Cinematical

As usual, I'm late in the game as far as new releases are concerned. I haven't yet seen Transformers -- actually I had almost planned on skipping it. And so, therefore, I didn't see the new teaser trailer for 'Cloverfield', the super secret J.J. Abrams-produced disaster pic. I also missed the trailer while it was available on YouTube. Finally, I caught the thing on another site, which I won't name because it probably won't be there after I write this anyway. Besides, the videotaped copy of the teaser I saw was so bad that I'm not sure I'm any better off than I was before seeing it. Since I never understand viral marketing, I'm not even going to attempt to follow this, but since Erik already summarized it, I thankfully don't need to. Instead, I'm playing it easy and just reading what The Hollywood Reporter has to tell us about the movie.

First off, I now understand that this is a monster movie set in New York City and it is only through the eyes of a small group of friends. Also we now have official word on the cast, who were hired under such secrecy that neither they nor their agents ever saw a script before signing on. The actors are mostly unknowns with short resumes, including Michael Stahl-David (NBC's The Black Donnellys), Odet Jasmin, Mike Vogel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake)and Lizzie Caplan (Mean Girls). THR also clears up what I just saw in the trailer, since I couldn't tell what was going on. Of course, our own Scott Weinberg gave us that info last week. So, if you don't want to see Transformers, but are curious, here are the contents of the teaser. Scott calls it The Blair Witch Project meets the Godzilla remake, while THR calls it Armageddon meets The Blair Witch Project. I didn't like any of those movies, but as a big fan of Abrams' television and movie work, I'm really excited about Cloverfield, or whatever it will actually be called. The movie, written by Drew Goddard and directed by Matt Reeves arrives in theaters in January.