There isn’t much to say about this new Cloverfield spot, except to point out that New Year’s Rockin’ Eve isn’t the best place to premiere a trailer, in my opinion. I guess part of the target demo is sci-fi geeks without friends, a date or a party to attend, but then those geeks are probably doing something better than watching Ryan Seacrest ring in 2008 in Times Square. Sure, millions of TVs likely were tuned to Rockin’ Eve around the 11:50-12:01 mark, but it’s not as though the ball drop is like the Super Bowl. Most of us have the show on mute, because we’d rather listen to our dance music and our popping corks and our bubbly bubbling … and obviously our own shouting of the countdown, and so certainly missed any commercials.

But that’s why we have the interweb, right? So now we can see the preview that premiered on New Year’s and notice that it’s just a rehash of clips we’ve seen previously. Of course, it still makes me want to see the movie (I now have my left foot in and I’m shaking it all around), especially because I’m realizing that Cloverfield will indeed have enough demolition going on (as opposed to simply Blair Witch-style video close-ups of frightened actors). Like most of the world, I’m a sucker for watching the cinematic destruction of NYC. Last week, the New York Times featured a story about our love for Big Apple destruction, in which it included this quote from architectural historian Max Page:

“The best thing for New York might be the sight of King Kong tramping through the streets of Manhattan on his way to a fateful appointment at the top of the Empire State Building. For if there is one thing that symbolizes New York’s pre-eminence, it is that so many still want to imagine the city’s end.”

And this quote from Celluloid Skyline author James Sanders:

“What would be the point of showing a demolished suburban street? You’d get the point but it just wouldn’t have the punch. You take the most familiar, iconic symbol of civic society in the world — a big city, and for Americans, that’s New York — and that’s where disaster is going to be the most powerful.”

Perhaps that is the reason that The Postman did so poorly. But as much as I love watching my beloved city destroyed — I always thought it was because I grew up nearby and recognized this city more than others and that Texans would enjoy Dallas destruction and Washingtonites would enjoy Seattle being torn up, etc. (Chris Thilk would like to see Chicago “get the shaft,” for instance) — I also loved the sets for The Postman and have been a fan of post-apocalyptic scenes in general. I find that anything works well, as long as it’s recognizable. San Francisco has also been the stage for a number of disaster movies, because it’s such a postcard-familiar city. And while generic suburbia doesn’t have the same impact, I wouldn’t mind seeing the occasional mcmansion housing community under attack by a monster or disaster.

One thing I’m shocked about, though, is the argument that 9/11 made NYC destruction even more appealing. The New York Times article links to J. Hoberman’s Village Voice piece from last year about 9/11 renewing disaster movie appetites, and paraphrases Sanders as saying, “the skyline is too much of a ‘global shorthand’ for filmmakers to hold off.” I wasn’t living in the city during 9/11, but I imagine if I had been here I’d have lost some of my interest in watching familiar skyscrapers get blasted by aliens and asteroids. I definitely wouldn’t have agreed with what former NYC mayor Ed Koch had to say on the subject:

“They want to see our skyscrapers destroyed because they are envious of them,” Mr. Koch said in a phone interview. Asked whom he was referring to, he said, “‘They’ is the rest of the country.”

Doesn’t that sound like non-New Yorkers in America would have been enjoying 9/11 as it happened on television? Of course, it’s hard for me to take Koch seriously since his statement also reminded me of his appearance as a Godzilla-like giant in that Ghostbusters parody from The Critic.