comment #1

Rich S. says ...

So, Abrams is making a 9/11 movie for that "head in the sand" crowd that Jeffrey so completely despises?

comment #2

corey3rd says ...

It's obvious that the Cloverfield monster represents Boston Redsox slugger David Ortiz. The worst fear of Yankee fans on Sept. 12 2001 - that the Redsox would win 2 trophies.

comment #3

le corbeau says ...

From what I've heard, the monster sounds very much like the sort of creatures that start growing and growing in so many anime films-- terrible and yet oddly childish, irrational, tentacled and spewing weird biology out of extra orifices.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

comment #4

Howlingman says ...

This is a lesson all the failed Iraq films of '07 have learned -- allegory works much better than brutal fact. And monster movies have always been rife with it in one form than another.

comment #5

moviemaniac2002 says ...

I like the "New Yorker's 9/12 bad dream" scenario. Maybe they should have done it like the original "Invaders From Mars"...the guy with the camcorder wakes up from it all the next morning...and the whole thing starts over again.

One thing that "Cloverfield"s beast shares with
Harryhausen's stop motion wonders - it knows how to make a statement by laying waste to a well known landmark....(Harryhausen must envy the ample budget given this film...Abrams probably didn't have to worry about cutting down the number of flippers or tentacles(or whatever)as did Harryhausen, who had to restrict his "It Came From Beneath The Sea" octopus to only
six tentacles.

comment #6

Alan Cerny says ...

"This is a lesson all the failed Iraq films of '07 have learned -- allegory works much better than brutal fact."

I completely agree. Kimberly Pierce is going to learn this the hard way when STOP-LOSS is completely and utterly rejected later this year.

comment #7

York "Budd" Durden says ...

It won't help that the trailer for Stop-Loss makes it look overwrought and obvious.

comment #8

Dave says ...

It won't help that the plot for Stop-Loss is divorced from reality.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/253475.html

"Deployments also tend to drive up re-enlistments, she said.

“It’s not obvious to a person in the civilian world, but it’s like any other hazardous duty,” she said. “People join the military because they want to be in the military, and once you’re in, you want to do what you’re trained to do.”

It's apparently not obvious to screenwriters in Hollywood, either.

comment #9

ryan vb says ...

Those 50s B sci-fi pics spoke to people's fears of total annihilation at the hands of seemingly inaccessible, sometimes mysterious governments like the US and USSR by translating that horror into annihilation at the hands (or feet or wings or fire breathing mouths) strange monsters, similar to what the suggestion about Cloverfield and 9/11.

When the monster was created because of some nuclear or gamma ray screw up, it was even sweeter.

comment #10

otakuhouse says ...

Dave, nice try. I grew up next to Fort Lewis for a good while and my Dad was in the Army while my best friend's father flew choppers out of McChord nearby. I know the area and people well.

I have heard of acquaintances and classmates doing what the article discusses; but I've also heard firsthand about friends returning home with PTSD, severe wounds, employment problems, troubles with wives and family, alcoholism, violence, and so on.

My childhood buddy whose dad was at McChord grew up to be an entertainer of some success and visited Walter Reed three times in the past three years to visit soldiers.

His stories are really sad.

Maybe the worst only happens to a small percentage of soldiers.

But even if it only happened to .01 percent of veterans they deserve better.

Didn't Ehren Watada come out of Fort Lewis?

I don't know if ignorance is bliss, but choosing to believe one local newspaper's article as a reflection of all of the attitudes of our current military personnel towards the war in Iraq (not afghanistan, which many from Lewis go to) is just plain stupid.

Now back to discussion of the blair witch rips off the host with added yuppie good looks.

comment #11

otakuhouse says ...

Jeff, it's a little disingenious to dismiss Godzilla in all of this. He's endured far more than King Kong even. And it is known that he is an exact allegory for Japan having been hit by an atomic bomb plus the centuries of fires and tsunamis and earthquakes that hits that island.

And one last thing, Dave. I think you'd be surprised by how many people I know from my red state small town went into deployment in Iraq telling me what a liberal pussy I am, who are now registered Democrats or Ron Paul supporters.

comment #12

Dave says ...

I'm ignorant of many things, otakhouse, but this is not one of them. Many of my co-workers have done multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Is it hard? Yes. Can it be awful? Yes. I've attended more than one Arlington funeral in the past few years. I hope I never go again.

But yet, they still go. Over and over again.

Where's the movie about *that*? Where's the movie about *those* men and women? We had a dozen Iraq movies in the last year, and they're all about the same exact thing. And to a tee, none of them reflect the experiences of the professionals I work with every day.

Hollywood did this before, with our Vietnam veterans, who were nigh-universally portrayed as drug-addicted draftees who all came back shattered, drunk, suicidal and murderous.

It's doing it again with our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

It feels like that's the only narrative they have handy. Probably because it worked so well for them before.

comment #13

Dave says ...

Otakuhouse-- I don't deny the tragedy of the wounded veteran, and I don't deny that many wounds are invisible.

And I don't deny that there are soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen who got rooked over by the stop-loss policies of the last few years (hell, I know a few of them myself).

But again-- what stories do we get out of Hollywood? We don't get the stories of the soldiers who re-enlist, the soldiers who were proud to serve, the soldiers who accomplished much and saved lives of not just their buddies but of the people they protected.

We don't get those stories, yet they exist. And they exist in as large a proportion-- if not a GREATER proportion, in my personal experience-- than the stories Hollywood does shop around.

comment #14

berg says ...

one of the reasons Cloverfield will be boss is because it has two good love stories intertwined in the story ... Hud and Marlena (never gets going for ol Hudson), and Rob and Beth especially; R&B held my interest far more than the lovers in Atonement ... I had the same feeling at the end as I did during Miracle Mile ...

comment #15

Luke Y. Thompson says ...

But again-- what stories do we get out of Hollywood? We don't get the stories of the soldiers who re-enlist, the soldiers who were proud to serve, the soldiers who accomplished much and saved lives of not just their buddies but of the people they protected.

Sgt. Karnes in "World Trade Center" comes to mind. Best character in that movie -- made me wish it were all about him instead.

comment #16

otakuhouse says ...

sorry to hijack the monster talk...

i appreciate your replies dave and recognize i flew off the handle. i guess because i'm impassioned about the issue because of the effects i've seen. and yes i'm opposed to the occupation in iraq and how it was enacted.

i would say that the worst film ive seen in the past decade would be redacted - which to me is an example of what you're describing. absolutely henious, exploitative, vile, crass, and utterly disgusting that depalma would say his film would end the war.

we don't have the objectivity right now to make a film that if it were to be honest about iraq would show both what you're talking about and the flipside as well. which to the soldier on the ground the history of warfare would tell us that both have been witnessed and experienced - the best and the worst of humanity at the same time. studio movies usually aren't that complex. artists at times believe they have a mantle to take up when the status quo persists, and hence it's worthy to make a film with an issue and a message. it's been years now that the majority of the populace has been opposed to our occupation of iraq and yet there has been no policy change whatsoever. that is a frustrating place to be and of course there will be people who want to tell stories about that.

the fucked up thing though is that the real issue everyone has is with are the architects and incompetents of the war, but instead we focus on soldiers for dramatization. and it's just such a loaded figure in american culture - it cracks me up when every politician during the primaries always always without fail says that us troops are the greatest people on planet earth.

neither of us have seen stop loss, either. maybe it is a good film that tells the story well and honestly but has a bad trailer.

conversely, the opposite end of things would be a movie in which a lone soldier goes to iraq and wins the war for us, which the reagan era had plenty of ludicrous cinematic fantasies to go along with (which i would not include rambo i and ii in but rather all the derivations).

as naomi klein points out, buying red products from the gap doesn't move governments to change their policies. nor does buying movie tickets. believing bono is gonna take care of africa is dangerous and just lets you off the hook. protests and real political acitivism are the only things that truly work. but still some are compelled to make movies that purport to do the same.

comment #17

Lee says ...

"We don't get those stories, yet they exist. And they exist in as large a proportion-- if not a GREATER proportion, in my personal experience-- than the stories Hollywood does shop around."

And ... and ... the VAST majority of oil wildcatters in the American Southwest and California were middle-class family men, most of whom didn't have crippling father issues. Where are THEIR stories?

The STOP-LOSS premise is inherently more dramatic than its opposite. Whether it succeeds, or falls victim to preachy on-the-nose cliches, we'll see. But I'll watch any number of documentaries, or, you know, THE NEWS, to hear the stories of all the soldiers who keep going back. Movies are about the exceptional, the extreme.

comment #18

jeffmcm says ...

"We don't get the stories of the soldiers who re-enlist, the soldiers who were proud to serve, the soldiers who accomplished much and saved lives of not just their buddies but of the people they protected."

Hmmm, movies about people who set out to do something and achieve exactly what they intended with no bumps along the way. Sounds gripping.

Part of the problem is also that there simply aren't filmmakers capable of making this kind of movie without it turning into garbage. In WWII we had Howard Hawks and Air Force, but he was a genius. All we have today are Sylvester Stallone and Zack Snyder.

comment #19

Lee says ...

"Part of the problem is also that there simply aren't filmmakers capable of making this kind of movie without it turning into garbage. In WWII we had Howard Hawks and Air Force, but he was a genius. All we have today are Sylvester Stallone and Zack Snyder."

And, to be fair, David Simon's next project for HBO, GENERATION KILL. I think that's going to leave all these early stabs at Iraq movies in the dust.

comment #20

Smurf says ...

"Miracle Mile"!?! Berg, you're a dick if you just gave away the ending without a *SPOILER* warning.

otakuhouse: "the reagan era had plenty of ludicrous cinematic fantasies to go along with (which i would not include rambo i and ii in but rather all the derivations)"

The interesting financial contrast there is that Rambo (and its ilk) were independently produced by guys like Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna who employed existing distribution networks, whereas today's prestigious anti-war screed-pack comes officially greenlit by the big studios (Redacted being an exception). For some reason the Melrose-Mulholland-Malibu MBAs can't bring themselves to endorse the heartland's POV of heroism in combat, instead leaving it to crafty foreigners to sneak in audience-pleasing* cashcows.

(*= WalMart crowds of Daves and Dirty Harrys out there, NOT urban Wells-ian hipsters at the Landmark).

This May we'll see how multiplexes react to the "al Qaeda" sequences in Iron Man.

comment #21

Beaucoul says ...

I've been wondering...
Does the Cloverfield monster actually bite the head off the Statue of Liberty and then spit it out so that it lands on a street in the upper-east side?

Is this revealed in the movie?