1-18-08 is an official Nerd Holiday thanks to the release of Cloverfield. I saw the full trailer for the first time on the big screen before The Mist, and I needed to be revived afterward. Now they’ve released five minutes of the film, posted above. Most of this is from the trailer, which is kind of nice seeing as it doesn’t give any more away than what you’ve already seen, but it does fill in a few holes. And I totally saw the monster creeping around in the background dude. I seen it!

As an added bonus, you can use this widget to help you see the movie early, along with 30 of your favorite geeks, thereby becoming the envy of the World Nerd Community. It has to do with the amount of ‘grabs’ your widget gets, which sounds kinda fishy to me. But if you ‘grab my widget,’ I’ll invite you to the screening if I win. For reals. More info after the jump. (more…)

We’re still months away from the release of J.J. Abrams super mysterious monster flick, known only as “Cloverfield.” But clues are still surfacing as part of the alternate reality game use to promote the film, and subsequently drive me crazy. TunaFlix.com reported that a new Web site that appears to be part of the experience has recently popped up on the Internets. The Tagruato Company claims to be the parent company of, among other things, Slusho, a Japanese soft drink that has some connection to the film. I’d go into this more, but I have to scour over every word to mine for clues and formulate elaborate conspiracy theories. “Cloverfield,” or whatever they’ll end up calling it will be released Jan. 18th, 2008.

J.J. Abrams at the Comiccon was talking about Cloverfield (or whatever the hell they’re going to call it); “I want a monster movie. I wanted a great monster movie for so long. I was in Japan over a year ago with my son, who is 8. All he wanted to do was go to toy stores — so I know he’s my son. There were still all these Godzillas everywhere, and I thought, ‘we need our own monster.’ We need a monster movie! Not like King Kong. I love King Kong. King Kong is adorable. And Godzilla is a charming monster. But I wanted something that’s just insane and intense.”
They also unveiled of one of a series of four of the teaser posters for the Untitled J.J. Abrams Project.

Unless you’re a nerd, you may not know about the fervor being created around an unnamed J.J. Abrams movie that has been referred to as “Cloverfield.” All that’s really known about the film is that it seems to be some sort of monster movie that will be filmed hand-held from the point of view of those who are affected by the attack, and it is to be released on 1-18-08. J.J. Abrams, the man behind Lost and Alias, likes his secrets, and he also likes to fuck with his audience. Recently, Abrams broke the fourth wall, so to speak, with The Lost Experience, a series of Web sites that pertained to the show and helped create a sort of alternate reality that rabid fans, like myself, could participate in (and some of that shit was fucking freaky). Given the mysterious nature of the teaser trailer (you can see a great quality version here if you haven’t already), people began speculating. Over the past few days, I’ve heard rumors that range from a new Godzilla movie, to a film based on the HP Lovecraft sea beastie Cthulhu, to Voltron. Another recent theory posed on this message board (pg. 157) surmised that it might be a movie based on Revelation (which I think is a good possibility considering Abrams’ obsession with religious archetypes and ancient mysteries (see just about anything he’s ever done)).

A lot of the rumors have been more or less debunked, and of course, Abrams isn’t talking. According to this article, most of the cast didn’t even know what was going on. All of this mystery, of course, led to those with even more time on my hands than I have started doing some snooping, and it would appear that the marketing for “Cloverfield” may include an Alternate Reality Game (ARG if you’re hip to the lingo). A T-shirt of one of the people in the trailer reads “Slusho,” which led people to this Web site. It seems to be a regular Web site for some kind of Japanese soft drink, but closer inspection reveals some very peculiar things: Giant Whales? Deep Sea Exploration? A Secret Ingredient?! ZOMG!!1 Read the history. It’s weird. This is the only site that Abrams hasn’t denied may be a piece of the puzzle. You can also check out 1-18-08.com. You can free associate on those pictures for hours (a third one was added yesterday).

Nothing here is new. I’m kinda still filtering through shit. There’s a lot of game jackery and false leads out there too, but if anyone else has been following up on this instead of working, I’d love to hear more. In the mean time, I’ll be practicing my numerology.