The first 23 minutes

Rating: 4/10 (16 October 2012)

23 or so minutes of uninteresting film. Lot of time in a film. Uninteresting people, unless you are actually there at the party. Stories are about us. Doesn't even need to be your age group, economic group, any group. But the story depends on some bit of interest in the difficulty, pleasure, angst, whatever, happening to those involved. In other words, we must feel some empathy with the story's characters, whether it's Star Wars or Cloverfield, or especially your own life.
23 minutes of watching these people live their lives. So what? If the story is confined to you at 20-something, then it;s only empathy for your age group, and that is certainly not going to give you any support once you reach 30. I like fluff as much as the next person, but I also need some balance. This story simply has no connection to real life. Even the fantastic must have a connection to everyday life, yours and mine.
It's always the extraordinary in the mundane, the ordinary. So, the imagination becomes so important in our everyday lives, let alone films. Even if your 20-swomething, remember when your were a kid? What did you use the last time you experienced a travesty, something painful, a loss, a taking away? Probably in some sense, it was your imagining something better, or at least something different.
I have worked in a bureaucracy for over 40 years, yet the most uninteresting people I have met and worked with, I would place in Cloverfield and make you a better film for their quirkiness, and certainly their innocence -- they are totally who they are. Would you truly trust any of these personalities in Cloverfield?
Call me nuts, call me crazy, but I watched The Avengers recently, and it's all "pie in the sky," so to speak. "Much ado about nothing? except special effects and superheroes acting without any connection to you and I. I do not need superheroes, but do require a certain amount of support and affection from my own superheroes, just a few friends. I do also need escape, but escape becomes boring quickly.
If you enjoy film stories, and perhaps feeling, my recommendations are three (these three are not difficult to view, but more difficult is Antonioni's The Passenger, which I've been able to watch only once):
Bin Jip (3 iron) a Korean film Another Earth Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Take care and pay attention, Greg McCormick Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania