Cloverfield is a waste of time

From the guys that brought you Lost comes the new, hit movie "Cloverfield". Which, I'm sorry to say, is a really really bad movie.

It's a retread of the terrible monster attacks New York City, but told from the perspective of the most annoying people in the city.

Cloverfield suffers from all the things a movie can suffer from. It offers a putrid potpourri of bad casting, bad acting, bad script, bad direction, and pointedly abysmal camera-work. It's not scary, haunting, or disturbing and since the main characters are all pretty awful, I was never all that sad to see them go.

I generally conceive of movies as stories told through acting and camera-work. The general framework of a story is something like: protagonist is introduced, a problem is discovered, the problem is examined, and finally the problem is resolved. I think that JJ Abrams (the producer of this movie -- and also Lost) has realized that the hardest part of story-telling is those last two parts.

The easiest part is the beginning bit. Because we movie goers are a bunch of curious monkeys. We see just a little of something or get a hint of motivation here or there and we're hooked. We want to know what happens, how it ends up. But when you've posited a giant octopus-monster in the middle of Manhattan, it's kinda hard to come up with legitimate explanations that will satisfy the audience. So instead of trying to explain anything, just keep bringing up new and weirder questions. Bring up so many questions that the original questions are forgotten or seem insignificant.

Like Lost before it, Cloverfield is an extension of this methodology. It's a monster movie with no real monster, with no development and no resolution. There's no story, just teaser and nauseating camera-work.

A brief synopsis...

Political Sticks and Stones

I'm not sure if my dear readers have been following the goings on in Iowa or New Hampshire. I will admit, I myself have been having a hard time following along. Not particularly because I am unsure of who to support in this election, but mainly because the coverage is currently 100% focussed on the he-said-she-said.

Take this front-page blurb on the New York Times (my paper of record).

G.O.P. Debate Is a Slugfest
After taking a pounding on Saturday, Mitt Romney struck back with a vengeance on Sunday.

Um, struck back? Did he actually hit Mike Huckabee with a stick? Unfortunately, no. The article details a Republican debate in New Hampshire, where apparently, Romney said critical things about his opponents. Dog bites man, much?

There's another article about a speech Bill Clinton gave on behalf of his wife's campaign. According to the reporter, the speech was poorly attended and Bill was sleepy. And this is news, how?

I don't care how Obama is polling among dark-haired factory workers ages 22 to 37, and I don't care if Bill Clinton's suits were laundered at tremendous expense. I am vaguely interested in the candidates demeanor, but only a little. What I want to know, and what I want from the New York Times, is the candidates plans for their Presidency.

And I want specifics.

You support a withdrawal from Iraq... That's a meaningless statement unless it's associated with a date and a specific plan for how we're going to move all those men and equipment and not cause chaos as we go.

You support universal healthcare... how are you going to pay for it? How are you going to guarantee that this doesn't become a federal subsidy of the insurance industry?

You want to crack down on illegal immigration... (well you're a jerk) But how will you ensure that the crack-down is not abused? Where will we find the millions of people our economy needs to work smoothly?

You want to improve America's relations with the rest of the world... How do you intend to do that? What countries do you think we need to focus on? And what are the issues we need to address to assuage the fears of our friends and neighbors?

It's not that hard. I have been sitting here for fifteen minutes and I have already asked seven questions about issues that are commonly addressed by the candidates and which I haven't seen answered in the press.

Maybe I missed the part of the campaign where the candidates flushed out their views on the myriad issues that face this country today. And those views are now so clear and universally well-known that putting them in the newspaper would seem redundant. Since now they've moved on to making detailed big charts of where the candidates are spending their television advertising money. Woop-de-frickin-do.