NOTE

[nfotxn]

Are people really dumb enough to take the Blair Witch bait twice? Ok so this time it's a monster in a city. With shaky camera work and viral marketing.

Honestly people. And then people are all quaint and respectful of Hollywood's right to make money on viral marketing by posting "NO SPOILERS!" even though the movie could quite possibly suck.

What I've surmised simply by existing is that it's a first hand account done with shaky camera work of a monster that attacks NYC. Apparently it's some cute baby monster that doesn't know any better! And oh good look below the frills it actually has a SHITTY SCRIPT AND POOR PREMISE.

It's like those "Fun surprise bags!" you used to get at the convenience store with the $2 you folks gave you to get candy. You knew it was fulla shit but there were rumours that 1-in-1000 had a video game in it.

Comments

[dizzi-d.livejournal.com]

The same could be said of entire genres of music.

I'm not so much about the blanket hating :)

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I'm totally hating on the viral marketing. I don't want to see the word Cloverfield because it's an intrusion on my day to day thinking. Some people may think that's neat but I think it's lame marketing and really don't want to deal with it, even if it has a half-life of a few weeks.

Lame, lame, lame.

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

Dear Brodie:

Couldn't you just go off and do a meme right now? I'm particularly interested in what color you are, or what your penis name is, or eight things that We Don't Know About You But Might Care About (Maybe).

Oh, SPOILER ALERT you can see the monster's eyeball reflected in the rear-view side door mirror on one of the cars in the street, just after Young Dude 1 goes back to Manhattan to rescue Cool Chick That He Hooked Up With! SRSLY!

Love,

Dan

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Let's just shut-up and enjoy our Fun Surprise Bags like good man-children. Fuck people are dumb and getting dumber.

[dizzi-d.livejournal.com]

Ah.

I forget that by not watching TV or listening to commercial radio, I'm utterly insulated from all of that.

The only marketing I got was word of mouth and some of the early interesting teasers.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Likewise, my RSS feeds were full of people excited to drop their $10 like a hot turd. But then unlike real movies nobody wanted to post about it. As I said it's this odd quaint respect from Hollywood's ability to make mad cash. Personally I'm allergic to viral marketing and can't deal with this shit as peripheral noise in my life. It's such artificial static for the sole purpose of intriguing people and making money. Can't we keep this crap relegated to movie posters and trailers? They work well for me. I like it that way.

[dizzi-d.livejournal.com]

I think I have to bow out of the discussion because I have no idea what you're talking about and that's never a good place to try and sound like I know what I'm talking about!

[woofmantoronto.livejournal.com]

"Are people really dumb enough to take the Blair Witch bait twice?"

Um ..Yep ..LOL And a lot of them from the looks of it:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=cloverfield.htm

I was just thinking about this the other day, that this movie was the Blair Witch of today. And this is all based on reviews and what people who saw it are saying. And they are all saying the same thing. The movie gives you a headache LMAO

I never saw Blair Witch as my Mom saw it and she said don't bother so I didn't. I don't think I'll bother seeing this one either LOL

I didn't see Blair Witch.

[whiskerfish.livejournal.com]

Are you calling me stupid?
I only paid $7.
Have you seen it?
I've seen far worse.

Now, because of you, I HATE EVERYTHING.

I'm gonna kick your ass (or whatever).

[pensivegargoyle.livejournal.com]

I was just peeved by the idea of a monster movie where you don't see the monster. What's the point?

[pamira2.livejournal.com]

I just found out about Cloverfield while watching CNN.

It was after the story about the stock market crashing because Heath Ledger dropped out of the Presidential race.

[fuzzbelly.livejournal.com]

Why is everybody talking about how lame Cloverfield is, when they could be watching Juno instead?

Why not Dallas

[poodler.livejournal.com]

What irks me is that these apocalyptic city movies are usually set in New York.

[dirtyglamour.livejournal.com]

For being as vitriolic as you are towards the movie, I hope you've seen it. Otherwise, I don't think what you're saying has any meaning at all, other than showing off your ability to look down your nose at something.

Re: Why not Dallas

[fuzzbelly.livejournal.com]

I think special fx for New York were on sale: Fantastic Four 2, Spiderman 3, I am Legend, etc.

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

Brodie - Why are you such an asshat sometimes?

"Are people really dumb enough to take the Blair Witch bait twice?"

Do you just thrive on negative attention with your shit stirring journal tactics? Jesus, you know that half yer friends list dug this movie. Why do you have to throw a statement like this and fucking Bob Dole review the thing? Is it just for the thrill? Really? I'm curious to know.

Ughh - I don't get you sometimes.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

So you're looking down your nose at me for not seeing a movie? Do you expect all your friends to own the same thing and drive the same cars to take them seriously? Because otherwise you're just a complacent marketing cog and I frankly respect you more than that.

[dirtyglamour.livejournal.com]

Whoa. I never said anything remotely like that...

But my thought is, if you're going to bash something, you should know what you're talking about. It's like me telling someone that I wanted to go to this music/art festival at some point..and then getting my throat jumped down by hipster douchebags telling me how 'played out' it is...and then learning that they themselves have NEVER even been to it. It's just really annoying, ok?

You're the one calling people on your friends list out as being stupid for 'falling' for some marketing scheme...when you yourself have no idea whether the movie was actually good or not...having never seen it.

[darke.livejournal.com]

you see it. pretty clearly and more than once.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Listen I take that shit back. I'm a stressed out puppy these days. I can't even make commentary on movies without making like a curmudgeon. Is it negative attention? Sure. But all things negative aren't horrible. There's a bit of theatre going on here too. And, christ I've been over this issue side I started here in 2001, my opinions are not a direct reflection on you. They're not even an accurate depiction of ME. They're fleeting thoughts of the moment on something largely meaningless and disposable.

These acccusations of me being some sort of troll or elitist are just as silly as me accusing others of being populist whores without any prickly opinions as not to offend. Its always my intention to ask people to think. Abd sometimes a difficult opinion is useful that way. Ironically when I made a joke by taking something you said too literally you called me out for being too literal. But here I am putting on curmudgeon about something you like and OMG who us heading the ad-hominen attack?

Do I have to always agree with you to be your friend?

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

Cloverfield's turning into the "Auntie Mame" of the bear crowd. Or maybe "The Women".

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I totally just emailed you about all of this...

Hells no you don't have to agree with me to be my friend. I don't want or need that. But I'm still going to reserve the right to call you an asshat now and then (please feel free to do the same of me).

Email will explain more.

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

shit stirrer...

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

:-P

[darke.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely certain I understand the angst towards the "viral marketing" of a movie like this. It wasn't on tv and it wasn't on the radio. You had to go looking for this stuff to be subjected to it. Most of it, in Cloverfield's case, was on MySpace pages for the main characters, Websites for the company Rob was going to work for and a "GreenPeace" kind of organization that was targeting them, as well a few youtube videos of things like a fake newscast of an oil rig getting destroyed. These aren't things that someone is forced to go looking for.

[barengeist.livejournal.com]

Hey the odds of getting a video game out of a "fun surprise bag" are way better than getting a video game out of this flick. Unless it is "Fail. The Shaky-Shaky Fail."

[dizzi-d.livejournal.com]

Huh. I never saw any of them :)

I don't even remember how I heard about the movie originally. It was just one of those "huh, that'll probably be good when it comes out" things that I stuck on my calendar and forgot about.

[boxingbud.livejournal.com]

"And oh good look below the frills it actually has a SHITTY SCRIPT AND POOR PREMISE." I felt the same...but you should add "including the world's worst camera man." I feel they played up the running with a camera too much. So we're left with a banal plot, spoiled two minutes in, interchangeable characters and the worst camera angles possible. I couldn't see crap. It's like blair witch, but more wobbly, less plot, less scares and less character.

[grimmlok.livejournal.com]

*shrug* I went for 3 reasons

1) I enjoy sci fi monster movies.

2) I found fusion of of street level involvement concept with said monster destroying city concept interesting.

3) I wanted to have a good time.


I didn't buy into "viral marketing" anymore than I buy into any advertisement for any product, I didn't research it endlessly, and afterwards I realized I had a fun time at the movies with a neat concept (one that you could apply to a whole spectrum of fun horror movie staples.. werewolves, zombies, giant arachnids) and it got my creative juices flowing.

Bout it. That's all I was expecting it to do, and got my monies worth. I'll save the deep film theory and applied criticism for something that's actually worth it :P

[boxingbud.livejournal.com]

Yeah I only saw one commercial for it and friends decided to go so I joined. If they just steadied the camera a bit, I would have been more satisfied. Oh and the beginning of the movie sorta hints (spoils) some stuff.

Re: Why not Dallas

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

Well... Most people outside North America couldn't place Dallas on a map. It *is* that anonymous.

But there have been several apocalypse/disaster/doom movies set outside of NYC: War of the Worlds (both versions)... the Terminator series and all those 1970s disaster movies like the Towering Inferno and Earthquake.

Heh, come to think of it, no one wanted to destroy New York City in the 1970s and 1980s--it already was an decayed urban wasteland. Where's the fun in blowing crap up in a dump?

Guess it took Carrie and Samantha and the gals to make it all cosmo and destroyable again, eh?

[sluggobear.livejournal.com]

"And oh good look below the frills it actually has a SHITTY SCRIPT AND POOR PREMISE."

Don't you read Emily Post? All-caps = elitist curmudgeon.

[sluggobear.livejournal.com]

Are people really dumb enough to take the Blair Witch bait twice?

It sounds like you're actually suggesting two similarities with Blair Witch:

- Cinematography
- Viral marketing

The handheld digital camera is just a medium, and the shaky reality-ish shots are simply a film style. Ok, so the two movies share it. So what? That would be like calling Ed Wood the same as Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid because they're both filmed in black & white. And I'm sure we're going to see more handheld digicam films in the future.

Blair Witch's marketing had much to do with selling a story that was purported to be real... perhaps based on a true story. (Some people bought it, others didn't.) Though the film wasn't that great, I admired the marketing. After all, isn't that an art unto itself? Isn't it refreshing when a film doesn't insult us with bland and stale trailers that start off with "In a world..."?

Cloverfield's marketing, instead, relied on mystery and secrecy. Not unlike the marketing for a LOT of movies and shows... heck, for all kinds of products.

So dude. Cloverfield is not as Witchy as it might seem.

interesting....

[oni1111.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, if you take the movie at face value. it's ok. The thing is, they designed the movie to stand alone, without viral marketing. The cool thing is, if you are prone to the viral aspect, the movie becomes more of an experience. Like what Slusho is and what it has to do with Cloverfield.

I saw it as a take on the monster genre in modern times. It really wasn't bad.

I'm only posting this because...well, I could see myself making the same kind of post had I not seen it, as I'm a bit of a elitist cock sometimes (no offense). The actual viewing of the movie was what made it for me. I hate movies these days...and it takes alot for me to actually go to a theater these days.

[dirtyglamour.livejournal.com]

And I hope you know that this isn't personal at all. I totally know you're an awesome laid back guy having met you in person before. The post just annoyed me...it doesn't make me think any less of you as a person.

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

Now I know why I didn't leave you for dead in the desert...

[umkinda.livejournal.com]

Okay, good. I'm glad we're clear that this is meaningless and disposable and not a reflection of the real you -- because now I know you won't be mad that I can't read this anymore. Because I still wanna like the real you. But I can't handle this online version of you anymore.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

It's ok at this point I'm pretty far past needing your validation. It has come at the cost if basically every interaction with you here being me getting the cool kid riot act read to me. Everything I say when your paying attention is wrong. Like honestly I can search for your user name in my email and it's all you chewing me out. There are very few pleasantries. I know I don't write like this all the time and it's not me particularily. But its the the me you and others choose to pay attention to. I guess the regular nice me is just not noteworthy enough for somebody as elite as you. Take that tired shit somewhere else. I'm not humouring it anymore.

[umkinda.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what to say. You post incendiary stuff specifically to get this exact reaction, then get enraged when people call you on it, tell people that if they don't like it that they can leave... then get furious at them for doing exactly what you told them to do.

So fine. Don't take my "tired shit" anymore. Tired apparently being just telling you that I'm tired of this routine and just want to remember the sweet, pretty reasonable, and kind Brodie I remember meeting a few times.

And I'm not elitist. I'm snobby. Elitist implies intelligence.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

What baffles me is that every six months or so I will say something retarded and that's the only aspect you, and others, choose to pay attention to. It is pretty demeaning given that I think the majority of my contributions are regarding my life, what I'm doing and some times thoughts on music and graphic design. There's also the podcasts of music I like to mix and share but somehow my entire noticeable contribution is this? WTF? Honestly why the filter?

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

And here I thought this was last week...

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

I get Brodie Non Sequiturs all day on Twitter. He knows me well enough to know I'm invested in his life beyond when he's being a tactless ass.

He gets bogged down in this negative mindset of "they hate on me because I don't agree with what's 'cool'" and that's not it at all. I hate on him because when he voices his opinions he often does so without tact and often in a very insulting way to those who don't share his opinion.

And jeez, we did this entire therapy circle the last time around when he went off on his opinions of Americans. It's never been about the opinions for me. It's always been about how he puts them across.

And again, I say me. Not we. I'm not going to generalize about why other people get upset with Brodie. I'm going to say why I do.

And he knows that and I like to think we're better friends because of it.

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

Just a post

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

And another asshat has entered the ring... hehe... very nice.

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

"just a movie"

my response to Brodie was never about the movie, it was about him - you dismiss that and everything I've written including aspects of a relationship I value and go back to "just a movie"

no progress in the discussion - just a dismissive repetition of a point that's already been taken. yes, it's just a movie... you've made that point. so I call asshat. deal.

on a side note - wow, I hope you realize that Brodie and I talked this over almost a week ago and I'm pretty much just fucking with you for entertainment at this point... you do get that right?

[kingfuraday.livejournal.com]

No, I did realize you were just stirring shit (hence asshat) and it's about time for recess to be over.

I apologized to Brodie off-lj (last week) the day this was posted. Which goes back to your coming in five days later to blow the dust off the desk with your asshatery...