"Cloverfield": The mythos! The movie! The music!

Jan 23, 08

That J.J. Abrams's "not-'Lost'" NYC Armageddon melodramatic monster movie was equal parts really crappy and really sublime is testament to a number of things. Firstly, any movie that has more than six months worth of pseudo-marketed backstory (from fans wondering what is "in game" and what is not to the ridiculously savvy use of those same fans' ideas to work against them) has to say something about the changing landscape of word-of-mouth. It's no longer keeping people content to make smalltime water-cooler conversations with others. In its stead, people are now tirelessly excavating the depths of human knowledge to understand (before they're told, mind you) the ins, outs and spoilers (we hate that fucking word) of everything that's up-and-coming.

And though it may seem to most that "Cloverfield" proved almost nothing new about either monster movies (which it claimed to be), disaster movies (which it didn't want to claim to be) or movies in general (which we're not going to get into), the fans still have the mind to figure out how it did in fact do all of those things. And that may be the crucial device that the film was meant to create. A hunger amongst those "in the know" to follow the story from zygote to product and further.

The movie itself is something entirely worth debating, but we're not going to do that. Since this is in fact a pop culture website, we should, but no. We'll let you all do that. If you must. We did see it (after being one of those "in the know" people we spoke about since seeing the preview and doing the riddles in July of last year) and we will say it was somewhat disappointing, if only from the perspective of the fan is used. Maybe it's because we don't watch "Lost" or "Alias", but we find it hard to swallow events without attaching a "why" somewhere in there. Just us. Yes, we're able to suspend our disbelief a long way for the sake of a good movie that may make people throw up (happened in the theater we were in). And yes, we don't mind seeing the repeated destruction of our city at the hands of pretty much anything.

We did want to point out what we did find to be the most intensely sublime portion of the film, though, which just so happens to be the party scenes filmed (allegedly) in the downtown apartment of the (we guess) protagonist. We say alleged because the playlist reads like one you'd find if you've ever been to Hugs in Williamsburg or Studio B in Greenpoint. Which is to say that it didn't reek of the downtown post-collegiate New York City just-really-turning-into-an-adult set. The people in the movie have money (evidenced by one character's apartment near Columbus Circle, geography that only comes amongst the people whose yearly earnings extend well past the number of digits in their zip codes) as well as by the newly appointed job (Vice President of something) of our hero.

It's more than a money thing, too. When one views these people who are whooping it up as their friend is about to leave them, they simply couldn't be listening to things like MUCC or Joan as Police Woman or Ratatat or for fuck's sakes Coconut Records. Could they? Sean Kingston, sure. Timberlake would have been apropos as well. And what, no Nickelback? Boy were we wrong a huge deal about the douches that could be listening to the music the elitists (us) find so appealing. This really is a horror movie, huh? We think we may have started to bleed from our eyes.

Anyways, after the jump, a whole heap of shit that was played in the party scenes. Enjoy.

(mp3) Coconut Records - West Coast

(mp3) Kings of Leon - Taper Jean Girl

(mp3) Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls

(mp3) The Blood Arm - Do I Have Your Attention?

(mp3) Scissors for Lefty - Got Your Moments

(mp3) Gorillaz - 19-2000

(mp3) Spoon - The Underdog

(mp3) Architecture in Helsinki - Do The Whirlwind (Hot Chip remix)

(mp3) The Black Keys - Grown So Ugly

(mp3) Bright Eyes - Four Winds

(mp3) Joan as Police Woman - The Ride