Cloverfield

The primary reason I went to this movie was to see for myself what "it" was before someone spoiled it for me. Now this doesn't get me into all movies, I don't go see any of those horror or slasher type films, but there was something about "Cloverfield's" ad campaign that worked on me. Hopefully if you plan on seeing this film you are smart enough not to read any further because it is impossible to really discuss this film without giving away some important details... The best aspect of this film was how from start to finish our only perspective was from one hand-held camera. Some films have attempted this feel, some have used it as a gimmick, but "Cloverfield" used it convincingly as a storytelling device. Of course you will question how realistic it would be that one person would have so many incidents occur to him in one night, and conveniently he had the camera running the whole time without the battery running out. But then with so many cameras running on any given night of course we would watch the most interesting footage. This film took your typical Godzilla monster movie and told it from a ground level point of view. It did this with convincing, unrecognizable actors who were interesting to spend the time with. The special effects worked well,and were probably most effective considering we only could see them through the lens of a small hand-held digital camera. Usually we would feel jipped if we didn't get clear steady shots of what is going on and what is doing it. But in the context of this film (as in "The Blair Witch Project") there is an explination, and it's actually more scary because we know that's how it would feel to us if we were there too. In closing, there were two things that stuck out that did bother me. First, if you go ito a store, break open a battery package and put it in you phone, won't you have to charge it before you can use it? Also, I think in this kind of film it would have been better to leave some things unseen. Usually what is left to our imagination is far scarier than anything digital artists can create.