the internet is not the world
January 22, 2008 by Cash
This past weekend’s opening of J.J. Abram’s “Cloverfield” movie turned into an unlikely reality check for me. Ever since seeing the (then unnamed) trailer prior to Transformers, I’ve been dorking out to the extreme keeping up on the viral marketing campaign for the film. The buzz was so loud on the net (and amongst all my friends for that matter), I felt positive opening weekend would be bananas. I forced everyone in my crew to buy tickets Friday for a Saturday afternoon showing at the Continental theatre (the biggest screen in the Denver metro area).
Two things made me realize how jaded my view of internet promoted pop culture has become:
1) Friday afternoon at work. Three seperate people, from three diverse ethnic/social/age backgrounds all responded with a confused look and a “what?” when I mentioned my plans to see Cloverfield the next day. They’d never heard of it.
2) Upon arriving at the Continental (a half hour early mind you, to avoid the “gigantic line”) we found an empty lobby. Inside the theatre? Not even half the seats were filled. Even as the show started.
Moral of the story?
Not everyone is juiced into all things hip on the web. In fact, a quick search of internet usage statistics (via the helpful Internet World Stats site) shows that in the U.S., only 71% of people are online. That means one in three people arn’t.
Cloverfield, (deservedly) was still a huge hit this past weekend, beating out even the re-release of Star Wars for the biggest January open ever. Nonetheless, being huge on the the internet doesn’t necessarily equate to being huge in the ‘real world’. Something to think about when a particular candidate, goatse, or monster movie starts heating up online.
Bonus Link: Check out hints at a Cloverfield sequel as noted in the Cloverfield Credits
I know someone with a Kitchen Aide Mixer… It’s real nice.
Since we’re on the topic (sort of) was the movie any good? I’m hearing nothing but bad things about it, in spite of the heavy web buzz it has generated.
Honestly, it exceeded my expectations, which were ridiculously high. It was menacing, and many of the thrills came from unlikely sources. Heights for example. Claustrophobic spaces, and quite simply, the dark. There are plenty of scenes that will stay with you.
The only real complaint I heard voiced a few times from our group was about its brevity. It’s only 75 minutes or so from start to finish. For that reason, I’d say doing a matinee like we did (for $7.50) is the way to go.
I actually just watched it yesterday in nyc. i don’t know if i can fully explain how surreal it felt to be watching this movie after spending the day wandering around in it! was super impressed with the film, more so than i expected to be. i certainly can say it’ll be a hit or miss with people how they’re going to like it i think.
also around here i’ve been hearing nothing but things about cloverfield for a bit so it may be a regional interest thing at the moment.
Oh man goat.. I can’t imagine how weird that would be.
I’m plugged into the tubes nearly 24/7 and even I’d never heard of it until saturday when someone mentioned it at a party.
I still havent been bothered to even look it up to see what its about.
So I guess add “not all those who are wired give a shit either” to the statistics. ;-D
-bp
wtf bob, cash was blogging about cloverfield for like a month…
Close as I can figure, anything that focuses only on fictional work, specially that from hollywood bypasses my main attention span and drains out a little hole on the side of my head.
-bp
Not to worry Bob.. the ‘month of coverage’ Greg refers to was actually a single post: http://www.urbanmonarch.com/cloverfield-1-18-08-inside-information/ Feel free to drain your brain reading it at will should the urge strike.
Left this remark on the wrong section. I went to the theatre to see this. The entire theatre smelled of vomit. I have a phobia against barfing. I got my money back and ran, not walked from the cineplex. I still want to see it, but wlll wait until it’s out on DVD. Not the best environment to watch a movie. Despite the reek of the theatre, people were sitting in their seats scarfing down on popcorn, pizza, you name it. The thought of sitting next to someone almost sure to puke it all back up was the most frightening part of the entire experience.
Caroline, that is truly foul. It reminds me of the theatre we *usually* end up going to here (Denver Pavilions). For the longest time, I always seemed to get stuck sitting next to some vagrant hobo type who liked to take his shoes/socks off and rest his sweaty feet on the seat in front of him, while chowing down on nachos with jalepenos and hotdogs. The odors were horrific. I’ve been spared this fate the last few months or so, thankfully.
Definitely check it out on DVD then. It’s a great movie.