Ok, Real Quick...

I'm browsing through the news online (yeah I'm on watch, what of it?) and realizing there's fuck-all for news. It's a slow news day.

I hate slow news days.

So I'm going through the Entertainment section of Yahoo! News when I see this weird headline that strikes a sour note in my brain:

"Cloverfield DVD Sales Soar!"

See, here's the thing that kinda pinches the common sense section of my mind: Cloverfield was lauded by critics. It was abysmal. It was a failure on a massive scale. It was Blair Witch without the low-budget charm and all the big Hollywood shameless production.

If Blair Witch was like losing your virginity to the girl next door, Cloverfield was like losing it to a porn star.

So here's what I'm thinking: You can't run a headline like the one above mentioned because it's very misleading. For the few people who didn't catch (or figure out on their own) how high a level this film produced in a "I'd-Sooner-Stab-Out-My-Own-Eyes-Than-Watch-This" quotent, you're leading the blind down a patch covered in broken glass shards and HIV-infected needles. "Cloverfield" was a bad bad bad movie, and just because people rush out and buy the dvds doesn't make it suddenly better.

Here's how it works with CD and DVD sales: The numbers that you see for a "sale" aren't technically the consumer going out and purchasing or ordering online the particular title. It's the store that orders it that usually produces the numbers. So let's pull this all together real quick - you have this hyped up bound-for-Cinemax movie that for some reason 15 year olds can get behind (I'm gonna say it has something to do with buildings being blown up and army guys running around with fatigues and rifles oppose to the hand-held camera-style shooting of the film) and stock the shelves with it hoping that these brainless children with mom's credit card will buy two copies a piece.

Then you have kinda an... alternate effect. Companies like Blockbuster and (the infinitely cooler) Netflix will buy scores of copies to be rented out, due to the fact more discriminating film goers will want to see "exactly how bad" "Cloverfield" was.

Ok, here's the bottomline real quick: Don't go see "Cloverfield" for any reason, whether you have a geniune interest in the film or if you just want to slowly drive by a fatal car accident on the side of the highway.

Read a book instead.