are no commercial interruptions, should there be?

I heard stats saying between 20-40% of the US population is convinced the US goverment was either directly involved, indirectly involved or knew about it and allowed it to happen.

Add in the fence sitters who are still out on the verdict and leaven it with a few more years of time and if on this very day 50% of the US population does not subscribe to this then it will be soon-- ala the JFK assassination, which initially was believed to be a consipracy by only 20% or less but which now 70% of Americans believe was a consipracy.

It certainly does not help that this government acts so weirdly, Dem and Rep both. 700 page PatRot Act written in mere days? I. DON'T. THINK. SO. Voted upon without being read first? Makes sense. Anomalous anthrax mailings during that time that can only have come from one Army lab outside Washington? Standing down the military jets? Structurally sound buildings housing NYC CIA HQ collapsing on their own? Flight schools run by the CIA training these very Arab guys in Fla? Mossad agents recording the event in real time from the Jersey side and jumping up and down in glee? Dozens of people in gov't being warned not to fly on the morning of 9/11? PNAC posting on the internet the need for a new "Pearl Harbor"?

It all begins to make sense. People in the US ARE mostly dumb as fuck, but they are not THAT dumb.

"Stop Monsters, Aliens, terrorists, etc. attacking NY!! Find some other city . How about Clevelend, Ohio ?"

How dare you, sir? Does the game 'Rampage' not ring a bell? For almost a whole decade from 1985 to 1995, the working class midwest and north central was savaged .... cities like Peoria, Albany, Plano, Akron... demolished daily, multiple times often, by a giant Werewolf, a giant Lizard, and a sort of king kong.

Some said they were certain that Americans were responsible to begin with, since the pollution we craved for our extravagent lifestyes and huge arcade games could well have been responsible for the creation of these monsters; the lizard was the result of a woman's DNA being altered by swimming in a toxic lake!

So take your eastern big city, smug, coastal-elite attitude back to wherever you are really from (White Plains? Stamford?) and recognise the suffering that we all are a part of.

But... don't watch this movie. It looks stupid.

When I first saw the posters for "Cloverfield", I thought "I am so goddamned sick of seeing New York City destroyed."

In December I had seen "I Am Legend," which was a crap film, but not because it featured a depopulated Manhattan. In fact, the only thing that was interesting about it was the ruins of Manhattan. The rest was abysmally stupid.

But then, right on its heels, came the advertisements for "Cloverfield", and I thought, "Jesus, the delight filmmakers take in destroying Manhattan is beginnning to verge on sadistic." Then and there I decided I wasn't going to see it.

This was a completely visceral reaction, not some politically-correct posturing. I am a New Yorker who experienced 9/11 firsthand - although, thank God, not as firsthand as some other people - and I think I've just reached my saturation point. Sure, before 9/11 there were countless films - Godzilla, Independence Day, King Kong, hell even Ghostbusters - where monsters rampage through the City. And no doubt part of it is that Manhattan is full of iconic buildings and landmarks whose destruction makes for thrilling visuals. But dare I say that 9/11 should have changed all that? After a while, you begin to think, "Could they just leave us freakin' alone for a movie or two? There was a real tragedy that happened here, people, and to see it replayed again and again in the fictionalized destruction of the City - well, after a while, it's begining to trigger a sort of post-tramatic stress disorder in me. Imagine seeing it happen over and over to the City YOU live in.

Sometimes I begin to wonder whether the rest of the country finds 9/11 more titillating than tragic. The rest of the country can't seem to get enough of it. 9/11-this, 9/11-that. New Yorkers are just trying to get on with their lives, and hope that nothing like it ever happens again, to New York or any other American city.

P.S.: Just for the record, I won't mind the destruction scene in "Watchman" so much because, as you point out, it was written 20 years ago and it's not the obsessive focus of the story. Strangely, though, when I re-read the graphic novel last year, I was more disturbed by that part than I had been when I first read it. I'm not saying there should be a ban on any destruction or devastation that might evoke 9/11, but to me "Cloverfield" looked more exploitative than artistic.

P.P.S.: I also didn't want to see "Cloverfield" because I was sure it was going to be as lame as "Lost" ultimately turned out to be. I don't think I'm a J.J. Abrams fan after all.