So here is the deal my loving public: I just accidentally deleted most of my review of the novelty hit Cloverfield. I am biiter, hungover, and hate this concept of reviewing everything media related I view. Whatsmore, Im already cheating because I didn’t write up the NPR I listened to yesterday and it pains me to admit I watched, let alone have to recap, viewing Wild Hogs. Yes Wild Hogs, sorry, I am a Ray Liotta completionist.

So Cloverfield, I will try to evoke the energy and enthusiasm I had writing this review the first time but I apologize, that comes but ones in a hungover lifetime.

Cloverfield opens with camcorder footage of someone looking down from a Manhattten skyrise in the wee hours of the morning. He goes on to toss strawberries in the mouth of his Victoria Secret looking friend, of whom he has just acquired the benefits of, and it is immediately clear to the audiecne that this mother must die. But here’s the catch, it takes 80 minutes plus a Lovecraft inspired monster for this dude to bite the big one. He could have just slipped on something!

I guess its verite week at Later Haters because cloverfield definitely meets the Wikipedia definition.
“a style of filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques that originated in documentary filmmaking, with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects.”
Yup, check, check, check. So lets take that up a notch and say that this is 9-11 inspired vertite. That’s right folk, you don’t make a movie about towers falling in NY city, people fleeing city blocks as clouds of smoky debris follow them in clip, and, uh, the triump of the human spirit? Any way, that’s right, the Cloverfield monster, with its endless reproduction of insect like splinter organisms, reckless hatred for america, and lack of a clear identity, is Al Queda. Duh.
But here is where forces collide. You are making a Blair Witch inspired movie, filmed in the first person, a giant monster is an abvious metaphore for the 9-11 attacks, and in which the camera operator keeps filming through the most dire situations and constantly reassures us “I’ve got to document this, people are going to want to know what happened.” All good, sort of, here’s the thing: no one grabbed a camera and filmed everything on 9/11. Nobody was really concerned about capturing the moment for posterity as towers were falling. It’s all wack.

Cloverfielf relies on the motivation that the guy filming from the skyrise on the opening scene was so incensed that his one time fling girlfriend brough another dude to his going away party -even though they hadn’t spoken since they fucked- that he had to journey back into the falling city. All good, except who fucking cares what happens to some flustered Abercrombie models? By films end I was sorry to see the awesome monster be killed by the totally egregious military…or was he? There is a sequel in the works, let’s not go and plant a tree instead.
My bitterness is revoked, I just found out Mathnet is on youtube and will be reviwed shortly. Here’s a teaser: