I am your Holy Totem/I am your Sick Taboo

Going to jot this off right now, while it's still fresh.
If you're going to see Cloverfield, see it in theatres.

SPOILER ALERT: CLOVERFIELD REVIEW AHEAD.

Ok?

Nate, rememer when you started giving me spoiler warnings for things you were doing in every day life? Maybe one of your finest moments. I sometimes find myself, when sitting alone, looking up and saying: "Spoiler warning: I'm going to get up and eat a cookie now."

Anyway. Cloverfield.





You've heard most of it before: don't see it while hung over. DON'T see it drunk. REALLY DON'T see it on any kind of hallucinogen.

I thought it was a well crafted, very intense, very interesting experience, or even "Thearical Event", if you will. It utilized film, without necisarily being a "movie" or "major motion picture". Which I think is awesome.

The reality was nicely done, the party at the beginning was wonderful for establishing the normalcy of the day, and the initial reactions especially were dead on---captured the excitment/panic/fear/etc of an intense situation like that perfectly.

After finishing the movie, there was nothing I wanted to do more than curl up with someone and just lie there for a while. It was that kind of come-down at the end. Unfortunatly, as I am somewhat cut off down here in Gambier, I settled for a Klondike. Man--chocolate and ice cream as emotional therapy? I might as well hand in my Y chromasome.

It was absolutly worth seeing it in the theatre.
I think possibly two of the most powerful moments for me were:

a) of course, when the main guy's phone rings in the subway. He looked at it and was upset, looked again, then finally answered---I was really unsure of what was going on, because I figured it was the girl----then, when he said "Hi Mom." in that voice, I just lost it. They could have even ended the dialogue there, and it would have been great---just the combination of the build up, then that line---it was very well played.

b) when you look back at the girl who's been bitten, and she's bleeding out of her eye, and someone yells "we've got a bite!"---and then everything that follows. I almost heaved with the screen bit, but the rest as well---something about how clinical the yell was, the controled panic, like it had been happening for a while.

There were many other good/touching/etc parts, but those are sticking out right now.
All in all, it very much reminded me of the experience of seeing "Black Hawk Down" in theatres----the intensity, the "reality" of it.

Also, in the end, as the credits came up, there was absolute silence in the theatre---noone moved. A very, very cool thing that you get so infrequently in movies. A few people made joked immediatly after, possibly to cover up---and one lone voice pipes up in the middle of the silence:

"Did they make it?"

Solid gold.

END REVIEW

So, I think I may go watch "Rise of the Silver Surfer", just so I can go to sleep with everything turning out alright. I've got a malaise of loneliness and general fear right now that I don't really want to take with me.

Whew. Go see the movie, folks. Won't be as good when it's off the big screen.

I'm also, for whatever reason, reminded of the song "Stray Bullet" by KMFDM (quoted in the title). Dunno.