Medium Mashup

Author: Ross Miller

  • The Good and Bad of 10 Cloverfield Lane’s Marketing Campaign

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    (Unlike my 10 Cloverfield Lane review that posted earlier this week, this article WILL discuss spoiler and plot points. If you have not seen 10 Cloverfield Lane yet and have any interest in seeing it, I would recommend clicking away now.)

    10 Cloverfield Lane had one of the best teaser trailers in recent memory. It told you all you needed to know about the film: it takes place in a bunker, there are rising tensions and occasional conflicts among the characters, and there is something dangerous outside. Then, there was the kicker: a title card with the word “CLOVERFIELD,” before fully revealing the title as “10 CLOVERFIELD LANE.”

    It’s that last part that is causing trouble for part of the movie’s audience. 10 Cloverfield Lane has a B- on Cinemascore right now, which usually reflects how accurately marketed a movie is. Reddit is swarmed with people who are disappointed with the film and its marketing, and even on AV Club’s spoiler section, where comments are usually solid, several commenters are expressing their thankfulness for having a place where they could easily spoil the movie, confirm their suspicions, and avoid seeing it altogether.

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  • 10 Cloverfield Lane Review

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    10 Cloverfield Lane is a type of movie that we just don’t see very often in modern cinema. It’s a film with a decent budget and a major production company behind it, with some serious marketing power, that still prefers to keep things simple and constrained throughout most of its runtime. With a few changes Cloverfield Lane could have easily been a stand-alone no-budget indie flick. The fact that a major studio released and marketed such an effort at all is encouraging, as it suggests that mid-budget films can still get made (and, hopefully, be successful) even in today’s entertainment business climate.

    But aside from supporting the return to small character-driven entertainment and the mid-budget blockbuster, there’s a simpler reason for why you should see 10 Cloverfield Lane: it’s just damn good. The trailers have smartly kept most of the plot details under lock-and-key, and I won’t go into details much here, but the script plays with expectations wonderfully. Your suspicions of other characters shift back and forth with each new reveal, and the pacing is perfect, giving the film plenty of time to breathe without ever stalling out.

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  • Zootopia Review

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    Zootopia is one of the smartest, most nuanced movies I’ve seen about race relations. It gets so many complex and often-overlooked aspects across: the way that historical biases still have power in a “post-racial” world, how racism often comes from a place of fear or ignorance rather than outright hate, how even good people can let their biases get the best of them, how society’s presumptions about race can dictate one’s behavior, and quite a lot more. Even generally well-received films like Best Picture winner Crash can get this stuff wrong and make characters cartoonishly racist, so for an ACTUAL cartoon featuring a city of animals to convey these ideas so brilliantly is quite an achievement. Like last year’s excellent Inside Out, Zootopia manages to convey ideas that are far above most childrens’ heads in a way that they can understand on an emotional level.

    But to just say that Zootopia is successful for conveying complex ideas to a broad audience in a nuanced manner is to sell it short. Just as a piece of entertainment, it’s hugely successful. For children, there is great animation and plenty of visual gags to keep them entertained. It’s briskly paced, very funny, and features extremely likable characters. For adults, there are several clever jokes that are likely to fly over kids’ heads, including references to R-rated fare like The Godfather and Breaking Bad. However, unlike a lot of animated pictures, these references feel like genuine nods of affection rather than cheap throwaway jokes, and they never detract from the central narrative.

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  • Oscar 2016 Predictions

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    It’s that time again! This Sunday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will hand out awards to whatever films win the most votes from its members! But in what is essentially a popularity contest, influenced by multi-million dollar ad campaigns and industry-insider connections, how is one to make sense of it all? Well, if you’re part of a betting pool or you’re just curious about what’s going to happen, read on for my expectations and personal picks! (more…)

  • Firewatch Review

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    Firewatch is notable for its ambition over anything else. It’s technically in the same genre as other recent “walking simulators” like Gone Home and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, but here the player engages more directly with the narrative, or narratives, as it turns out. The game begins by setting up your character’s tragic backstory in a way that I’ve never seen done in a 3D title, incorporates a growing relationship between two characters into almost all of the game’s interactions, hints at a conspiracy thriller plotline, and tells another personal tale of tragedy along the way. That all of these narratives fail to come together in a significant way is perhaps understandable, then, but I was still hoping that the separate threads would feel more complete than they ultimately do.

    I’ll try to stay away from overt spoilers in this review, but let’s begin with lead-character Henry’s personal backstory. The slightly-interactive opening is beautiful in its minimalism, and borrows heavily from narratives like Pixar’s Up. The goal is clearly to give the player-character baggage that informs his actions in the otherwise-disconnected main narrative. However, unlike Up, Firewatch fails to really provide an arc for its characters. He takes his job as a fire lookout at a national park as a reprieve from his crumbling marriage, and by the end of the title, that’s all it ever is. He doesn’t come to terms with anything, he doesn’t make any major decisions, he just gets wrapped up in a separate plotline with his boss, Delilah.

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