I was really excited about seeing Cloverfield. Cloverfield was much like the Blair Witch Project considering everything shown on the screen is said to be “found footage” from the main character's video camera. I thought The Blair Witch Project was a pretty good movie when I saw it in 1999. I figured that the Blair Witch Project could be even better if they redid it with a few changes; change the setting from the woods to a major city, replace the sticks tied together with a 100 yard tall monster and instead of showing three annoying twentysomething hipsters meet them demise, have a few dozen annoying twentysomething hipsters meet their demise. That's exactly what Cloverfield ended up being. In theory, it should have been the greatest movie ever made. It ended up being horrible. The gimmicks which worked for the Blair Witch Project do not successfully carry over to a big budget action movie like Cloverfield.

Much of the movie reminded me of 2005's War of the Worlds. I liked the concept of a disaster movie following one random guy navigating chaos. Too many disaster movies follow the format of the geeky scientist who warns of impending doom, higher ups dismissing the geek's claims, disaster scene ensues, geek fixes mess, get the girl, the end. It's a good formula. It works, but War of the World's 'random guy navigating the chaos' storyline was a breath of fresh air.

Cloverfield was the same in this regard. You know nothing about the monster other than what the characters see and they have no idea what they're seeing but it's just not as exciting. Cloverfield's main characters are on a journey to the middle of the city to rescue a girl trapped in her apartment. The characters run into a military outpost every ten minutes and are given the opportunity of evacuate. I suppose the writers did this to show that the characters are good people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a friend, but it really takes away from the movie when you realize that at most any point they can just turn around and find safety. That's not what disaster movies should be about.

There are many reasons why War of the Worlds was a better movie than Cloverfield. Here are the two most important;

1. Tripods: War of the Worlds proved robot monsters to be better than regular monsters since robot monsters have the ability to eat, impale AND vaporise people while regular monsters like Cloverfield's can only eat and squish people.

2. Tripods: Stephen Spielberg doesn't need shaky cameras to make a story look realistic. I left Cloverfield wishing I had taken Dramamine beforehand.

War of the Worlds' only problem was casting. It starred to of the most annoying actors in Hollywood – Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. Can you imagine how amazing the movie would've been if producers hired Christian Bale instead? He's basically Tom Cruise without the arrogance. There aren't really any Dakota Fanning substitutes I would be happy with – instead, they should have casted Charles Bronson as the lead character's daughter*.

Obviously, you know where I'm going here. Watching Cloverfield has me worried about Auburn's spread offense again. New gimmicks can seem cool in previews, but often have disastrous results when put into practice. A steady camera, a soundtrack and a structured storyline are not noticeable when you're watching a good movie. It's easy to think that a movie without these aspects wouldn't affect the quality. It's easy to conclude that a movie without these aspects would be “original”. In practice, it just doesn't work. Big budget movies need the full orchestra soundtrack, the artful cinematography and an abundance of action scenes to be any good. Right now, it seems like a brilliant idea to get rid of the fullback and add an extra receiver. We rarely notice what the fullback is doing during the play, but like a soundtrack, we may sorely miss him when he's gone.

The concept of big budget movies stealing gimmicks from low budget independent movies seems similar to what Auburn has been doing. Launching the ball downfield works for Sun Belt teams. Shaking cameras work for independent movies. Auburn is in the process of transitioning to the spread. Tony Franklin is “stealing” recruits from places like Troy and Jacksonville State and planning on “passing to set up the run”. It's unpredictable, but sometimes things are predictable because it's the best idea. Al Borges might have been predicable, but unpredictable is usually unpredictable because it's stupid.

I'm afraid Auburn may learn the hard way that fullbacks, blocking and playaction passes are required to win football games in the SEC.

The term “pass to set up the run” sounds really weird to me. I've grown up in the south, yet I don't like hunting, I like my steaks well done and my jeep isn't four wheel drive. My only connection to my 'southern heritage' is my belief in the running game. Auburn abandoning the “run to set up the pass*” philosophy completely shatters beliefs I've held for years and it makes me a man without a culture.

There's a chance that I'm wrong about all of this. Maybe, just maybe, there are better ways to analyze an offense than by comparing it to a movie I saw last night. No matter what, Auburn will be fine because Tuberville will keep our defense awesome. He may have made the worst decision of his life in changing offensive philosophies, but he's still 110 lbs of defensive coaching genius. Auburn will still rock. The offense will probably rock too.

War Eagle!

*Why didn't I write any articles last week? Because AMC showed all five Death Wish movies during a week long marathon.

** Some years, Auburn used the “run to set up the punt” offense.

E-mail Mark at mark@theauburner.com

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