Holidays are for monster movies

I have seen the Cloverfield, and behold, it is awesome.

It is gimmicky to be sure, and I do wish they'd gone with a better actor in an extremely key role. But my fears of never seeing the monster, aka "Lost", were unfounded. It isn't a monster movie, exactly, in that you never really know what is going on, but within the scope of the story there were plenty enough thrills and special effects to keep me satisfied. Apparently I got extremely squirmy during a scene in the subway, because David is still making fun of me for it. But it was fun! There seems to be little point in nit-picking the film apart, because while there are many things that were odd or misjudged or that just didn't work, the overall effect was spot on. It is like Blair Witch on crack, with the stakes multiplied by a thousand. Plus an actual monster.

Spoiler!!! Well, sort of. Based on a tip, we stayed through the credits until the very end, just to hear a garbled whisper. It turns out you have to play the whisper backwards to understand it. Uh, is it just me, or does that mean everyone who figured it out was illegally recording the movie??? Isn't that sort of a lame thing to put in, literal incentive for people to pirate your film? Plus it has no bearing on the movie anyway, as far as telling you anything extra about the characters or who lives or dies or whatever. I'm all for clever bonus features, but I don't think that really counts.

But overall, a great way to spend a freezing cold Monday afternoon.