Motion Sickness at Cloverfield

Alrighty! Let's talk about Cloverfield! I took my son to go see this new twist on enormous monsters destroying major metropolitan cities. J. J. Abrams definitely created a film that was unique in it's approach but it was a hard movie to watch! The approach of the film is taken from a camcorder of one of the main characters who, no matter how bad, shocking or revolting things go, he somehow manages to keep the camera up and running. But of course, with this approach there is a lot of jerky movements and blurred action that is enough to give even the strong of heart motion sickness. Half way through the movie I literally thought I was going to barf right there! And not because I was scared or grossed-out but because of the constant jerky motions in its filming. I was even sitting in the second to last row and it still was a very hard movie to watch.

As I sat there getting sick, I began to get cynical about some aspects of the film, such as:

1) Why is it always New York City?!?!?! Seriously people! Is this the only large scale model of a metropolitan city that Hollywood has to play with? This almost has become a morbid sense of "self-terrorism" on our part. It is not bad enough that we have to deal with terrorism in real life. We have to also make up terrorizing monsters to terrorize us even more, and why not go after the same city that the real terrorists went after and make the monster attack look eerily like the Sept. 11 attack! From now on, for originality's sake, let's go after a different target! Here are some of my humble suggestions that would make for a GREAT MONSTER MOVIE instead of seeing the same old skyline getting pulverized:

a) Since the Cuyahoga River was so polluted back in the 60's that it actually caught on fire at one point, I would love to see a monster attack on Cleveland! Of course any monster that is birthed in the Cleveland area would have to go attack Pittsburgh.

b) Another fun city to see destroyed would be either Toledo or Detroit. The monster could arise out of Lake Eeeeeeeeerieeeeeee!

c) I want to see a freaking huge monster attack Iran! Wouldn't that be awesome! That would be something to cheer about! And imagine the sheer genius of egging on Iran just to get a serious reaction out of them. Maybe we could name the monster "Moe Ham Ed, The rise of the 5th Imam"!

d) The Mexican border would be a great place to film a monster attack! Of course no one would notice a large monster until the beast pummeled the nearest city.

2) Why is it that everything evil seams to originate and/or emerge out of the Atlantic Ocean? Why is that? Is it that all of the "real" environmentalists live out on the West coast so the Pacific is more pure and pristine that nothing evil could ever be spawned from its waters? How about the Gulf of Mexico? Or the Great Lakes!?! Or better yet . . . The Indian Ocean! Then Moe-Ham-Ed can attack Iran!

3) Why does our military seem incapable to handle a target that is almost impossible to miss? You would think that with a target that big the military would be excited about trying out some new high-tech weaponry on the beast. But no matter what the monster might bring to the table, the hapless military is either unable to hit it or loaded their weapons with blanks and just plain forgot!

4) Who is this guy that can run his camcorder while all hell is breaking loose? Not only was this a question that plagued me throughout the film but I was finally relieved to see this schmuck get chewed up by our giant squid-crab-zilla monster.

Besides these perplexing thoughts that ran through my mind, I thought it was an interesting movie. I just realized half way through the movie that, if I don't begin to focus my mind on other things quickly, I am going to yack in front of my teen son and look like a real dork. So go see Cloverfield, just don't sit anywhere close to the front of the screen. Better yet, wait until it comes out on DVD and rent it. I'm sure the special features alone will be worth the wait!