I saw cloverfield over the weekend. I must admit to being stunned by it. For many years Hollywood, it seems to me, has been trapped into quite a formulaic way of making films. Or more accurately, it has had many – okay two – formulas. First there was the studio system. Then there was George Lucas, who screwed everything up.

Now, though, there seems to be a new kind of film-making. In cloverfield, we are supposedly viewing the hand-held camera footage of some kind of alien monster invasion, as filmed by one of the characters. Thus we have a diagetic auteur; the film is created within the film. This strikes me as the very opposite of classicism. The camera is not omnipresent; we don’t have any of the filmic grammar we are accustomed to; there is no satisfying ending. On the other hand, the film is introduced by the explanatory message, which frames the film in some sort of conventional fiction. nevertheless, this is an exciting departure from most of what has been before, and I cant wait to see where it might lead.