Wow, I guess I’ve sort of been neglecting the blogging thing for a while. Lately I haven’t been feeling so chatty, I suppose. Between a monster stiff neck the last couple days, the damn allergies and way too much Grifball, I’ve really lost a lot of time that I could have dedicated to this blog and my others.

I’ve also been watching a movie here and there. In fact one I watched recently has to be perhaps one of the most bizarre I’ve seen in a while. It was called Fido. It’s basically a cross between Leave it to Beaver, Lassie and pretty much any zombie movie. It was really quite funny. If you’ve been looking for something a little bit different, I’d suggest sticking Fido in your Netflix queue.

Anywho, what has everyone else been up to? Anything new and exciting?

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Here’s the latest trailed for The Dark Knight, the second Batman flick from director Christopher Nolan. According to my cousin, this trailer aired before Iron Man in the theater.

I’ve said it before, Christian Bale rocks as Batman. I’m guessing there won’t be another for a while.

It’s such a shame this is Heath Ledger’s final performance. It really appears he did a fantastic job as The Joker. I can hardly wait to see this film.

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I’ll admit I’m a bit of tornado junkie. If there’s a documentary about storm chasers on TV, there’s a good chance I’m watching. As frightening and violent as tornadoes are, I can’t help but find them fascinating.

I’ve watched a lot of incredible storm and tornado footage, but this one may be one of the most amazing I’ve seen. This was apparently an F2 tornado, which means it was packing winds anywhere between 113 and 157 miles per hour. It occurred just recently, somewhere in Alabama. Hopefully no one was seriously or fatally injured.

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Maybe I’m just in a grumpy mood lately but I’ve been finding myself getting increasingly annoyed by the amount of comments people try to leave on this blog that appear to be legit but are really just spam comments in disguise.

If you own a blog, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Those people who use keywords (instead of their actual name) as their name, knowing it will create a hyperlink of those keywords. Typically they aren’t bloggers. I get everything from pet food peddlers to personal trainers. The one thing they all share in common is that they’re all first time commenters.

It’s quite simple. If you’ve never left a comment here before and the first one you leave appears to be an attempt at just sneaking in a hyperlink with relevant keywords to your business, expect that it will be deleted. If I’m feeling nice, and think the comment really does add some sort of value to the discussion, I’ll remove your spammy link and leave the comment. You’re not placing your text links here for free, but I’d be happy to sell you a little ad space for a reasonable price.

/ End of rant.

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One movie that certainly received a lot of hype this year was Cloverfield. It began with a cryptic movie poster featuring a headless Statue of Liberty and a smoldering New York City. The only text on the poster was a date, 01/18/08. Using just those visuals as clues it was obvious that something happens in New York City on January 18th, 2008, but what?

Eventually as the release date of the film crept closer, I remember reading speculation that Cloverfield was a monster flick. The first thing I thought to myself was, “hasn’t that been done enough already?” However, considering all of the hype, I still felt like I should give Cloverfield a chance. Finally I’ve seen the movie, and I’m really glad I did. For me it definitely lived up to the hype.

It would seem I’m not the only person who enjoyed it, judging by the huge amount of positive reviews on sites like IMDB.com. However you will find negative reviews as well, and they all seem to point to one specific thing - the camera work. Cloverfield was filmed entirely with hand-held cameras because the entire film is shot from the perspective of one character documenting one entire night as it unfolds.

Since there’s quite a lot of sequences where characters are running from one place to another, you end up with a pretty shaky picture. Personally this didn’t bother me. I thought it only helped make the movie feel more realistic and genuine. A lot of folks however apparently suffered motion sickness. I’m glad I didn’t. I would have missed an excellent film.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that the special effects in Cloverfield were fantastic. When I finally got a look at the monster I was blown away, not only by how massive the thing was, but also by how realistic it looked.

One other element which really stood out to me was the force of soldiers firing everything they have at the beast, trying to take it down. I learned later that the soldiers were all former military personnel. A very nice touch, and just another way in which the producers and director went the extra mile to make the entire film feel as authentic as possible.

If you haven’t seen Cloverfield yet, I highly recommend checking it out. Without a doubt it’s been one of my favorite films of the past year. After you’ve seen it, you can also check out Cloverfieldfiles.com to see some great behind the scenes footage that wasn’t included on the DVD.

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