another thing about 1-18-08.com

OK, this is just me being a little nit-picky...

It seems as if the photos were written upon AT the party, which presumes someone had a printer hooked up and running, which I've seen done. Or maybe the images were found on removable camera memory following the event, ala the tsunami of 12/26/04* and were written on by those who survived.

Should we call this meta-foreshadowing?

Also, on the party photo of Rob, where he's being given a drink... is the time stamp 12:01 or 12:31? I'm pretty sure it's 12:01.

*Regarding digital storage: I'd never thought about it until the aftermath of this earthquake and tsunami, but there were people right down on the beach who were, presumably, killed. But, their last photos were preserved because of the storage medium providing the world with a uniquely rare first-hand look at devastating events... like a giant monster attack.

Regarding the 1-18-08 teaser trailer

While analyzing the teaser trailer, there have been a few things that seem to bear some bit of further discussion.

The smoke between the buildings does appear to have a distinct 'monster' shape, movement, and even a mouth-like feature. Perhaps it's just in us to see such things. Perhaps the smoke was designed to provide such an illusion. Perhaps a glimpse of the monster was originally intended and this smoke was added to fill the space in which the monster would have appeared. One thing is certain. CGI work has been done to the teaser in the visual area near the smoke.

I can't recall the specific timings, but when we first get a good steady shot of the STOP sign, it is a standalone sign, seeming a bit out of place. Some have even stated that they know the area and there is no stop sign at that location. Later, when we initially see the dot of Lady Liberty's coconut flying toward us the camera has zoomed out a bit, and maybe moved back a bit as well, and the STOP sign has been altered to appear as if it is fixed to a lamp post. The lamp post is the type that has an arm extending over the street with the light attached at the end. The glare from this light, which we already know isn't actually there, just happens to blind us to some of the detail very near what might have been the head of the monster but is seen here as a cloud of smoke. Then, about the time Liberty's head bounces off ABZ-3293 (the parked SUV) the stop sign is visible again (in frame-by-frame) sans light pole.

So, I'll go out on a limb here... I surmise that even though it's a teaser and not meant to be perfect, someone was paid to go to the trouble of creating visual obfuscation in a key portion of those frames in which we might have been able to see something, using clouds of smoke and a bright light source. Something either was originally in that shot or something is intended to be in that shot when it hits theaters.

Regarding the Call Sheet @ NYmag.com

To my untrained eyes the call sheet could easily be real, and for the purposes of this post, I'll assume so.

Something that's been bubbling on the back burner of my mind for weeks is the Lascano, Platt, & Robbie picture at 1-18-08.com.

From the first time I saw the text on the backs of the photos I noticed that 4 specific letters are smudged. They are located in a spot that would easily allow for us to assume it was a finger smudge, which is why I never bothered to bring it up... but as things have unraveled, new ideas came to mind...

It has been mentioned that Cloverfield probably takes place in a single evening. What comes at the end of a night? DAWN! What three letters are smudged? ANDW, which can be made to spell DAWN [it may have been the word WAND as well but I couldn't be sure]. The call sheet clearly states a DAWN setting for four of the scenes to be filmed. Combined with the rumored title of "Overnight" I think the smudged letters were a clue we all missed until it was too late.

Cloverfield, or whatever... factsheet

OK, I've gotten a bit wrapped up in this Cloverfield business. Cloverfield seems to be the primary codename for the untitled JJ Abrams monster movie due out on 1-18-08.

Catch-up: The teaser trailer for this movie was shown before the Transformers movie and showed us a going away party for 'Rob', who is leaving for Japan, being interrupted by a monstrous howl, an earthquake, and a power disruption. The partygoers head for the roof to try and see what's up. A monstrous explosion shakes the land once again, raining debris for miles around. The panicked partyers head indoors presumably for shelter, but then rush out into the street where another howl is heard followed by a strange throaty whistling noise. At this point an object can be seen hurtling toward the partyers. The object crashes into a building and continues down into the street, smashing parked cars and coming to rest in the middle of the road. At this point we see that the object is the head of the Statue of Liberty. The teaser ends with the date "1-18-08" and some production credits.

As it happens, that date turned up as a website, 1-18-08.com. This site featured a photograph of two women, side by side, framed in such a way as to show only half of each woman's face. They are looking upward and appear to be stunned by whatever it is they are seeing. Eventually, and as I write this, a total of 5 photos have gone up on this site. These photos are not static images. They are displayed using Flash so that the viewer may rearrange the photos and even flip them over. All of the photos are time and date stamped. Two of the photos are from the party and the other three photos appear to have been taken during the monster attack. There are messages written on the back of the two party photos including which gave up some names of the other characters. Someone was wise enough to look for those names on MySpace and turned up 7 characters, all linking to one another and no-one else.

So, I've been trying to monitor their MySpace blogs, comments, pics, and video pages and noticed that some of the profiles were either placed some time ago or they were made to appear as if they were placed some time ago. Here's a quick link list to their profiles:
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/jamielascano - Jamie Lascano's name found on back of pic.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/robbyhawkins - Rob Hawkins was going to Japan.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/beth_mcintyre - Beth McIntyre seems to be Rob's girl.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/lily_ford - Lily Ford seems to be JJ Hawkins' girl.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/hudsonplatt - Hudson "Hud" Platt is a friend.
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/jj_hawkins - Jason "JJ" "Hawk" is Rob's half-brother?
MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/marlenadiamond - Marlena Diamond is a friend.
In the last couple of days there have been new friends added to some of these profiles along with new comments and a blog entry by Hud (a fan of comic books) about the X-Men.

To backtrack a little bit, there was another clue in the teaser trailer, and possibly some yet to be discovered clues, mainly, "Slusho!" Slusho is a drink that has appeared in Abrams' show "Alias" and possibly in "Lost" as well. The site slusho.jp seems to hold a lot of 'Cloverfield' related information that has yet to be properly interpreted.

Speaking of interpretation... a lot of really silly ideas have been mentioned by people who have misinterpreted available information.

• Talk of lions lead to the idea this was a Voltron movie, which it is not.
  
• Some believe this is a movie about 3 biblical monsters (Behemoth on land, Leviathan in the sea, & Ziz in the air) based on Slusho information about sea creatures and whales (Leviathan) along with a duck (Ziz) and a horse (Behemoth) and Slusho page backgrounds to go along with each. While there isn't enough available information to completely discredit this rumor there is an equal lack of information to confirm it.
  
• Based on the '3 monsters' rumor others have guessed at a "Rampage" movie, from the old video arcade game. Again, I'm really certain this is not a Rampage movie.
• Finally, Chthulhu fans seemed to think there was some possibility this was a movie based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, but anyone really familiar with his work would see that what we know of this movie bears no real resemblance to Lovecraft's stories.
  

A lot of other sites have cropped up pretending to be connected to the untitled JJ Abrams project, but most have been quickly and easily exposed as fakes. I won't bother mentioning questionable items here because such posers simply don't deserve any sort of recognition.

Abrams stated at Comic-Con that 'we' should have a monster icon like Godzilla. Therefore, my guess is that this is a completely original monster, as original as giant monsters can be nowadays, and may have roots in anything and/or everything mentioned above, but this will be a new look at whatever it turns out to be.