In the world of cinema, New York has taken a pounding. It must be the most devastated city in movie history. They've faced the lot. You've got aliens blowing up the Empire State Building in Independence Day while asteroids shower the city in both Armageddon and Deep Impact. A.I: Artificial Intelligence sees it submerged in water and in The Day After Tomorrow it's buried in snow. Godzilla smashed up the place in the mid nineties and that gigantic randy ape King Kong has visited three times. A derelict Statue of Liberty pops up in The Planet of the Apes as a reminder of the age of man. Hell even the last film I saw in 2007, the loose adaptation of the book of the same name, I Am Legend had New York as a starting point for an apocalyptic virus. If I was New York I'd take this personally as Richard Matheson's novel is actually set in California.
Yesterday I went to see the next cinematic contender to take on New York, Cloverfield. It's pretty much a monster film from the perspective of Joe Public following characters that act how you imagine you might in such strange circumstances. Without wanting to add to the already enormous amount of hype surrounding the release, I have to admit I found the film fantastic. I'd even goes as far as to say it was more of an experience then a film, one I found exhilarating. I left the cinema with my heart still racing. The film is packed full of intense set pieces particularly the first couple of times you see glimpses of the beast. There's plenty of jaw dropping images of destruction made all the more potent by my recent visit to New York. In a strange similarity we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and filmed the journey with a digital camera as they do in Cloverfield. Our footage is freakishly alike although our stroll wasn't interupted by a creature of the deep. As you probably know it's all filmed on the shaky hand held digital camera which can lead to some feelings of nausea. As I purchased my ticket the lady asked me to read a note stating those watching the film could experience a motion sickness similiar to riding a rollercoaster. I took some time in getting use to this, it's far more heavy going then The Blair Witch Project. The monster itself is rarely seen, a technique that works so well in modern classics such as Jaws and Alien but is somewhat lost on a lot of people today. I've read comments on Internet forums saying things like "the film is rubbish, you never see the monster" or "it's rubbish there's no blood in it". I suppose when gruesome franchises like Hostel and Saw score big in the Box Office it perhaps shows that people are beginning to think that horrors have to be taboo breaking to be considered an entertaining film. A thought scarier than any scary movie.
I've heard people criticise the film for being overhyped. Definitely a fair comment but come on, everything is overhyped these days. Take the second series of Channel Four's Skins, you'd think it was a television masterpiece and not what it is, a creepy show about sixteen years olds having it off thats predomintely watched by over thirties. Every other ad break on Channel Four, More 4 and E4 has some sort of reference to it while bus stops and billboards alike are covered with images of the 'stars' of this piece of shit programme. Then look at the Dave channel who are currently running trailers for the television premier of Bottom Live. "See Bottom as you've never seen it before" says the man proudly on the trailer, geniuningly expecting us to be excited by it. It's bloody fifteen years old, older than most of the cast of Skins.
