Cloverfield - Is this the worst rubbish on RTE 2 in decades?

Judgement Day

Rare time that I have the TV on without a DVD and this utter tripe comes on. Looks like something that was produced by a FAS scheme. Rubbish plot, crap acting and the hand held camera style is so bad as to almost make it unwatchable. Clever - I think not. Anybody else enjoy endure it?

al28283

yea, one of the best examples of vfx of recent years. Almost completely shot on green screen yet nobody ever notices.One of the best VFX movies of the last 10 years.
As a movie though, I love how you get drawn into the drama of it and forget it's a monster movie until the monster attacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT_yh1r3cQg

Bullseye1

It was shot that way for a reason. I quite enjoyed it at the cinema. I know alot of people suffered from motion sickness because of the shaky-cam.

red dave

Judgement Day wrote: »

Rare time that I have the TV on without a DVD and this utter tripe comes on. Looks like something that was produced by a FAS scheme. Rubbish plot, crap acting and the hand held camera style is so bad as to almost make it unwatchable. Clever - I think not. Anybody else enjoy endure it?

You're complaining that one of the biggest blockbuster movies released (whenever it came out) is actually been shown on rte 2?

I'm no fan of what's shown on Irish tv by any means, however I'd commend rte for showing a "blockbuster".

Fwiw I enjoyed enjoyed the movie in the cinema.

Aldebaran

Cloverfield is a great little movie, even if it didn't quite live up to it's amazing teaser trailer.

And if you think it's the worst thing that has been on RTE2 in decades then you've obviously never seen anything starring Katherine Lynch.

longhalloween

I'm didn't really like the movie, but you have to commend them for doing something different.

The camera style is very relevant since when ANYTHING happens people seem compelled to record it.

I don't know if you're having a go at RTE but it was a very popular film so why shouldn't they show it??

JonathanAnon

I'd pretty much agree with Red Dave.. The movie WAS huge at the time.. It was sort of Blair Witch with an alien invasion... Certainly wasnt a "great" movie but worthy of the promotion that RTE are giving it.

jayteecork

longhalloween wrote: »

I'm didn't really like the movie, but you have to commend them for doing something different.

The camera style is very relevant since when ANYTHING happens people seem compelled to record it.

I don't know if you're having a go at RTE but it was a very popular film so why shouldn't they show it??

"Different"?

lol.
This and Blair Witch and Paranormal activity and all the other "lost footage" stuff are all ripped off from Cannibal Holocaust which was released in 1980.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibal_Holocaust

Judgement Day

red dave wrote: »

You're complaining that one of the biggest blockbuster movies released (whenever it came out) is actually been shown on rte 2?

I'm no fan of what's shown on Irish tv by any means, however I'd commend rte for showing a "blockbuster".

Fwiw I enjoyed enjoyed the movie in the cinema.

I'm a movie fan and I'd never even heard of it before but perhaps I have an inbuilt BS detector which means I don't notice when such rubbish is released. Anyway according to a lot of the reviews at the Internet Movie Database here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/reviews I'm not alone in my opinions of this poor quality 'home movie'.

expectationlost

stupidest monster ever

OctavarIan

Judgement Day wrote: »

Looks like something that was produced by a FAS scheme. Rubbish plot, crap acting and the hand held camera style is so bad as to almost make it unwatchable. Clever - I think not. Anybody else enjoy endure it?

The plot is perfect considering the point of view of the movie. Do you really think a bunch of young adults running around NYC during a monster attack would have any idea what was going on? Same reason the camera is so shaky. It might be a monster movie but there was an attempt to be as realistic as possible.

Judgement Day

Well, even if you put the crap acting and plot to one side, the clever dire camera work was unreal. I used to make super 8 movies myself and anything as bad as this rubbish would have gone in the bin. The style of camera work is like a lot of so-called modern art that the great unwashed like me are not sufficiently evolved to appreciate.

Minstrel27

I hated this film when it was released.

al28283

Judgement Day wrote: »

Well, even if you put the crap acting and plot to one side, the clever dire camera work was unreal. I used to make super 8 movies myself and anything as bad as this rubbish would have gone in the bin. The style of camera work is like a lot of so-called modern art that the great unwashed like me are not sufficiently evolved to appreciate.

It's not modern art, it's modern entertainment. Personally I think Schindler's List is pretty short on laughs but that's not the point of it.
If you're watching Cloverfield and hoping for modern art of course you're going to be let down. It is Godzilla, nothing more.

Mindkiller

It's an ok film. I remember when LOST was finishing up people were speculating that the smoke monster might turn out to be the Cloverfield monster if it escaped the island. Would have been a cool revelation.

al28283

Mindkiller wrote: »

It's an ok film. I remember when LOST was finishing up people were speculating that the smoke monster might turn out to be the Cloverfield monster if it escaped the island. Would have been a cool revelation.

Nah, the cloverfield monster was woken by the falling satelite that you see crashing at the very end of the movie. It belonged to the japanese corporation the the main character was leaving new york to go work for.

OctavarIan

Judgement Day wrote: »

Well, even if you put the crap acting and plot to one side, the clever dire camera work was unreal. I used to make super 8 movies myself and anything as bad as this rubbish would have gone in the bin. The style of camera work is like a lot of so-called modern art that the great unwashed like me are not sufficiently evolved to appreciate.

Cloverfield would have definitely been an idea for the bin back in the days of super 8. It's main theme is that of this generation's ability (and somewhat irritating desire) to document everything. Hence why the beginning of the film is mundane social garbage filmed by egotistical young new yorkers :-P

I can totally see why the style isn't everyone's cup of tea, but objectively speaking the premise of the film is sound.

It also had a lot of cool viral marketing.

johnny_ultimate

The word 'worst' is thrown around a lot these days.

I remember the days when the label was reserved for genuinely appalling pieces of work. Whether it be films entirely devoid of a basic understanding of the medium (Manos: The Hands of Fate). Films with hilariously misguided intentions (Reefer Madness). Or films that are offensive to every race, creed and gender imaginable (Transformers 2).

Cloverfield? Bad? Arguably. Mediocre? Certainly. Watchable? Probably. Deserving of superlatives positive or negative? Never.

TheReverend

Personaly I thought it was one of the best monster movies to come out recently, the story focusing around the guy trying to find his girlfriend kinda sucked but the monster, its story and the ARG were awesome

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The word 'worst' is thrown around a lot these days.

I remember the days when the label was reserved for genuinely appalling pieces of work. Whether it be films entirely devoid of a basic understanding of the medium (Manos: The Hands of Fate). Films with hilariously misguided intentions (Reefer Madness). Or films that are offensive to every race, creed and gender imaginable (Transformers 2).

Cloverfield? Bad? Arguably. Mediocre? Certainly. Watchable? Probably. Deserving of superlatives positive or negative? Never.

ah now, manos: hands of fate is an unrecognised classic

johnny_ultimate

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

ah now, manos: hands of fate is an unrecognised classic

A comedy classic, certainly.

But I think the fact that they either or ran out of resources to or plain forgot to include credits sets the standard for things to come. Luckily old Torgo alongside his master with a fondness for stick waving make it fascinatingly dreadful.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0_f5fkrCTA

weeder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83CMofE7Zg

don ramo

OMG RTE actually went out of there way and showed a good movie, the balls on them to be doing things like that, :rolleyes:

krudler

Judgement Day wrote: »

I'm a movie fan and I'd never even heard of it before but perhaps I have an inbuilt BS detector which means I don't notice when such rubbish is released. Anyway according to a lot of the reviews at the Internet Movie Database here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/reviews I'm not alone in my opinions of this poor quality 'home movie'.

you're clearly not. one of the best marketed movies of 2008 made by the creator of one of the biggest tv shows ever and you'd never heard of it? my bs detector just broke its needle.

Judgement Day

krudler wrote: »

you're clearly not. one of the best marketed movies of 2008 made by the creator of one of the biggest tv shows ever and you'd never heard of it? my bs detector just broke its needle.

I suppose I should have prefaced that with good movie fan. I also like nothing more than alien/monster/sci-fi type movies but quality ones like 'The Earth dies screaming', 'Day of the Triffids', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', 'War of the Worlds' (not the rubbish Tom Cruise one), Alien, Predator, Total Recall, etc.etc. but Cloverfield is typical of the sort of nonsense that people are afraid to criticise less they be branded fuddy duddies or worse. Mind you I shouldn't be surprised by the response here given that most of you seem think that 'Lost' was good.

krudler

Judgement Day wrote: »

I suppose I should have prefaced that with good movie fan. I also like nothing more than alien/monster/sci-fi type movies but quality ones like 'The Earth dies screaming', 'Day of the Triffids', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', 'War of the Worlds' (not the rubbish Tom Cruise one), Alien, Predator, Total Recall, etc.etc. but Cloverfield is typical of the sort of nonsense that people are afraid to criticise less they be branded fuddy duddies or worse. Mind you I shouldn't be surprised by the response here given that most of you seem think that 'Lost' was good.

I never said Lost was good, I said it was one of the biggest tv shows ever, which it was. Only saw the pilot episode and a few mins of others ones, never got into it.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Judgement Day wrote: »

I suppose I should have prefaced that with good movie fan. I also like nothing more than alien/monster/sci-fi type movies but quality ones like 'The Earth dies screaming', 'Day of the Triffids', 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', 'War of the Worlds' (not the rubbish Tom Cruise one), Alien, Predator, Total Recall, etc.etc. but Cloverfield is typical of the sort of nonsense that people are afraid to criticise less they be branded fuddy duddies or worse. Mind you I shouldn't be surprised by the response here given that most of you seem think that 'Lost' was good.

hrmmmmm.........

Mindkiller

No-one's afraid to criticise Cloverfield. It polarised critics at release but it most definitely doesn't deserve to be lumped with the worst. It was an interesting experiment at the very least (the genre-mashing of typical monster film and found footage that is)

S.M.B.

Mindkiller wrote: »

No-one's afraid to criticise Cloverfield. It polarised critics at release but it most definitely doesn't deserve to be lumped with the worst. It was an interesting experiment at the very least (the genre-mashing of typical monster film and found footage that is)

Exactly, add in the 9/11 parallels and you can't deny that it's an interesting concept to begin with.

One could argue how successful it was in trying to meld those aspects together.

I liked it but I'm not one of those shaky-cam/lost footage naysayers that seem to be very vocal these days.

mike65

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

hrmmmmm.........

Total Recall is a brilliant popcorn blockbuster, Cloverfield is actually a technically superb film and very hard to knock if you "get" what its doing (even if the characters are initially a right "Blackberry clasping, loft living" pain in the ass) and just 90 minutes long for which much thanks.

MagicMarker

Judgement Day wrote: »

I'm a movie fan and I'd never even heard of it before but perhaps I have an inbuilt BS detector which means I don't notice when such rubbish is released. Anyway according to a lot of the reviews at the Internet Movie Database here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/reviews I'm not alone in my opinions of this poor quality 'home movie'.

You call yourself a movie fan but you've never heard of Cloverfield, which was one of the biggest movies at the time it came out?

Personally I think it's a crap movie, but that's just loltastic.

Wertz

I don't think I've ever seen the end of Cloverfield...what was it, some sort of dinosaur or something?

The southpark take on it held my attention longer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yk2ijYrLoI

But blaming RTE for showing it? Bit of a stretch... just be glad you didn't hand over a tenner to see it on the silver screen...

Judgement Day

MagicMarker wrote: »

You call yourself a movie fan but you've never heard of Cloverfield, which was one of the biggest movies at the time it came out?

Personally I think it's a crap movie, but that's just loltastic.

I already covered this in post #26 - I'm a 'good' movie fan not a movie gricer/twitcher/spotter/buff. I don't go to the cinema to see the latest hyped up piece of garbage and have long since given up reading newspapers so perhaps that's why I hadn't heard of Cloverfield.

This month I have already watched the following mainly recent additions to my own DVD collection:

Billion Dollar Brain (1966)
Funeral in Berlin (1964)
Violent Enemy (1967)
3.10 to Claremorris (2010)
Edge of Darkness (2010)
Doctor Who Series 3
The Bourne Identity
Titanic (1997)

plus more kids movies than I care to remember.

Richard Dower

Cloverfield is almost my perfect monster movie, loved it!

Judgement Day

Richard Dower wrote: »

Cloverfield is almost my perfect monster movie, loved it!

Why? Seriously. Buy yourself a digital camera and make your own - it couldn't be any worse.

I particularly like this review from IMD - one of many in a similar vein.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/reviews?start=10


Makes Godzilla 1998 look good!, 17 January 2008

Author: onefastSTi from Tampa, FL
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This has got to be the worst monster movie I have ever seen! Wait, not worst monster movie, worst MOVIE PERIOD! The whole movie is laughable. I sat there in the theater and wanted to know if and when anything was going to start. First, it take almost 25 minutes before this movie even starts to get interesting, and after all of the useless banter of party guests and drunken camera wedding style say "hi" to Rob before he goes to Japan B.S., things start to happen, but slowly. And let me tell you that they could have just use the footage from the trailer and skip about 20 of the most boring minutes of the whole film. That feeling of initial excitement is short lived. As you keep watching nothing happens that keeps your interest. Second, the monster, you get little glimpses of it until about 60-70 minutes into the film, and you get a very big disappointment, it's not Godzilla, a T-Rex, or anything that is even remotely familiar, fun or scary. It looks like someone put the body parts in the wrong places. And it's offspring, there are only three spots in the film that they are even used, as if an after thought. They are used to make two extremely boring parts of the movie more exciting, and it fails miserably. Obviously used to make a short film a tad bit longer. They even look like they where stolen them from Starship Troopers. Both monster and offspring are so underdeveloped, that they just don't work together. If JJ Abrams brought anything back from Japan, it wasn't how to make a monster movie. I'll tell you this, the Japanese are laughing at us all over again! There will be no Cloverfield monster for sale at every little store like all the Godzilla's all over Japan. JJ, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez called! They want their cameras back, they want to start filming Blair Witch 3! In short, I know, too late, DO NOT WAIST YOUR MONEY ON THIS FILM! The best part of the movie was the ride home.

al28283

That was a pretty awful review to be honest. And with your recent posts you're starting to come off as a bit pretentious, just trying to show off how cool you are by liking "good movies".

Richard Dower

al28283 wrote: »

That was a pretty awful review to be honest. And with your recent posts you're starting to come off as a bit pretentious, just trying to show off how cool you are by liking "good movies".

Pretty much likr Johnny Ultimate...movie snob.

Mindkiller

I don't think Cloverfield is a particularly good movie but that's a terrible review. It's rambling and incoherent. Doesn't put across a particularly convincing argument for this movie being ****. 'Oh, the monster is dumb looking. Where's my instant gratification.. bleh'

johnny_ultimate

Richard Dower wrote: »

Pretty much likr Johnny Ultimate...movie snob.

Why thanks Richard. I'd rather be a snob than have **** taste

Richard Dower

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'd rather be a snob than have **** taste

**awaits forum ban**

S.M.B.

Mindkiller wrote: »

I don't think Cloverfield is a particularly good movie but that's a terrible review. It's rambling and incoherent. Doesn't put across a particularly convincing argument for this movie being ****. 'Oh, the monster is dumb looking. Where's my instant gratification.. bleh'

You talking about the review or the OP there?

Richard Dower

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Why thanks Richard. I'd rather be a snob than have **** taste

Be thankful i didn't call you a douchebag

NorthDubSteve

I have to say that Cloverfield was one of the biggest let downs of recent years for me, looked so great on the ads (as most movies do I suppose).
But personally I hated it, found almost all the characters very annoying and wanted them to be eaten/crushed from minute 1.

Richard Dower

S.M.B. wrote: »

You talking about the review or the OP there?

Bazinga!

Basq

Richard Dower wrote: »

**awaits forum ban**

Rich..

You can't refer to someone as a "movie snob" and not expect a response.

Truth be told - you're the one who deserves the ban for making the initial comment.

But I'm in a good mood, so I'll let it slide.

Back on topic!

Richard Dower

Basq wrote: »

Rich..

You can't refer to someone as a "movie snob" and not expect a response.

Truth be told - you're the one who deserves the ban for making the initial comment.

But I'm in a good mood, so I'll let it slide.

Back on topic!

See, this is why i like the tv mods, they're cool peeps...i loathe the Films mods with a fiery passion of a billion suns.

red dave

I really enjoyed this in the cinema. It felt like an amusement ride. I watched it on tv over the Christmas and thought it was alright but definitely one for the cinema.

Judgement Day

Richard Dower wrote: »

Bazinga!

Well, when you're finished having your little chortle about my 'pretentious' taste in movies, and rambling posting style, perhaps you could tell us why Cloverfield is so amazing?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Judgement Day wrote: »

I'm a movie fan and I'd never even heard of it before but perhaps I have an inbuilt BS detector which means I don't notice when such rubbish is released. Anyway according to a lot of the reviews at the Internet Movie Database here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/reviews I'm not alone in my opinions of this poor quality 'home movie'.

!!??!

red dave

Judgement Day wrote: »

Well, when you're finished having your little chortle about my 'pretentious' taste in movies, and rambling posting style, perhaps you could tell us why Cloverfield is so amazing?

I keep forgetting this is in the "Television" forum... if it's about the movie should it not be in the "Film" forum