And, since I’m posting, let me sneak in with a little pedantic nitpick: “Shakycam” is not seasickness; on a boat, your body feels motion, but your eyes see [relative] calm. Watching a movie (or a first-person shooter video game), it’s the opposite effect. I’ve heard it dubbed “VR-sickness,” but I don’t know if that’s a widely accepted term. I do not suffer from seasickness at all (and tours of duty in a 350’ destroyer in the North Atlantic would have cured me of it if I did), but I absolutely cannot watch or play first person shooters. I have Oblivion, but ten minutes of playing makes me queasy.
I don’t understand this shakicam business. Does anyone actually like it?
All this advertising saturation and marketing can mean only one thing…
the movie’s gonna suck. Dark City had pretty freaking awesome trailers too. Does anyone even remember that movie?
didn’t think so.
It can be good when used in moderation, like in the “storming the beach” sequence in Saving Private Ryan, but I’m not a fan of it when used for an entire film. I’m sure part of that is due to my tendency toward “motion sickness” when watching some films/video games that use “shakycam” and/or 3-D.
What? Dark City was pretty good, and well reviewed. Surely you meant something else?
I don’t remember ever seeing a trailer for Dark City, but the movie was great, and is well remembered by people who saw it. Are you sure you’re not thinking of a different movie with a similar title?
I’ll be seeing Cloverfield tomorrow morning. The initial reviews have all mentioned the shaky camera. If I’d made it, I would have considered using doing something about that. Aren’t there some digital cameras with an electronic pseudo-steadicam feature that smooths out shaking? If there aren’t, I’d just use a steadicam and pretend. (Maybe have just enough shakiness to give a documentary feel.)
The whole movie is first person right? So the events happen in realtime-ish order.
In the trailer all the kids are alerted to the danger by destruction and explosions in the city. So time must pass before the go in to investigate.
Then, in the trailer, cut to the scene of the head of the SoL being tossed around like a tennis ball. But wouldn’t the monster already be in the city by that point?
Did it enter the city, attack (alerting party-goers who go investigate), run out to the island to snag to SoL’s head to throw it, then return again for some more disaster?
Ah, you’ve read my manifesto, then.
But now I’m thinking of adding a supplemental invasion on the homes of people who don’t like Dark City.
(Haven’t seen it yet, so this is just a WAG)
Maybe the monster carried the head of the statue around for a little bit, or it was caught on one of its claws or spikes and shaken off once it hit Manhattan…
Understandable.
Everybody wants a souvenir. I’ve got a couple of SoL heads myself at home. But they’ve still got little SoL bodies underneath.
Apologies for crapping on your post, but for some obscene reason I read your post and thought:
*"SoL heds
ur duing it rong"*
Kill me now.
It is a little confusing. The actual sequence of events is…
- Several characters are on a balcony trying to cheer up one of them who has just had a fight with his girlfriend. There is an explosion in the distance.
- Everyone goes inside and turns on a TV where they see a news report stating that a tanker has overturned in the harbor. Everyone decides to go to the roof to see if they can see anything.
- Nothing happens on the roof at first, then there is another explosion somewhere in the city. Chunks of debris start falling around them.
- Everyone runs down to the street (as debris continues to smash into the building).
- They have just arrived in the street when the head of the statue crashes near them.
- Penis ensues
So either the critter carried the head around with it for a while, or it did something in the harbor, came into the city a bit then went back out long enough to punt the Statue of Liberty around before returning to the city for more carnage.
Unless there is more than one critter.
Or, maybe it happened that way just because it made a better scene.
If there was any nuking, we might see a sequel about Mutant Whatevers!
So, what you’re saying is the monster came to New York to get a little head?
:Runs ouf of thread as if the monster was chasing me!:
I’m Confused… why would only one camera survive as the only record wouldn’t there have been every news agency with helecopters and any piece of footage they could get off of you know cell phones and any field guy with a satelite dish?
Seems to me they could have padded out the film by making it a mocumentary including those “live feeds”
At least it avoids a total shakey cam film and the silly premise that someone, no matter what, is always holding their camera to record the event.
I saw it at midnight last night and loved it. It was everything I hoped it would be but thought they wouldn’t have the balls to do - a pure verite giant monster movie with no explanation of what’s happening, no resolution, no stunts or magnificent escapes, no eleventh-hour save, just pure chaos and confusion. It’s about as realistic an approach to a “Godzilla movie” as possible.
My only real complaint was that the monster was a little too humanized - its face was expressing emotion and so on. I kind of wish it had just been completely foreign and alien.
Yep; carrying it around. . . talking to it . . . alternately kissing it and crying enormous monster tears. Deeply painful issues going back to childhood.
laugh I agree, Dark City is an fantastic movie! I can’t even imagine why anyone would use that as an example of a bad movie.
laugh Mutant mutants!
No one said this was the only camera that survived and it was the only record. The movie is just the footage from this particular camera, as part of a government archive. Obviously there are tons of cameras going throughout the ordeal, and lots of footage elsewhere in the archive. You even see others recording, and using their cell phones to take pictures. Also, at one point the characters go into an electronics store that’s being looted to get a cell phone battery. They stand there and watch TV news footage of the monster and parasites being fought by the army. The footage is both from the ground and from news helicopters.
Well, that would have been another movie, not this one.
The lead character says right after things start happening that ‘we have to get this on camera, people will want to know how it went down’ so it was explained why they kept the camera with them, though I think I would have dropped and forgot about it several times over.
How funny. I thought the exact same thing.
The movie was pretty good. I couldn’t take the shakycam in Blair Witch, but I could deal with it in this picture. I wanted more payoff with the monster. I wanted to see scenes of actual destruction. Through it all, the monster was only slightly more than hinted at. I wanted to see some extended monster shots.
And I couldn’t tell what happened with Marlena. And did they show what happened to Jason, or just mention it afterwards?
I did feel sort of sad about the ultimate fate. I guess that has to be considered successful filmmaking.
I thought the monster reveals were perfectly paced. We gradually got more and more building to us being in the middle of an action scene with it.
The shakiness was a bit much. On the other hand, the poor choice of angles and subjects was done very well. Sometimes they let it be a bit more focused than it should be for the sake of storytelling but it was good.
It was very ambiguous. The person I saw it with thinks they may have shot her because she was infected. I think they were trying to save her life but it was too late and the splatter was her projectile vomiting blood. Both interpretations can certainly be supported.