I just saw Cloverfield, but since this is a music blog, I don’t feel obligated to give you a full review. Still, I’m reminded of something that’s sometimes said at the Oscars. A movie star will introduce a category of award, such as editing or sound or music, by showing the audience a piece of film with and without that portion of the movie work in place. Well, I might like to see Cloverfield with the music in place to see if I like that better. Actually, I did like the movie, but it’s done as if it all came off a single camcorder tape. You’ve got to hand it to the moviemakers for figuring out how to insert the camera operator in the most opportune places to catch great views of all the action that moves the story along.
At the same time, you’re constantly aware of the lens which frames the entire movie and it makes it a bit tedious. And, even though most horror movies end without full resolution, the nature of this one makes it a little more unsatisfying at the sudden ending—or in the words of a loud patron in my particular showing—”What the f—” never mind.
The funny thing is that there actually is music at the end of the movie. That just frustrates me more. Like someone had the wherewithall to tell us in full detail who all made the movie—and why not set that to music—but they put that at the end of footage not worth tinkering with.
I appreciate the art of showing the unretouched details of a found object, but like with The Blair Witch Project, it’s not enough. In the case of Cloverfield, I would have loved it if, at minimum they’d followed the raw “camcorder” footage with regular movie footage of the people viewing the tape, even if it’s from a spaceship and they say, “So, that’s what happened to Earth.” Okay, so that’s a little bit lame, but you get the idea.
At least Cloverfield leaves no doubt as to what was happening to Manhattan. The Blair Witch Project ends with about 3 seconds of a confusing image that hardly concludes the story. I would love to see someone “redo” that movie and sort of couch the original footage in a documentary with a host and voice-overs and all that until the last 20 or 30 minutes of the movie, when in the present day, something new is discovered in the house or woods near it that makes the scare fresh.
