Quarantine, which opened on Friday under a cloak of typical Screen Gems-ish anonymity after not screening in advance for critics, was unable to dethrone sign-of-the-apocalypse family film Beverly Hills Chihuahua from the top
spot at the box office over the weekend, grossing $14.2 million to the aforementioned film’s $17.5 million. Still, the low-budget horror flick of containment nonetheless finished with the top per-screen average of
the three-day frame, and outgrossed fellow new openers Body of Lies ($12.9 million), The Express ($4.6 million) and City of Ember, which finished outside the top 10 with only $3.1 million.
Beverly Hills Chihuahua has now grossed $52.5 million, which should be immediately refunded to American taxpayers, I think. Rounding out the top 10 were Eagle Eye ($10.9 million, $70.4 million overall); Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist ($6.4 million, $20.7 million overall); Richard Gere and Diane Lane’s adult weepie Nights in Rodanthe ($4.5 million, $32.3 million overall); ensemble western Appaloosa ($3.3 million, $10.9 million overall); Keira Knightley‘s expanding period piece The Duchess ($3.3 million, $5.6 million overall); and Kirk Cameron’s go-fix-your-marriage-fireman-drama Fireproof ($3.1 million, $16.9 million overall).
What time is it? Why, time to work those dance grooves with Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay, Chad and the rest of the gang from East High, of course. High School Musical 2: Deluxe Dance Edition hits DVD just in advance of the theatrical bow of the series’ third flick, designed to pry a few more dollars from the wallets of tweens and their parents, in exchange for a movie ticket voucher and some celebratory, dance-along instruction. Fans of course know the story particulars of the top-rated Disney Channel original movie and its sequel, and those who’ve built up a wall of mental isolation from the flicks don’t really care, so it’s best to just note that High School Musical 2: Deluxe Dance Edition is an essential release only for hardcore series completists. More casual fans make certainly make do with the prior DVD release, while shrieking middle school devotees can dance along with the cast and learn their favorite kickin’ routines with moves actually taken from and showcased by the movie’s director-choreographer, Kenny Ortega.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a glittery, yellow-tinged cardboard slipcover with raised lettering, High School Musical 2: Deluxe Dance Edition comes spread out over two discs, and presented in 1.33:1 full frame, with complementary English, French and Spanish language Dolby digital 5.1 sound mixes. A special, three-minute sneak peek at the forthcoming theatrical release in the series kick-starts the slate of over five hours of bonus material, and is of course the driving reason behind this iteration’s existence, since a movie ticket voucher is also included herein. The bulk of the other material is imported from the movie’s previous DVD release, including four minutes of deleted scenes, a four-minute blooper reel and music videos for “You Are the Music in Me” and “Gotta Go My Own Way.” Perhaps most interestingly, various international music videos and promo clips are granted their own section, including a bizarre Japanese animated piece. Also included are a 30-minute making-of featurette, a virtual scrapbook featuring the cast
and crew, 35 minutes of choreography and rehearsal footage, and an exclusive musical number that will make “the coolest
summer vacation ever” last all year round… or at least until your tweens have to get up and manually hit replay after wearing out the DVD player’s remote control. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B+ (Disc)
A passably engaging claustrophobic horror thriller that a little more
than halfway through reveals the limitations of its mode of
storytelling and visual scheme, Quarantine is told entirely via
hand-held footage shot by one of its characters. The story — about a
television reporter who accompanies a group of firefighters into a Los
Angeles tenement building, only to get sealed in after encountering a
virulent, mutant strain of rabies — works for a while as a goosing
stylistic exercise before descending into nonsensical confusion, hamstrung by aggressively panicked camerawork, a lack of spatial
clarity and a clumsy attempt at backstory explanation.
A remake of Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s 2007 Spanish movie [Rec], Quarantine skips any introductory credits, opening with human interest reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter, above) and her cameraman, Scott Percival (Steve Harris), on a shadow assignment and on site with a Los Angeles fire department crew. Two firemen (Jay Hernandez and Johnathon Schaech) are assigned as their guides for the evening, and some flirting and good-natured chiding ensues between Angela and the guys.
Eventually responding to a late-night call with Angela and Scott in tow, the firefighters, as well as some policemen, come upon an elderly woman who bites one of the officers. When they attempt to get medical help, Angela and the first responders find that they have been sealed in the building. With no power, cell phone reception or immediate answers about their predicament, panic mounts. Soon some of the rest of the residents — including a veterinarian, an accountant and an immigrant couple — succumb to bites from both infected animals and humans, setting off a mad dash by survivors to try to barricade themselves away from the frenzied, foaming-mouthed diseased.
In similar fashion to The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, Quarantine posits itself as an exercise in found footage. Director John Eric Dowdle (The Poughkeepsie Tapes) does a good job blending lurking, corner-of-one’s-eye mayhem with some in-camera effects (one memorable sequence finds Scott using the camera as a blunt-force weapon), but the script has trouble establishing a clear timeline as it relates to the infected, so many times its switch-overs come across as cheaply dramatically convenient.
Also, somewhat fatally, there’s never a keen sense of space established within the building. This renders much of Quarantine‘s shaky-cam action especially unclear and unsatisfying. Finally, a finale which attempts to further clarify the origin of the strain of rabies comes across as very puzzlingly conceived, and entirely at cross purposes with the adrenalized nature of the entire rest of the story. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Sony/Screen Gems, R, 89 minutes)
