Cloverfield

I saw Cloverfield a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty excited to see this one, and I like the way the trailers and other promotions didn’t give much away about the plot. A lot of movies show too much in the preview thus partially spoiling it. I remember seeing the trailer for ‘The Italian Job’ a few years ago and thinking, “why would I go sees this now? I know exactly what happens.” I did in fact watch the movie at some point and knew exactly what was going to happen.

So what is this movie about? It’s about a monster attack in New York City, and the journey of a group of friends after the attack. It is from the perspective of an amateur cameraman who is recording a going away party for his friend. When the monster appears, he leaves it rolling to capture the events.

When I left the theater, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. There were some things that were very unsatisfying about it. JJ Abrams is the creator of Lost, so I’m not very surprised it went the way it did. I actually enjoyed the fact that wasn’t a typicall Hollywood style move where the hero tracks it down to kill it while his ex girlfriend is the scientist who knows how to stop it, and the military is bungling things. This is not that movie, and thanks the heavens for it.

Some people won’t like the camera style. Since it is from the perspective of an amateur, the camera is very shaky at times, and I saw reports where some people were getting motion sickness. It may be distracting, but it definitely helps the movie. The movie is tense and suspenseful the moment the monster appears, and doesn’t stop until the movie ends.

The movie also feels very real. If you can accept that there is a monster walking around, then the confusion and fear of everyone makes sense. In one scene, they start talking to a soldier about what’s happening. Instead of an explanation, they get a short nonhelpful comment. Of course a low ranking soldier wouldn’t know much.

Another things is you don’t get any clean long looks of the monster. The people we follow in the film don’t exactly want to get near it, so you mostly see walking between buildings or from distances on rooftops. This just added to the tension, and it worked for me.

It would be great to see this story from the military’s perspective, and I hope that is a direction they go for a sequel or any follow material, like on the DVD perhaps. I liked this a lot, and while some may want to know where it came from and what will happen at the end, lifen isn’t tied up nicely.

4/5 Stars

Ensign Ricky

Amazon MP3 and iTunes Plus

Until today, I hadn't paid for music, minus gifts for others, in years. This was mainly due to the higgh cost of a CD when I only wanted 1 song, and then the advent of DRM for individual songs.

When iTunes launched a couple of years back I was happy that a good way for purchasing music was created, but I thought the cost of $.99 was too high. Alogn with (almost tolerable) DRM, this meant I refrained from using iTunes to buy music even after I bought an iPod.

2007 brough some changes to the music world with the launch of iTunes plus. iTunes offers some music DRM free at a higher bitrate and a cost of $1.29 in most cases. This is a positive step, but everyitme I have looked for a song it hasn't been available this way. Now, I certainly don't look for a lot of new music, so I doubt my few searches are representative of what is available.

The new player in this area is Amazon. Amazon MP3 has a simple interface and seems to have more label support from the music industry. I heard this is a pushback agains Apple's dominance with iTines from the labels, but it is still good for consumers to have some competition. I just purchased 2 tracks from them and found it very easy to use. It even added them to my iTunes library for me.

So I am now going to start paying for music now that there are decent options. I still think $0.99 per song is a bit high, but I can deal with it. As we all now, music was perfected by Huey Lewis, so there isn't much new worth getting.