Movie review: Cloverfield

No, I didn't see Cloverfield in the theater. It was probably a good thing considering the shakiness of the hand-held camera work. I felt nauseous just watching it at home. I can't imagine how people made it through the movie on the big screen. There will be spoilers in this so if you haven't seen it and you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading now.

OK. Let's talk about this thing. I've been looking forward to Cloverfield since the teasers started coming out last year. Unfortunately, my husband and I just didn't get the chance to see it on the big screen. However, friends of ours saw it and said the graphics were really nauseating. I completely agree. I understand why they used a hand-cam for the movie but I really think it detracted more than it added anything to the film as a whole. Sure, you got the "in the midst of the battle" feeling...but you couldn't SEE anything half the time. It was just a jumble of pictures while the main characters were running. The only time the camera was still enough to see anything was when the characters were standing or sitting still, which wasn't very often. I think it might have been a bit better if they had mixed steady-cam shots with the hand-cam shots. Show an outside view while the characters were running but then switch back to the home video when they are sitting around talking. Not only would it have made the movie easier to watch but we would have been able to keep track of the characters better.

My next problem with it was how the monster was handled. In the DVD extras as well as in many interviews, J.J. Abrams kept talking about Godzilla and how he wanted to make an iconic monster for America. I don't think he's ever seen a Godzilla movie. Those movies focused on the monster as well as the humans. Not to mention that, since Godzilla was created thanks to some hydrogen bomb testing, there are quite a very environmental messages in there too. In Cloverfield, we learn nothing about the monster. We don't even know where it came from! According to the interview with Abrams, the monster is a newborn. There isn't anything in the movie to indicate this nor is there any explanation for the parasite-type creatures that the monster drops. So that negates classifying this as a "monster movie." The monster is only there to act as a catalyst to move the human characters into motion.

Ah, the humans. There's Rob (the guy going to Japan), Hud (Rob's best friend and the cameraman for the movie), Beth (Rob's sorta-girlfriend), Jason (Rob's brother), Lily (Rob's girlfriend) and Marlena (Lily's friend). At no point in time are we compelled to feel anything about most of these characters. Rob is a douche and he tries to make up for it by trying to save Beth after treating her like crap. We don't learn a whole lot about Hud, beyond the fact that he hits on women a lot, because he's generally behind the camera. Jason kicks the bucket early on, leaving Lily to hold the group of friends together. Poor Marlena got the short end of the stick since she wasn't even supposed to be at the farewell party for Rob in the first place. Not only did I not care about these characters, I was actually rooting for their death by the middle of the movie. There was no real emotion behind any of their actions. The only reason Rob wanted to save Beth was because after having sex with her then not contacting her for two weeks, she decided to move onto another relationship when *BAM!* Rob realized he loves Beth. Yeah, Rob, you didn't love her until she found a new man. Douche.

And that is the entire plot of the movie. Rob and his friends try to rescue a girl that he realizes, in the middle of a monster attack, that he loves. I don't even believe that he loved her. I believe that he felt badly about the way he treated her. I believe that he cared for her a bit. However, I mostly believe that the only reason he wanted to save her was to save himself from being the big dickwad of the movie. Too late, Rob.

After all of this, I can't say that it was a bad movie. It just wasn't a good movie. It definitely wasn't a good monster movie. If Abrams was aiming to give the American audience an iconic monster to identify with, he failed miserably. Yes, the monster was cool looking but there was nothing about it for us to identify with. There was nothing to make the monster endearing to us. Nothing to make us want to buy a big plushie Cloverfield monster for our bedroom. There are rumors that there will be a sequel. I can only pray that they do a better job than they did with the original.

New bed, please!

I think, by now, I've made it clear that I need to do a lot of stuff in my house. New lights, painting, some repairs...just a lot of stuff. On top of that, I need a new bed. I think those adjustable beds are so awesome but they would never fit up my stairs or through the upstairs hallway to my room. Our house is about 100 years old so the halls are rather narrow. In order to get our current bed up there, we had to fold the mattress in half and shove it through the hallway. I don't want to have to do that again. I swear that I had read something at some point about king sized beds that are actually two smaller mattresses pushed together. That would work a lot better for us. Unfortunately, I've never been able to actually find them in a store. Has anyone else heard about those?

Game review: Ice Cream Mania

Heading back into time management games after a short break from the genre, Ice Cream Mania caught my eye. After all, I like ice cream so it can't be that bad, right? And, to tell the truth, it's not. You play Cindy, one of the heirs to an ice cream mogul. Cindy is competing with her sisters to win her deceased father's fortune. The gameplay is fairly easy. Make a scoop of ice cream in your machine, put it on a cone (or in a bowl, whichever the customer prefers) and top it off with some flavored cream-type stuff. As the levels get harder, you'll gain the ability to add things on top, such as orange slices or gingerbread men. The customer will also be able to order two scoop sundaes as well.

For the most part, the game is easy. It gets a little more difficult when you get to the two scoop levels but that is mostly because it can be daunting keeping track of which order the scoops go in. Otherwise, the game is fun. I found myself buying new toppings instead of upgrades to my ice cream machines, which may have hindered my progress a little. Considering I made it to the second store before my trial ran out, I didn't notice any hindrance if it existed. Since your character doesn't move around any, the graphics can get a little boring. It's basically just a row of customers sliding into place in front of you with either a daytime or nighttime beach background. So it wouldn't be a game that you could play for hours on end. But it's a nice time distraction for a half hour or so at a time.

Prescription drugs and Insurance

I spend way too much time looking at various insurance things. Today I shall be reading about health insurances and drug coverage like medicare part d. Personally, we have Aetna health insurance and, while it's not particularly good coverage, it does cover prescription drugs. (Though, for some reason, insurance companies have decided that birth control prescriptions don't really need to be covered so the out-of-pocket fees for those are higher.) Mostly I'm just curious about what Medicare will and won't cover. No real reason why I'm curious. I guess it's just interesting information to have handy.

Kago too?

Yesterday, I posted about Gackt acting in a Hollywood movie. Well, today it has come out that former-Morning Musume/Mini Moni/W girl, Ai Kago, will be acting in a Hong Kong movie. For those of you that forget, Aibon was at the center of a lot of scandals a few years ago. First it was underage smoking then it was dating a man a lot older than her then it was smoking again. It got her booted out of the Hello!Project world and she's been very quiet since. Earlier this month, she reappeared with a new, more mature look saying that she wanted to return to show business, specifically acting. I've always really liked Aibon so I'm very hopeful that she will do well in her new path in life.

No room on my desk!

I wonder if I could get some sort of wall speaker mount for my computer speakers. I don't have a whole lot of space on my room and, even though my speakers are pretty tiny, I could use the room they take up. Maybe I can mount them on the wall behind my desk. They should still sound the same, they just wouldn't be on my desk anymore. It might look a little odd and I wouldn't be able to move my desk without moving my speakers but it's not like I have anywhere else to put my desk anyway. This is definitely something I will have to ask the husband about.

Insurance stuff sucks a lot.

Once again I'm looking around for a good life insurance quote. I'm never sure if I'm falling into marketing hype when looking around at these sorts of things. Everyone seems to say "No one ever has enough life insurance!" But is that really true? I don't think my grandmother had "enough" life insurance by these people's standards but her final debts were paid off fine as far as I know. My mother wasn't driven into poverty or anything. So where do you draw the line? Do you shell out money for a life insurance policy because everyone says you should or is what you have now just fine?

Game review: Fashion Solitaire

I thought Fashion Solitaire sounded interesting so I gave it a try. Basically, you are given a deck of cards with various types of fashion on it. Some cards are dresses, some are pants/skirts, some are tops, some are jewelry and so on. Three models at a time are presented to you and you need to properly attire them with the cards you have available. As with all solitaire games, not all of the cards are available. You need to uncover the cards by using the ones on top. If you put a skirt on model #2, the card under that will become available to you. However, each model has a preference of what they would like to wear. Perhaps model #3 wants to wear something white while model #1 wants some jewelry. You get bonus points for fulfilling these wants. After each round, you get the opportunity to create your own fashions and you'll get more bonus points for using those cards in the game. This game was a lot more fun than I expected. To be honest, I expected something along the lines of Greek Goddesses of Solitaire but this was nothing like it. You end up being focused more on the fashion than the solitaire portion of the game. It's just as much fun designing your own pieces as it is dressing the models. Granted, the game had some annoying parts. For example, I got stuck when I needed some shirts for my girls but all I had available were pants and skirts. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to rearrange things to get the unavailable cards to pop up. So, while it was a little aggravating, I think it gave the game that needed bit of difficulty to keep it from being tedious. I might actually have my daughter try the game out. After all, she likes dressing up her dolls. This isn't all that different really. Dress up is always fun!

Website of the Week: Japan Zone

I know, I haven't had a Website of the Week for the entire month. Here is the latest edition. I try to keep up to date on various entertainment news coming out of Japan. One of my favorite websites is Japan Zone. The news is generally in small, easy to digest blocks and it's updated once a day. It's just enough to know what's going on without getting too complicated.