ON THE VERGE OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL

Darren Hayes

+ A Lovely, Upbeat Pop Anthem

+ Visual References to Everything 80s like Atari 2600, Max Headroom, Tron, Asteroids, Missile Command & Electric Dreams

+ Janice Dickenson

= a fun new video I love!

Watch on YouTube

CLOVERFIELD

Okay, so if you saw TRANSFORMERS in the theater, you probably also saw the bizarre, cryptic trailer for J.J. Abrams untitled 2008 project. It depicts some sort of gargantuan, alien-esque attack on New York, shot entirely with camcorders from average-joe citizen POVs (think "Blair Witch Project" meets "War of the Worlds"), but it reveals no other plot elements -- nor does it reveal a name for the movie, only "Produced by J.J. Abrams" and the release date of 01-18-08 (which, when used as a URL, turns up an equally cryptic website). IMDB only hints at a working title, "Cloverfield".

I was intrigued, and immediately went to the web to find answers. Well, apparently, so did everyone else. It turns out that it just might be the biggest and most audacious viral marketing plan ever.

Follow all of the speculation (alien movie? Gozilla? Voltron?), and way down the rabbit hole you find a bizarre puzzle site called "Ethan Haas Was Right", which offers a bunch of alien-looking puzzles that reward you with a series of underground-looking "warning" videos about some sort of pending "attack" -- which may or may not actually have anything to do with the movie at all, but seem to at least *feel* related to the trailer somehow (be sure to pay attention to the stars in the sky...)

By the way... yes, I work for Paramount, but no, I don't know *anything* about this movie and wouldn't tell you if I did -- all my spelunking so far is purely as an inquisitive fan, intrigued by the trailer.

All of these links -- especially the puzzles -- are a total time-suck. Don't say I didn't warn you.