Maybe it’s just my love of video shot with cheap, hand-held cameras, but I really enjoyed Cloverfield. (Has anyone ever made a good monster-destroys-Manhattan movie?) You can watch the trailer at the official movie website and get all the particulars at IMBD.

I loved the camera work. From the get-go, I was there. At the party. In the street. A little motion sickness but nothing I couldn’t live with.

Rating on IMDB is 8.1 (out of 10) and (so far) nobody has posted a plot synopsis (I was tempted but didn’t know what to say). I enjoyed this movie. Running time: 15 minutes.

Update: The story is supposed to have been shot with a cheapo handheld consumer camera. Convincing the audience of that point was one of the movie’s most successful angles. Here’s the camera they actually used.

Update: Here’s what William Gibson had to say about the movie:

“I saw Cloverfield last night, and nothing about it bugged me more than those quotes around “Central Park” on the DoD evidence tag that opens the film. It immediately tells us that this film has not been made by native science fiction minds. If Central Park is no longer called Central Park, but is officially referred to as “the area formerly known as ‘Central Park'”, but the DoD still exists, we know that this is not a *far-future* evidence tag. So if Central Park is now known as “The Killing Fields”, or “The Ghastly Black Glass Ocean”, then *tell* us. Those quotes are extraordinarily clumsy (and the card itself is typographically unconvincing). Very first thing in the film. Matters. Hugely.”

Mr. Gibson (my favorite author) obviously has a greater eye for detail than I. Would love to know what he thought of the rest of the movie.