Whaddaya Know?

I thank you for your visit, or even (one can hope) return visit. Now, lets dive right in.

Today I went to see the new movie Quarantine. Sadly, it would have been an hour wait, so, not being one to squander an opportunity (only my money), I went and saw Blindness first.

I want to first tell of my descriptors for the quality of a movie.

Bad: whaddaya think it means?

Good: The equivalent of 3 or 3.5 stars anywhere else.

Great: 4 or 4.5 stars, a movie i would recommend wholeheartedly.

Awesome: Not the current use for the word, being "cool" or "good" but the literal meaning, being struck bye awe. 5 stars or better.

That being said, Blindness was "Good".

The feel of the movie was more of a documentary then of a movie, though it was shot with stedi-cam, not the popular hand-held camera genre. It is a "what if" style movie, one ment to make you think "are we capable of this?" and "lets not do that, if this ever really happens". It is a darkly grungy dystopian world, wherin people become infected with something (never really explained) that blinds them. This blindness is more like an oversensitivity to light, methinks, because its symptom isnt blackness, it's whiteness. This comes through clearly in the color palate of the film, mostly whites, greys and blacks. Not that its a black and white film, no, banish the thought, but the colors are washed out, not nessicarily pastel, just whitened, or greyed, shot through a filter, ye ken.

Blindness chronicles the experiences of a few people, the main characters being a doctor and his wife, played by Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore respectively. The other main characters, at least in the beginning, are a chain of infection: this person met this person met this person, etc.

All of the infected are sent to a quarantine center, which to this movie-goer's eyes looks like a empty mental institution. Of all the people sent to quarantine, only Julianne Moore's character is able to see, and she is only there as support for her husband.

I would also like to go ahead and say that this movie is rated "R" for a good reason, it shows the basest of the basest actions human beings are able to experience, and constantly. Very little goodness is shown by any of the characters, including the "good guys" who are the main characters.

I'd recommend this movie only to people who really like dystopian movies, such as myself, specifically because of its darkness, color palate, and message. It offers very little of the carefree nature of most mainstream movies, in fact, if i didnt know better, i'd classify it indie. The only laughs to come out of this movie would be the harsh laugh that occurs when the bad guy gets his due.

This movie has a problem connecting with its audience (at least, it did for me), because it skips ahead in time, has an uncomfortable timeless feeling, as best represented by the doctor asking his wife numerous times what time it was. The plot staggers in time, one moment, its day, the next, its night, now a week has passed, now only a day, now a few days. This, I believe, was all on purpose, to show the disconnectedness of the people who were stuck in a facility with no outside contact, and no sight, so no references.

All in all: I'd watch it again, but at a lesser price.

Now for Quarantine:

I rate this one Great.

If you are a person who is able to sit and watch a movie, not analyze and criticize while watching, this is a quality movie. If otherwise, I would see it as just a good movie.

A TV crew of one reporter (Dexter's sister) Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter), and her cameraman Scott Pervical (Steve Harris) are tasked to follow a pair of firefighters on one of their night shifts. This movie is a little slow to start, as it is a sort of "get to know" situations. They wait for a call to come in, and after awhile, it finally does.

They are called out to an old apartment complex because of bloodcurdling screams coming from this old woman's apartment. The TV crew and the two firemen are met at the bottom floor of the apartment complex by most of the residents and two police officers. Things progress fairly predictably, but at a speed one rarely sees in a zombie movie, because, dont get me wrong, this IS a zombie movie.

Jennifer Carpenter's acting is a little over the top, only because it is an accurate reaction to the situations she is put in. The non-infected characters perform the same old frustrating actions that every horror movie character performs e.g. "Oh, you were bit by a zombie? Lets have a hug, no, wait, a GROUP hug!". Some of the shock (aka "boo!") scenes are on the rediculous side, but over all, the ebb and flow of the movie draws you in and lend strength and character to the film, and create a compelling move.

All in all, i liked it. It wasn't perfect, but as long as you are willing to watch it and wait until the end of the movie to criticize, it was enjoyable

To Infinity and Beyond!

Tommy