august5excursion

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE vs QUARANTINE = romance vs horror, not a very good comparison. Depending on your point of view.

I took my wife to see NIGHTS because she loves that sort of thing and has read several of Nicholas Spark's novels on which it's based. I knew it was a chick flick going in. But I like Richard Gere and I absolutely love Diane Lane so I figured I could survive. Unfortunately this movie moves so slow it was hard to keep from falling asleep. It is a tear jerker but not a very potent one. Despite having A-list stars the relationship wasn't terribly exciting or compelling so when Gere goes away and dies it was no big deal. At least to me. Essentially, I felt this was a Lifetime TV movie with a slightly bigger budget. I wouldn't recommend paying money to see it. Everything about it is small scale, even the hurricane is no big deal; there's no emotional reaction to it or even much of a visual impact afterwards, just a few pieces of debris laying around. Another thing that didn't work was the soundtrack. Several of the songs they used were awful and didn't fit the scene at all. Lane gives it her all as she usually does but Gere is very one dimensional so there isn't much chemistry. I've enjoyed several chick flicks in the past but this one was just a TV movie in disguise. 2 Grins.

5 REALLY BIG STUPID GRINS, however, go to QUARANTINE which has to be one of the best (if not THE BEST) horror movies I have ever seen. No name stars at all. No musical soundtrack. Several scenes in pitch black. And only one camera, handheld at that. Much like CLOVERFIELD the film takes the first twenty minutes to introduce the characters before everything goes to hell. A TV reporter and her cameraman are doing a fluff news report on a local fire department so the entire film is what the cameraman is taping as they leave the firehouse on what they think is a routine call. When they get to an old rundown apartment building they find out there have been blood curdling screams coming from the apartment of an old woman. Naturally they find a dead body and the old woman is standing there with blood all over. She's also foaming at the mouth. Then she attacks and the movie becomes one jump out of your seat shock scene after another. I think I got whiplash because I jerked back so many times. I've never seen anything that startled me as many times as this movie did. You never knew when any of the shocks were coming because there were no musical cues or other tipoffs. Bam! There it was, right in your face. Yes, it was rather gory, but it wasn't overboard in the let's see if we can gross you out manner most movies use. This film actually tried to scare you to death not just turn your stomach. It was obviously effective judging by the audience reactions. After several rapid fire deaths you might ask why everyone didn't just flee the building? That's because almost immediately the CDC shows up and quarantines the building essentially sealing it shut in heavy plastic. When one of the people tries to get out a sniper puts him down with a head shot that happens right in front of the camera. This ratchets up the tension and dread because everyone begins to realize no one is coming to help them. It's no secret that a super strain of rabies is the cause of the disaster and the explanation for it is plausible. The camera jerks around a lot, it's almost constantly moving, light comes in unexpected flashes. You motion sickness wimps might have a problem. Even though the film has no music to speak of, it is very noisy with lots of screaming, yelling, building creaking, sirens, alarms, helicopters, bullhorns. The sound a body makes after a several story fall down the stairwell is truly cringeworthy. The image is so unexpected you will already have jumped out of your seat.

Truly this is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. Highly recommended to scifi-horror fans. The squeemish need not apply. I read about 8 reviews before seeing the movie that revealed far more detailed details about some of the scenes I mentioned. Even knowing all that ahead of time did not lessen the impact. The more I think about it the more I think this really was the best horror movie I've seen.

I took my daughter and future son-in-law with me and they agreed. My wife wouldn't watch something like this if you paid her. So I guess, at least this week, that romance can't light a fire to good old fashioned horror. Well, it is October after all.

Back in the day, I loved the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno TV version of The Incredible Hulk.

Back on another day I loved Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Back in 2003, I therefore expected to love Ang Lee's The Hulk. Great story, great director. But I seem to recall my review saying I loved it and hated it at the same time. I loved the Bruce Banner parts of the movie but hated the scenes with the Hulk in them because the effects were pathetically bad. The Hulk had no substance and usually didn't look like he was actually in the scene at all. That's horrendously bad when that's your title character. Fooey with Ang Lee.

So now comes a new version that's been getting some lukewarm reviews (as just about everything is lately). But the trailers looked awfully good to me. No real high hopes but definitely positive.

The Incredible Hulk is an excellent movie. I think I enjoyed it more than Iron Man and I thought that was fantastic. 5 Big Stupid Grins all around. The Hulk looks real. He's actually in the scene.

There's a lot of humor in the film even a very funny mangling of, "Don't make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry." Bill Bixby gets a posthumous cameo in a clip from The Courtship of Eddie's Father and Lou Ferrigno gets a cameo that drew an audience reaction. Even the TV show theme music shows up in a touching scene where a little kid puts money in Edward Norton's hands as he sits bedraggled after hulking out. Lots of little inside jokes and tributes, very well done.

Getting a very good actor in the title role also helps tremendously. Just like Robert Downey Jr., Edward Norton is an excellent choice for Bruce Banner. Marvel Studios making their own, funding their own versions of their properties is obviously paying off big time. 2 for 2 and more coming. Comic book movies for comic book geeks and everybody else at the same time! Who'd have thunk it?