The TV Addict 

CLOVERFIELD
At its core, CLOVERFIELD has such a clever approach that you’re shocked nobody has ever done it before. Instead of following the people (usually the army) trying to fight off a monster attacking a city, and eventually succeeding, CLOVERFIELD shows us people like you and I just trying to survive. That being said, that doesn’t stop the film from having a wishy-washy central plot right out of those typical Hollywood films that conveniently places its main characters in perpetual danger. The shaky video camera (through which the events are seen) also grates on the nerves eventually, as does the tendency of the monster to somehow always pop up when the characters need it least (then again, Manhattan is maybe not that big). Nevertheless, it’s incredibly immersive and exciting. It extracts loads of tension from its approach, effectively placing us in the shoes of its protagonists, as if we were in the trenches right there with them. It’s thrilling, shocking, scary, and even has a surprise ending. In other words, CLOVERFIELD is what we look for in films: an experience.
Overall rating: B

CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR is about a light as cotton candy, and just about as filling. It’s silly, and incredibly hard to take serious, despite the fact that it’s dealing with pretty serious stuff – mainly the initial domino that got knocked over into the others to eventually lead America to 9/11. Sure it’s entertaining, but it remains a strange film, because you’re never entirely sure what it’s getting at. At times it seems to be genuinely making fun of the absurdity of the events (perhaps in a CATCH 22 style, another Mike Nichols film), yet at times it seems to be using the humor to indicate that these events are not funny at all, and condemning America. Even if you place politics aside, it doesn’t work well as a film. You have nothing but build up, and then as Wilson achieves his goal, the film abruptly and speedily propels itself to a hasty end that leaves you a little befuddled. Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as a hilariously indelicate CIA agent does make this film worth a look, as does the relish with which Tom Hanks throws himself into playing the womanizing, drug-taking, unconsciously self-aggrandizing congressman.
Overall rating: C+

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The TV Addict here with two questions for CLOVERFIELD fans.

First, I couldn’t deal with the shaky-cam style of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and am not an enormous fan of monster movies; any chance I’ll like CLOVERFIELD?

And second, thanks to the enormous success of CLOVERFIELD at the box office, how long until movie fans are subject to a massive string of copycat films. Lord knows Hollywood loves to jump on bandwagons (see: THE MATRIX’s slow-motion-bullet-time and CROUCHING TIGER’s high-wire fights).

“I saw it, it’s alive. It’s HUGE!”

That doesn’t even begin to describe it.

I’ve got to say, straight up, one of the reasons I saw Transformers back in July was because of all the buzz this little trailer got that was playing before the actual movie. It didn’t give you a lot, it was the definition of a “teaser.” The payoff at the end of the teaser will no doubt go down as one of the most iconic images in film ever. The sad and battered head of the Statue of Liberty lying in the middle of a Manhattan street, torn from it’s body by… something.

It was a great teaser, and thankfully producer J.J. Abrams and his team, director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard, managed to make the final result live up to the teaser’s promise. Cloverfield does not disappoint.

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