Thursday, December 13, 2007

Are you ready for this?

JJ Abrams has been working on a top secret (no pun intended) project for what seems like a million years now. Today I watched the trailer for this new project titled Cloverfield- about a large monster that attacks New York.

Now before you poo-poo the whole idea of a huge monster attacking the most popular city in America ("Hello, King Kong did it like 60 years ago!")- watch the trailer.

The movie was written by one of my favorite Alias writers, Drew Goddard and is directed by Matt Reeves, JJ's partner on Felicity. I think it looks pretty good. It's very sci-fi, mystery, "what the hell is going on?" which I totally enjoy- you know, like Alias.

Whatta ya think?

13 comments:

Bonkers for Bristow said...

I saw a trailer for this movie a couple months ago - even before it had a name, I think. It looked great even though it showed almost nothing. I do remember hearing what sounded like the same monster from Lost. I can't wait to see the new trailer.

Buuuuut. I have to wonder if this means Lost will now get the short straw from old JJ like another show we all remember. He seems to have Leonardo da Vinci syndrom. A genius with brilliant ideas, who had such a short attention span that he droped unfinished projects for new ones.

SRM said...

yeah I just saw this posted on IMDB the other day as coming soon and I was like, "whaa??" I hadn't heard of the movie and had no idea until I watched the trailer that it was produced by JJ. It looks interesting, I think it's a shame it's coming out at the same time as I Am Legend given they both seem apocalyptic in nature and both happen to take place in Manhattan. But the trailer does look pretty sweet, and it's supposed to be sort of "Blair Witchy" w/ the hand held camera and stuff. Plus I heard the lead character will have on a shirt sometime in the movie that says Slusho...I mean that makes it worth it right there doesn't it? :)

Page48 said...

I wrote about the Slusho/Cloverfield connection in the "I See It Around Me" post a few weeks ago. Rather than regurgitate here, you can check it out there (includes a URL for a blog with plenty o' Slusho photos, mostly with the cast of "Heroes", as well as a URL to the Youtube video of Vaughn asking Syd if she wants a Slusho, and, of course a URL to the Cloverfield trailer).

I notice Tammy managed to include a live hyperlink in a comment a few weeks ago. Anybody know how to do that?

Srg-alias, I notice the shakey camera stuff is everywhere now, including "The Kingdom". Gotta take your Gravol before you watch a show these days.

Bonkers for Bristow said...

Page,
I think that's a direct influence from the Bourne movies. When the first came out, the media was all agog over the camera work.
BTW, I love the Bourne movies. Anyone else here a fan? Too bad they're based off a book series - they'd make a perfect series for JG to join. She could be another assasin from the same program or a dangerous rival.... hmmm. Too bad no one listens to our great ideas here. :) We could solve all the problems with TV these days.

Page48 said...

Bonkers, I think the Bourne flicks are great, about as close to an "Alias" romp as we're likely to see these days. "Jennifer Bourne" sounds like a great sequel to me. I love the outtro song as well, I think it's there in all 3 movies.

I was a little disappointed that Franka Potente's character was killed off so early in "The Bourne Supremacy".

I was reading up on the Bourne history recently and I was mortified to find that Richard Chamberlain was Jason Bourne in the original "Bourne Identity" back in 1988. Can you freaking imagine??? Yuk.

I also get the impression that, like many movie adaptations, the books and the movies are similar in name only, so working Jen into a subsequent Bourne movie would be easy enough.

Bourne trivia: Chris Cooper, who appeared the first Bourne movie, just starred with Jen in "The Kingdom".

Anonymous said...

Page-
I saw the RC Bourne when it was first on TV. I taped it. I need to go back and watch it again. I remember it as being pretty good, at least for TV.
uncle111

Anonymous said...

RC had some meaty roles in the 80's. I remember watching "Shogun" and "The Thorn Birds" back in the day but I have to say I never heard of Jason Bourne until the first Matt Damon pic.

Looks like "Big Shots" has received the mercy kill by ABC, and in a twist of fate, it appears that Michael Vartan will give up his time slot for Victor Garber's third show in as many years, with "Lost" as a lead-in.

With the writers' strike dragging on, we should be good and ready for some new "Lost" by the end of January.

SKlaft said...

I'm not sure what to make of "Cloverdale."

1st, it is an unfortunate circumstance that the name is hard to remember, and that it brings nothing to mind to make us think, "Oh yeah... I wanted to see that."

2nd, the preview reminded me of two movies: the new "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruse, and the good "Godzilla" movie with Matthew Broadrick.

As mentioned above, the constantly moving camera can get overbearing (as far as I'm concerned). I hope it is tastefully used, and I also hope the "Blair Witch" referrence will only be in connection with a lot of free hand camera work rather than the quality of the story.

I did not notice the Lost-monster sound, but it might be cool if the story is about the Island of LOST deciding to attack the mainland. I know crossovers and spin-offs are not exactly critically acclaimed, but I would think they should indulge the fans once in a while. Right?

OFF TOPIC - Yes, the Bourne movies are great. I also read some of the "further adventures" (if you will), and I have to be honest, the movies are better than the books. At least, they are better than the books written by Erik Van Lustbadder. There were so many colloqualisms and cleches that he should have his writer's guild card revoked.

-R.

Page48 said...

That's funny, "War of the Worlds" is on the tube right now.

I couldn't get thru 10 minutes of "Blair Witch Project". Maybe I picked the wrong 10 minutes, but I just found it unwatchable.

Lately, I've listened to a couple of Vince Flynn audiobooks. More rogue CIA stuff, complete with black ops and double-crosses. Flynn's hero character is Mitch Rapp, who reminds me of a what a young Jack Bristow might be like, although Rapp is a CIA assassin. Rapp is uber-competent, very resourceful, ruthless when he needs to be but not interested in racking up a body count if it can be avoided. He has his own Marshall Flinkman who can do anything with a computer. He has secret storage facilities everywhere, full of weapons and cash for getting out of jams. In other words, these novels would make excellent Bourne-like movies, of which we need more to scratch the spy itch.

"Cloverfield" is something I will watch. Monster movies aren't generally my realm, but JJ has proven that sci-fi/action is his strong suit, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until I've seen it.

I also look forward to seeing what JJ's new series "Fringe" is like. Televisionary blog gives an enthusiastic description of the pilot script here (I think I posted this before):

http://www.televisionaryblog.com/2007/10/
televisinonary-exclusive-first-look-at.html

The pilot script is written by the team of Kurtzman and Orci, who wrote (according to IMDB) 10 episodes of "Alias". As we have seen with shows like "Justice" and "Big Shots" and "Brothers & Sisters", the "Alias" actors, as much as we love them, cannot thrive without quality scripts and a good story behind them. So, hopefully the 10 million dollars earmarked for the pilot, along with some "Alias" sci-fi writers will give this series a good start. Time will tell what happens after that.

Anonymous said...

"Time will tell"

Nice. :) Thanks for the smile this morning.

Page48 said...

Ha ha, Bonkers, nice catch.

Tammy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tammy said...

Page48 - I tried to post, and my hyper link demo didn't work! I can't figure out how to post the HTML needed to make a hyper link because Blogger automatically makes it a link! (Or tells me my HTML is screwy and won't publish my comment...

If you want the HTML tag for making a live link in comments - email me! I'll show you how -tdmimms@yahoo.com

This movie looks a bit too scary for me. I'd be jumping and screeching in the theatre which no one wants!!