A Lot About Nothing

I just got back from watching the highly anticipated J.J. Abrams-produced film Cloverfield. If you’re wondering if it’s worth all the hype and your $11, I think you’ll get you money’s worth. You’ll be highly entertained for 90-minutes, which just happens to be a perfect length for this type of film… any longer and you probably would’ve gotten dizzy from all the hand-held camera action.

Directed by Matt Reeves, Cloverfield starts out almost like a low-budget episode of Friends, with likeable characters, some comedic moments and a touch of drama thrown in. That all changes pretty soon once a loud tremor shakes New York City. What at first seems to be an earthquake is followed by a large explosion and the city’s residents, including Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and his going-away-party-goers to run for their lives. Rob and his friends end up on a mission to save a trapped Beth (Odette Yustman) in her highrise miles away, at the same time trying to beat the clock and catch the last helicopter out of the destructing city.

As for the monster, you’ll be anticipating to see what it looks like after hearing all the roars and screaming. And through the eyes of the handheld video camera held by Rob’s best friend Hud (T.J. Miller), I must admit it looks pretty darn freaky (along with it’s little “friends”). Cloverfield was amazingly shot, taking into consideration it’s Blair Witch Project-esq filming. Makes you wonder just how much post-production work actually went into adding all those special FX into a film that looks like it’s shot on a home video camera… very realistic.

If you haven’t already visited the viral marketing site take a look. And here’s the link for the film’s official site. Note to any Trekkers out there, there’s a short but sweet trailer of the upcoming Star Trek film preceding this movie. Can’t wait!

P.S. Stick around until after the credits.

I’m sure most of you have seen, or at least heard of, J.J. Abrams’ much-talked-about trailer for the untitled movie that was aired before Transformers last week. The web is swimming with gossip and conspiracy theories on what the film is about.

If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you can check out the hi-def version on Apple’s trailer site (so forget about trying to search YouTube for those short-lived, cell phone video uploads that were posted the first week of Transformer’s release). Watch it yet? Good. Now tell me that isn’t one of the most intruiging trailers you ever seen. My mouth was agape when I saw that Statue of Liberty head come hurtling at the mob of people in the street (it looked an awful lot larger, proportion-wise, on the big screen though… but, meh!).

The site EthanHaasWasRight.com has been loosely linked to the J.J. Abrams flick, but in an email to Harry from Ain’t It Cool News he denied it:

Regarding the online stuff you posted: yeah, we’re doing some fun stuff on the web. But, obviously, if the movie doesn’t kick some massive ASS, who gives a rat’s about what’s online? So as you can imagine, we’re focusing mostly on THAT. For what it’s worth, the only site of ours that people have even FOUND is the 1-18-08.com site. The others (like the Ethan Haas sites) have nothing to do with us.

Why wouldn’t he deny it? It might all be part of his plan to mind boggle us all! Wait a minute. He said “the only site of ours that people have even found”. That means there’s more 1-18-08-related official sites out there! OMG… why won’t he just tell us what they are!? Ah… you gotta love viral internet marketing. I haven’t seen things like this since Snakes On A Plane. Oh, and if you’re trying to figure out how to crack the Ethan site, but too lazy to follow the instructions, YoPress.com has got all the info on that.

1-18-08.com is the official home of the yet-to-be-released film. The site itself is an enigma: Presently, it’s content is simply three stills from the movie. Now, on the surface they don’t look like anything much, but if you were to look a lot closer (like thousands of new fans are trying to do) you’ll begin to pick away at the visuals, and find clues as to what the film may be about.

Try that one image of the two, scared women staring up at the sky: WHAT DI RASS IS DAT BETWEEN DEM?!?! I swear, that looks a lot like some type of demon to me! Is J.J. Abrams’ film (also going by the name “Cloverfield” and “Slusho” on the web) an apocalypse movie perhaps? In the trailer, the video camera panned up from some sushi before interviewing an Asian guy about Rob’s departure… then came the ‘roar’. Could it be GODZILLA?!!? There’s lots of speculation… but I guess we’ll just have to wait until we get closer to 01-18-08 to find out.

I just came back from watching the much anticipated Transformers movie. It was highly entertaining, if I do say so myself. Michael Bay executed this film in a way that will connect the audience to the characters, no matter if you were an avid watcher of the 80s cartoon, or never heard of Autobots before.

The film starts of action-packed, set in the scorching deserts in Qatar, and from there we are introduced to Sam Witwicky (played effectively by Shia Lebeouf), an ackward teen coming-of-age with passion for getting a car and the girl (Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes). Top secret government files are stolen (as they often are in these types of films), and people are seeing strange things… machines… transforming (and a lot of stuff blowing up, all Armageddon-like).

Here’s where the Autobots come in. With Optimus Prime at the head of the pack (including Autobots’ Bumblebee, Jazz, Ironhide and Ratchet), they are sworn to protect human life from the evil Decepticons. The $150 million budget and collaboration with Hasbro was clearly put to use, as the humanoid machines looked very realistic.

The action is well balanced with the ‘humanized’ storylines, but personally, I loved seeing Optimus Prime and his crew beating up Megatron (voiced by Matrix/LOTR alumni, Hugo Weaving) and his evil minions. Lots of comedic moments in this film as well as some heart-felt moments. If there’s any summer blockbusters on your list this season, this is one to check out (even if the plot seemed kind of ‘meh’… the action and comedic moments makes up for it). It’s a lot of fun to watch. I’m definitely looking forward to the sequels.

For some strange reason, I feel like leasing a yellow and black Camero now…

Here’s a clip from Robot Chicken doing a little parody of the popular 80’s cartoon:

Oh, one more thing: Make sure you reach the theater before the trailers start rolling. There is one in particular that will take your breath away. I won’t spoil it for you, but if you like action/sci-fi/thriller flicks, you’ll be racing home after Transformers and head to the Internet, trying to figure out what the untitled, top-secret, J.J. Abrams-produced trailer is all about. All I can say is that it’s release date is 01.18.08, and it’s one of the coolest trailers I’ve ever seen…