The pseudo-documentary horror movie, with its hand-held trembly-cam and tipsy point of view, is enjoying a resurgence almost a decade after the advent of “The Blair Witch Project.” In a little more than a year we’ve seen “Cloverfield” and the low-budget non-charmer “The Signal.” Now “Quarantine” wants to remind us that the most terrifying threat we face could be brewing not in the Middle East but in the apartment next door.
Most of the audience stumbling into "Quarantine" will have no idea it's a remake of a 2007 Spanish horror film titled "Rec." I can't blame anyone for their ignorance, since the original picture never broke through to America due to distribution disinterest, and that's a crying shame.
"Rec" was a beautiful chiller, constructed with resourcefulness and genre filmmaking wizardry that instilled a modest concept with the right amount of armrest-ripping content to fuel nightmares for weeks. "Quarantine" is the unavoidable American replica, only this version has ingested a bottle of idiot pills and washed it all down with a full glass of directorial incompetence.
Hollywood has drained the tension away, replacing Spanish innovation with American stupidity. Very claustrophobic, very bloody, very nauseating. Makes you scared of old women, animals and little children.
Rating: 2/10
Twilight
Here, as in Stephenie Meyer's 2005 novel, Edward (Robert Pattinson) is Romeo, Heathcliff, James Dean, and Brad Pitt all rolled into one: a scruffy-gorgeous bloodsucker pinup who is really an angelic protector. When Bella (Kristen Stewart), who has come to Forks, Wash., to live with her police-chief dad, sits next to Edward in biology class, he acts like he's suffering a seizure (or an attack of bad Mexican food). But it's only because he can barely control himself around her. It's no surprise that Bella tunes out the other kids, even as they try to befriend her. They don't make her tingle with the fear of her own desire. Edward, like any good vampire, has a predatory glamour. As Bella gets to know him, what's irresistible to her is that he promises not a blood consummation but its very opposite: a refusal to give in to the hunger that tempts him most.
For girls, the intense, ego-stroking appeal of Meyer's novel was the way that Bella becomes this undead Byronic stud's soul mate without quite knowing why she's worthy. She's a Kewl Generation damsel waiting to be rescued from her jaded heart.
"Twilight" can be rather cheesy in certain scenes. Other than that, it could have more action. The romance in the movie is just too overwhelming for me to swallow.
Rating: 7/10
Seven Pounds
“Seven Pounds” is an endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head. Intricately constructed so as to infuriate anyone predominantly guided by rationality and intellect, this re-teaming of star Will Smith and director Gabriele Muccino after their surprisingly effective “The Pursuit of Happyness” is off-putting for its manifest manipulations, as well as its pretentiousness and self-importance.
Ben appears anxious to please, his directness and soft-spoken urgency betokening a genuineness of intent. Before long, an appealing tenderness enters into his relationship with Emily that ultimately blossoms into a full-blown love story, something that fills out a great chunk of the running time.
This is something different from the recent super-hero-like "I Am Legend" and "Hancock". If "Seven Pounds" does not grip your heart and make you shed a tear of empathy, then maybe you just aren't human.
Bottom Line: Spiritual redemption is not a typical Hollywood theme, but this Will Smith movie shows it can be done.
Rating: 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment