Cloverfield

by 5go 31 Replies latest social entertainment

  • VM44
    VM44

    If you want to read what Cloverfield is about, then go to this webpage:

    http://www.1-18-08news.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=91

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    So many ppl are hoping that it is a Lovecraft adaptation...but wouldn't we already know if they negotiated with his estate or received permission?

    Ah nemmind, looks like the copyrights expired on many of these works.

  • Low-Key Lysmith
    Low-Key Lysmith

    Looks like an over-hyped Godzilla movie to me.

  • 5go
    5go
    Looks like an over-hyped Godzilla movie to me.

    It is only without Godzilla.

    They using an idea that if I was making a Godzilla movie I would use. That is follow some joe around Tokyo as he is running away from Godzilla. Though I wouldn't bother with the handicam perspective. That never works well. I would do it more like the new War of the Worlds.
  • The Oracle
    The Oracle

    I heard that the monster ends up destroying every building in the city except for the world head quarters of Jehovah's Witnesses.

    Apparently the creature has seven heads with seven diadems and in the final scene makes out with a huge hooker who plays the part of Christendom.

    Can you say "Oscar" ?

    The Oracle

  • Mastodon
    Mastodon

    Roumors about it having to do with Lovecraftian lore might be wrong. Regardless, it seems like an interesting proposition, the whole handheld video stuff. Almost like a Blair Witch Project kind of deal. The thing I'm a little worried about would be that, because of how the film was shot, we might never get a real good look at the creature.

    I've half a mind to see it on Imax, if they have it...

  • 5go
    5go
    The thing I'm a little worried about would be that, because of how the film was shot, we might never get a real good look at the creature.

    I am trying not going to spoil it but you as eats someone who is holding something. I am the type that just has to know what I am getting into before I see a movie. Which why I know what it looks like. It ain't no Cthulhu.

  • lonelysheep
    lonelysheep

    ***2nd Hand spoiler alert***

    ********

    I'm sick as hell so I didn't go.

    The Empire State Building comes down and it's basically a duplicate of the main Sept. 11, 2001 video of people running to escape the dust cloud, trying to get into stores for safety. How disrespectful.

    I'm told it wasn't a complete waste of money, but if you didn't like Blair Witch Project, you won't like this. They end very similarly.

    I thought Blair Witch was stupid.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    I guess I'm glad it isn't a Lovecraft adaptation. But why the hell isn't there one in Hollywood?

  • 5go
    5go
    I guess I'm glad it isn't a Lovecraft adaptation. But why the hell isn't there one in Hollywood?

    My guess he was a rabid anti-semite and racist. That and there is some doubt as to who has the rights to his stories. The main one is the one every one wants to see made cthulhu. Though it may possible now his stuff just passed into public domain.

    Intellectual property

    There is controversy over the copyright status of many of Lovecraft's works, especially his later works. Lovecraft had specified that the young R. H. Barlow would serve as executor of his literary estate, but these instructions had not been incorporated into his will. Nevertheless his surviving aunt carried out his expressed wishes, and Barlow was given charge of the massive and complex literary estate upon Lovecraft's death.

    Barlow deposited the bulk of the papers, including the voluminous correspondence, with the John Hay Library. However, as a young writer with no legal training, his efforts to organize and maintain Lovecraft's other writing stood little chance of success. August Derleth, an older and more established writer than Barlow, vied for control of the literary estate. One result of these conflicts was the legal confusion over who owned what copyrights.

    All works published before 1923 are public domain in the U.S. [15] However, there is some disagreement over who exactly owns or owned the copyrights and whether the copyrights for the majority of Lovecraft's works published post-1923 — including such prominent pieces as "The Call of Cthulhu" and "At the Mountains of Madness" — have now expired.

    Questions center over whether copyrights for Lovecraft's works were ever renewed under the terms of the U.S.Copyright Act of 1976 for works created prior to January 1, 1978. The problem comes from the fact that before the Copyright Act of 1976 the number of years a work was copyrighted in the U.S. was based on publication rather than life of the author plus a certain number of years and that it was only good for 28 years with one renewal for an additional 28 years. The Copyright Act of 1976 retroactively extended the renewal period for all works to a period of 47 years [16] and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added another 20 years to that, for a total of 95 years from publication. Similarly, the European UnionDirective on harmonising the term of copyright protection of 1993 extended the copyrights to 70 years after the author's death. So, all works of Lovecraft published during his lifetime, became public domain in all 27 European Union countries on 1 January, 2008.

    In those Berne Convention countries who have implemented only the minimum copyright period, copyright expires 50 years after the author's death.

    Lovecraft protégés and part owners of Arkham House, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, often claimed copyrights over Lovecraft's works. On October 9, 1947, Derleth purchased all rights to Weird Tales. However, since April 1926 at the latest, Lovecraft had reserved all second printing rights to stories published in Weird Tales. Hence, Weird Tales may only have owned the rights to at most six of Lovecraft's tales. Again, even if Derleth did obtain the copyrights to Lovecraft's tales, no evidence as yet has been found that the copyrights were renewed. [17]

    Prominent Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi concludes in his biography, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, that Derleth's claims are "almost certainly fictitious" and that most of Lovecraft's works published in the amateur press are most likely now in the public domain. The copyright for Lovecraft's works would have been inherited by the only surviving heir of his 1912 will: Lovecraft's aunt, Annie Gamwell. Gamwell herself perished in 1941 and the copyrights then passed to her remaining descendants, Ethel Phillips Morrish and Edna Lewis. Morrish and Lewis then signed a document, sometimes referred to as the Morrish-Lewis gift, permitting Arkham House to republish Lovecraft's works but retaining the copyrights for themselves. Searches of the Library of Congress have failed to find any evidence that these copyrights were then renewed after the 28-year period and, hence, it is likely that these works are now in the public domain.

    According to an essay by Peter Ruber, the current editor of Arkham House, called "The Un-Demonizing of August Derleth", certain letters obtained in June 1998 detail the Derleth-Wandrei acquisition of Lovecraft's estate. It is unclear whether these letters contradict Joshi's views on Lovecraft's copyrights. [18]

    Chaosium, publishers of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, have a trademark on several Lovecraftian phrases and creations, including "The Call of Cthulhu", for use in game products. Another RPG publisher, TSR, Inc., original publisher of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, included in one of that game's earlier supplements, Deities & Demigods (originally published in 1980 and later renamed to "Legends & Lore"), a section on the Cthulhu Mythos; TSR, Inc. later agreed to remove this section from subsequent editions because of Chaosium's intellectual property interests in the work.

    Regardless of the legal disagreements surrounding Lovecraft's works, Lovecraft himself was extremely generous with his own works and actively encouraged others to borrow ideas from his stories, particularly with regard to his Cthulhu mythos. By "wide citation" he hoped to give his works an "air of verisimilitude", and actively encouraged other writers to reference his creations, such as the Necronomicon, Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. After his death, many writers have contributed stories and enriched the shared mythology of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as making numerous references to his work. (See Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture.)

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