I took on your view many moons ago regarding CLOVERFIELD. Or, I disagree: A-.

My main problems with it were the poorly considered technical aspects. Not only of the script (EMP would have wiped out the digital media), but also of the terrible CGI. Rick Trembles wrote in his review that the viewer doesn't get a clear look at the monster. If only.

A very thoughtful analysis as always, Charles. I like that the movie takes a half-hour to get going, letting us just float among the characters for a while first (however unlikable they may be). Hostel was interesting in a similar way.

However, my own subjectivity suggests to me that these characters are rather clumsily falsified constructs. I would agree Reeves’ conceit is interesting, but to my taste, it suffers from fairly mediocre salesmanship. For all the shaky handheld digital camerawork, I was never swept into the illusion of these characters or their lives or their worries being real. And even if that weren’t the case, I object to the sudden coalescence of structure in the latter, main section of the film, with the characters journeying to the utmost heights of a ravaged skyscraper to save the bland protagonist’s ladylove (and what’s more, rather implausibly succeeding.) It gives the film a pungently cheesy whiff of "love conquers all!" while still catering to the horror crowd by killing the same characters off in the end anyway, but -- by that time -- more as a way to just seem bad-ass, vs. in actual service to any sort of realism.

Anyway, by the time they rescue the girl, the illusory proximity to reality – admittedly the film’s chief point of interest – has more or less been entirely compromised. It becomes just a bland adventure story, populated by annoying characters and defined by bad camerawork.

I’ll give the movie “well, at least it tried something unique.” In the monster movie genre, it’s certainly far from the worst. But what Cloverfield attempted could’ve been executed so much better. So the memory I most take away from the movie is one of frustration, at a fundamentally good idea showing a few brief winks of potential, but being mostly wasted.

As for the CGI, I thought it a little weak on the smaller creatures, though not *too* bad, and actually pretty good on the one or two brief glimpses we get of the full beast. So for me, the money shots worked fairly well, in and of themselves.

K

FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS - B

And I think I've already expressed myself on reviews that don't confine themselves to the film in question and just use it as a pretext for the reviewer to go on and on and on.

Mike

To summarize what I discussed there: (1) The relevance of its use of realism. (2) The film's relation to horror, how it measures up. (3) The film's subtextual implications. And (4) why people shouldn't dismiss the characters just because they're assholes. All of which you touch on here. In other words, I'm saying you're wrong "that it's thematically shallower than its progenitors from the 1950s."

Charles writes critiques, not reviews. The difference between the two answers your complaint that he didn't confine himself to the film in question.

++++++++++++

Subtext in genre films is entirely over done. More often than not, the subtext isn't the point of the film, but rather something added to lend an air of respectability to the gore/sex/violence. I've seen too many bad zombie movies of late to give a shit what societal ill the zombies are supposed to represent.

Some things I didn't touch on:

I thought the haute-bourgeoisie felt pretty accurate. What was pure conceit, I agree, was the way they all met up, the rescue and, I'll add, the "flashbacks" encoded into the camera. In terms of "direct realism" as a style for horror, the film isn't as good as BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. However, I don't think its structure is all that much more distracting than what appears in De Sica's neo-realism (not a defense, I suppose, since I'm no fan of his). In terms of politics and themes, I think it surpasses BWP. It would've been better without the stuff you mention, though, most definitely.

Ha, yeah. I think the political analysis of Romero's zombie films has had a negative impact on his more recent efforts. I do want to see PONTYPOOL, though, where the virus is spread linguistically.

G.I. JOE -- pre-alphabet
TRANSFORMERS 2 -- F
40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN -- C
PIERROT LE FOU -- A+
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR -- D