Flats is at it again.
The State of America #5: Cloverfield
Some mornings you wake up feeling great. Sun isn’t up yet, nice spring breeze coming in through the window. You’re thinking of heading to the beach with your girl, perhaps Coney Island for a cheeseball day of boardwalk time and hard rock beers in the sun. You wake and find this new DV camera you just got and film some shit, how great you’re feeling. How good things are. You woke up at your girls’ place. She’s beautiful, the kind of beautiful that hurts inside when you look at her. You walk around her place and take it all in with your new camera. The camera bounces as you walk. You don’t mind. You’re happy. You walk into her room and your beautiful girl is naked in bed, wrapped up in a sheet and light spring blanket and the sun is just creeping into the day. She wakes and smiles at you. She’s happy to see you. She really is. Fuck, it’s a good day.
And then it ends. Doesn’t it always? Sure you go to Coney and have a great day. But you’re a fucking idiot and you push her away, don’t let her get in close after that one day. Or many days like that. Your guard rises and you insist on fucking it up. And then a fucking monster attacks Manhattan and you realize you should have been better to her.
Ain’t it the same story as ever? Poor bastard realizes he’s in love. Aliens attack. Difference here is that it’s all shot through the POV of the damn digital camera that he used that one morning. And there’s an idiot running the fucking thing who can’t keep it straight. Never been so close to vomiting as watching this movie. Motion sickness. There’s not a still shot in the entire thing. This is why there are Directors of Photography, and why they make tons of money. You watch this menace to your stomach and realize DP’s deserve every single penny they get. If all movies were shot by douchebags, theaters would be nastier than the shit cans in East Village Bars on a Sunday morning. Realize that it’s all intentional, that it is the singular Youtube ‘everyone is a filmmaker’ idea of the film, which The Blair Witch Project already did, but the only things in frame were trees and sniveling kids so it didn’t matter, you got it. There was nothing catastrophic in frame to see. Cloverfield is all exploding buildings, aliens, air strikes, things you want to focus on but can’t, not without a puddle of stew in your lap.
If you’ve forgotten about 9/11 and the news footage that went with it, Cloverfield did the intense recreation for our frenzied pop culture. There was the building collapsing on itself, the massive dust clouds engulfing the streets, the now fatal coughing, and the masses trekking over the Brooklyn Bridge, all very original for those who don’t remember. And yes, everything was caught on a shaky ass camcorder.
What does any of it mean? Better kiss your loved one and treat her with an open heart, because apparently the rest of the world can’t wait to see Manhattan burn. Again. And again. And again. And that means you’ll be dead, unless you live in Brooklyn.
