The Brothers Bloom (2008)

A tall tale starring Adrien Brody as a conflicted con man and Mark Ruffalo as his manipulative older brother. The film also stars Rachel Weisz as the beautiful yet naive mark and Rinko Kikuchi as the mysterious Bang Bang, demolitions expert. The story is beautifully written by the director Rian Johnson who lays out a crime (or con) caper where in the end everyone gets what they want. Since the main characters are con artists, I questioned everything as it might be part of some double cross, and while hard to decipher at times, it was a lot of fun. It's the kind of movie you want to watch again. There are many things done well, but to name a few they would be cinematography (Steve Yedlin), soundtrack, casting, etc, etc. I immensely enjoyed the playfulness and eccentricity of the characters, though I felt Bang Bang was a bit too apparent for my tastes, but maybe that was her part to play. I've been a fan of Rian Johnson ever since his editor work on May and it was nice to see some familiar names and faces in the mix such as Nora Zehetner (as Rose), EPK director Kevin Ford, and two nice 'thank you' credits for Lucky Mckee and Angela Bettis.

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Quarantine (2008)

Now, being a fan of the original Spanish film [REC], I compared everything to it. First of all, the movie is not a complete shot-for-shot remake, there are some different scenes here and there that are quite nice, but it doesn't make up for the rest of the film. Also the film feels slow compared to [REC] and this is because of the editing. They linger too long when they should be cutting. Another thing I didn't like was the darkness. This made it feel like they were in some cheap haunted house, it didn't add to the scares, it just made it harder to see. Now, I loved Jennifer Carpenter in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, but in this film she fails. She plays the character too weak and whiny. The original actress of Manuela Velasco played it so strong that she could hold her own against the male actors. And the ending scene of the original is probably one of the scariest and creepiest things in horror film history, but in Quarantine it is rushed and third-rate. Anyone planning on seeing Quarantine should just see [REC] and forget about this movie.

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The Alphabet Killer (2008)

I'm a fan of most serial killer films and having not heard of The Alphabet Killings, I was intrigued. The film was well played out through the first half but I felt it failed more and more as it went on. And the ending was a bit abrupt and strange to me. The acting was the best part as Eliza Dushku was great in this for she played a crazy woman extremely well and Cary Elwes and Timothy Hutton were a great supporting cast. Another thing I liked was the creepiness factor from the film. There were times when I would get chills from certain scenes. And there seems to be a major gripe for some who have seen the film. This is that the factual killings took place in the early 70s and the film blatantly uses recent technology such as cell phones and laptops in the movie, but the film never states that it takes place in the 70s, it's merely based on the killings, it is not a period piece.

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