Monday, January 28, 2008

Patroclus And Mr BC Watch...The Movies

INT. BEDROOM - MORNING

PATROCLUS and MR BC are in bed, squinting at a tiny laptop screen, upon which is playing a video of culty new science-fiction film 'Cloverfield', which an anonymous person has charitably videoed in a cinema (or 'theater', as Americans call them, and let's face it this was probably an American cinema - or 'theater' - as Cloverfield isn't out here yet, or is it, I don't know, I haven't actually been to the cinema since January 2006, because of the fear) and then uploaded to the interwebs for the viewing benefit of the poor deprived citizens of Region Two.

(Once, in my more Web 2.0-enthusiastic days, I wrote a gushing little article about how watching badly pirated torrents in bed on one's laptop was THE GLORIOUS FUTURE OF ENTERTAINMENT. I now concede that the format may have some flaws.)

Anyhow, we're about 20 minutes in, and our viewing reactions are starting to diverge somewhat:

MR BC: Ooh, wow, look at that.

PATROCLUS: What is it, some sort of monster?

MR BC: It's a giant alien, cool.

PATROCLUS: Pfft. This would never happen in real life.

MR BC: That's why they call it science fictio- oh, never mind.

11 comments:

Tim F said...

I once saw a dodgy DVD of Possession (starring G Paltrow, from the novel by AS Byatt). It had clearly been recorded at a film festival, or maybe in a little rep cinema in somewhere terribly genteel. When someone came in late (causing his shadow to appear across the screen) he apologised profusely. Everyone chuckled knowingly at the arch librarian jokes. And they applauded at the end.

It was just like being there.

Sylvia said...

I see. watching bootleg DVDs under the duvet. You lead the high life, don't you....

patroclus said...

Tim: I didn't know there was a film of Possession. It was the most disappointing book I've ever read, though. From the first three pages I thought it was going to be ace, but the two modern-day protagonists were so awful I could barely finish it.

Sylvia: Always. And now I'm off to do the washing up.

Willie Lupin said...

That tends to be my reaction to science fiction.
I don't feel so bad about it now.

GreatSheElephant said...

Hang on.

Did you just post a...

spoiler?

patroclus said...

Willie: I just can't help myself, for some reason I get very upset if things in films aren't 'realistic'.

GSE: If I did, it wasn't a very good one.

Anonymous said...

I'm the same. Aliens, shmaliens...

GreatSheElephant said...

au contraire - or at least the reviews I've read have made a big thing about not revealing what the monster is.

Now I know it's an alien. Feh.

More importantly though, did the jerky camera work make you feel sick? That's what's worrying me about seeing this.

patroclus said...

Fear not: I don't actually *know* if it's an alien, because I stopped watching at that point, and James was only guessing at that point as well.

Phew, eh?

The camerawork didn't make me feel sick, but bear in mind I wasn't actually watching it as the makers intended, and I only saw 20 minites of it. (I should imagine the proper DVD will be acquired at some point by the Blue Cat household, should any studio/distribution/MPAA execs happen to be reading).

Crikey, what a lot of arse-covering there.

Anonymous said...

I'm with you, Patroclus - I have a bad feeling about Cloverfield. I saw a trailer when I went to watch I Am Legend, and the Blair Witch style made me queasy - not in a good way - and I disliked how it distastefully preyed on 9/11 fears - again, er, not in a good way. Then I went on to consider I Am Legend an excellent example of the "New York is destroyed" genre. So fat lot I know.

patroclus said...

Paul: Yes indeed, I'm very unconvinced about the whole 'it's catharsis for 9/11' thing. Better to think about *why* such things happen, rather than replay the memories with some apparently motiveless monster as the perpetrator.