edited by Jonathan Doyle

Cloverfield [BLU-RAY] (Paramount Home Entertainment, 6.3.2008) Disguised under deliberately goofy, yet deliciously edible-sounding, aliases such as Cheese and Slusho, Matt Reeves' Cloverfield was produced and rushed into theaters under an equally appetizing shroud of secrecy. From last year's incredibly elusive Super Bowl ad to the film's viral marketing campaign, Cloverfield had everybody scratching their heads and drooling in anticipation. Aside from the as-yet untitled title and the Blair Witch-ian visual style, the film's biggest appeal was the enigmatic creature who was last (un)seen hurling the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty onto the crowded streets of New York City. All we knew about the mysterious beast was that it was big and angry. Now that the highy-anticipated project has come and gone, one question has fortunately been answered: Cloverfield was a major success. (continued)

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"Repeat after me, Kill Bill

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"Repeat after me, Kill Bill fans: Referentiality itself is not an intrinsic aesthetic value. Empty referentiality, going through the motions, doesn't make a motion picture, give cinema the gift of sight....or insight." So goes Ron Rosenbaum's very astute piece about cheaply referential films in the 5.23.05 edition of the New York Observer. Quentin Tarantino's martial-arts flick "was the perfect epitome of and metaphor for what I would like to call 'The Cinema of Pretentious Stupidity,'" he continues. "The idea that ceaseless tedious references to obscure martial-arts movies known mainly by video-store geeks adds up to art. I've heard so many defenses of Kill Bill that depend on the apparently marvelous and unheard-of-before wonder of its referentiality. Dude, just because you make a reference -- or many references -- doesn't make it meaningful or worth four hours of our time."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 28, 2005 at 9:25 PM