Plot
editThe film begins with a disclaimer stating that the following footage is of case designate "Cloverfield" and was found in the area formerly known as "Central Park."
Robert "Rob" Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) wakes up one morning in April after sleeping with a platonic best friend Elizabeth "Beth" (Odette Yustman). They plan to leave for Coney Island that day. The next month, Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) prepare a farewell party for Rob as he is about to leave for his job in Japan. While the party goes on, Jason gives Hudson "Hud" (T.J. Miller) the opportunity to film last testimonials for Rob, but while doing that, Hud unsuccessfully flirts with his crush Marlena (Lizzy Caplan).He later witnesses Rob and Beth arguing over Beth bringing a boy named Travis to the party with her. Lily reveals that Rob and Beth slept together and despite her warnings, Hud goes around telling everyone what she said. Lily then tells Jason and Hud to talk it over with Rob, who is also upset after learning that Hud is taping over his trip to Coney Island with Beth.
While the three guys are chatting at the balcony, the building shakes and suffers a brief power outage. When the power returns, everyone turns on the local news where it indicates that an oil tanker had capsized in the bay off Lower Manhattan. Party dwellers went to the roof to spot the disaster, only to witness a huge explosion at Lower Manhattan. They run down and flee to the streets, where the head of the Statue of Liberty crashes. Hud then records what appears to be a giant monster roaming a few miles down before everyone is forced to take shelter in a convenient store when the Woolworth Building collapses.
When they get out, Jason tells everyone that they have to leave Manhattan, choosing the Brooklyn Bridge as an escape route. As they cross the span, Rob gets a call on his cell and stops moving. Hud, Lily, and Marlena stop as well, but Jason cannot hear them and keeps going. Suddenly, the tail of the monster crushes the main span of the bridge, causing it to collapse and killing Jason and hundreds of others. Everyone is forced to flee back into Manhattan.
Marlena and Hud try to comfort Rob and Lily over the loss of Jason. Because his phone conversation with Beth had been interrupted, Rob stops at an electronics store that is being looted. He steals a cell phone battery to listen to Beth's message, which says that her building fell over and she is trapped. On the news, Hud sees that the miltary is attacked by parasitic spider-like creatures that are falling off of the monster. After an argument, Rob, Hud, Lily, and Marlena take to the Manhattan streets to rescue Beth.
They are soon caught in a crossfire between the monster and military. The group barely manages to escape into the subway. They decide to go through the subway tunnels to reach Beth's apartment, but are attacked by several parasites. One of them bites Marlena as she tries to rescue Hud. The group escapes into the abandoned Bloomingdale's department store via the 59th Street subway station, and are engaged by Sergeant Pryce and a squad of infantry, who have taken cover inside the store and set up a field hospital and command center to treat the wounded. Marlena begins to bleed from her eyes and nose. When she is revealed to have been bitten, two men in hazmat suits grab her and take her behind a curtain while Lily, Rob and Hud are taken away by soldiers. Hud films the curtains and sees Marlena's stomach expand and explode. Rob and the others have little time to grieve as Sergeant Pryce allows them back up to the streets, but warns them to report to a military evacuation site before 6:00 am, which is when the last helicopter evacuates Manhattan and the military will enact its "Hammerdown" protocol, which will allow the sacrifice of the island if necessary to kill the monster.
The group continues toward Beth's apartment and find her tower partially collapsed into the adjacent tower. They climb the standing tower and cross onto the roof of Beth's building and work their way down to her apartment. Beth is found trapped and impaled by a concrete rebar, but they are able to free her. After the rescue, they make their way to an aerial evacuation site where they encounter the monster once more, while the military continues to engage it. At the landing zone, Lily is raced into a departing helicopter without her friends. Moments later, Rob, Beth and Hud are taken away in a second helicopter and see the monster bombed by a stealth bomber. Just as Hud begins hailing victory over the monster, it reaches up and attacks the helicopter, causing it to crash into a grassy clearing in Central Park. A voice on the helicopter's radio warns of the Hammerdown protocol being effective in fifteen minutes.
Hud and Beth pull an injured Rob clear of the helicopter wreckage, but Hud returns to recover the camera and as he does, the monster appears above him. This is the first time the monster is seen clearly, in daylight.[1] It examines Hud for a few moments before killing him. Rob and Beth grab the still-recording camera and take shelter under an arch in Central Park as air raid sirens begin to blare in the distance, indicating that the Hammerdown protocol is about to begin. Rob and Beth quickly take turns leaving their last testimonies of the day, which Rob mentions as Saturday, May 23, on camera. Numerous explosions occur outside and the monster can be heard roaring in pain in the distance. As the arch collapses and as debris covers the camera, Rob and Beth can be heard professing their love to one another before another explosion occurs.
The film cuts to Rob and Beth's Coney Island date, where, in the background, an object can be seen falling from the sky and landing in the ocean. Before the tape runs out, the couple in a ferris wheel car says they had a good time.
After the credits roll, a garbled radio sound clip can be heard. When played backwards, the audio says, "It's still alive".[2]
References
edit- ^ James Berardinelli. "The movie follows the Jaws rule that monsters are usually more intimidating when they are shown infrequently and only in brief glimpses". "Review: Cloverfield". Reelviews.net. Retrieved 2008-01-22.
{{cite news}}: Check|url=value (help) - ^ Reversed Soundclip
The inspiration for this experiment came from 3 thoughts:
- Just how much of WP is dedicated to anime?
- Are there really more cricket players than Polish villages?
- Where does WP:BIAS show?
| Aerosol Paint Entry is now online. Go there. This is just my sandbox now. Please discuss there, or on my talk page |
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more thoughts on Lane's review and misogyny
editJust to continue on this thought... I still find Lanes review ludicrous. I mean, the main characters, particularly Bigwig and Fiver, repeatedly and openly dismiss does as little more than breeding stock. But the rabbits show only selective empathy to one another throughout the whole story. Only Coswslip's warren do rabbits develop more complex relationships and are considered very "unrabbit-like". In fact, when faced with the apparent death of Fiver, his brother, Hazel seems to have little emotion about it at all, "it is a shame".
so very white
editCheeser has it. For example, the first part of Employment and economics is fine, as the examples are based on studies designed to explicitly identify if white privilege was a factor in hiring practices. The second paragraph only seems to compare income inequity, which can include multiple factors. As it is written now, it is not clear that white privilege leads to income inequality or that income inequality leads to white privilege.--Knulclunk (talk) 01:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
so pretty
edit- It hadn't bothered me. The opening paragraph "sociological concept" already implies that we are defining a concept that is held and discussed as theory. Most statements in the article are given as expert viewpoints or case statistics. Are you concerned that WP may be advocating the for the concept of white privilege in this article?