Hollywood slums it

I return to you this evening feeling as though I spent the afternoon being smacked about the face with a pan. Why? Because I just went to see Cloverfield with Canimal.

What an amazing movie. I screamed out loud twice, like the feeble woman I am (Cani did too, mind you), sat with my jaw hanging open and have never felt so involved. Cloverfield manages what The Blair Witch Project, one of the worst pieces of filmmaking of all time, was trying to do, and not knowing what the hell is going on works this time to make the whole thing so much more frightening.

It reminds me of World War Z, an incredible book that Tim recommended before Christmas. Both look at how the man on the street would respond to an extreme circumstance - people like you and I, who can't see the big picture, who don't have access to the plans being made. That horrifying feeling of just not knowing what to do to survive or where to run for safety.

There's no time to predict what's going to happen next in this movie because it's tough enough to work out what's going on in the moment. I did ponder what I might do thrust into the same circumstances, but I'm afraid I must agree with Cani's conclusion: I'd sit in a corner and whine a lot. I also love that it never answers its own questions - we don't know why it happened, what the monster is, or, of course, what happens after the movie ends. And nor should we, because that adds to the whole atmosphere of not knowing where to run for safety.

I now feel ever so slightly iffy thanks to the bucket of popcorn I made my way through to appease my abject terror (all because I misunderstood which of the available containers was the large. That's my excuse, anyway.) and rather traumatised, but I also really want to see it all over again!


While I'm at it, I ought to mention my other excursion this week: 30 Seconds to Mars in concert in Hammersmith.

Which was enjoyable, in its way, but I couldn't quite shake the feeling that Jared Leto can't tell the difference between acting and being in a band and feels he must emote his way through every song.

Plus he gushed. A lot. Which began to stretch even my ability to suspend belief after he claimed for the fourth time that a song, the gig, the evening and everything else in his immediate vicinity was the best he'd ever seen/done/heard.

The lights, the effects and the energy were more than adequate, and the company was fantastic. It didn't, despite what all the leaping tweens might have thought, pretend to be a proper rock concert, to be fair. Which is just as well.

Apart from that, why on earth did I go, I hear you ask? Dear god, people, have you not seen Jared Leto?