Sent on an assignment to cover a night at the average Los Angeles firehouse, T.V. personality Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) is stuck reporting on the mundane details of fireman life. Becoming frustrated with her botched attempts to add some spice into this monotonous story, Angela's fortunes change when a call arrives requesting emergency assistance at an apartment complex. Tagging along with her newfound friends (including Jay Hernandez), Angela and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) head into the building, only to be quickly sealed in by faceless government officials. Now trapped with angry cops (Columbus Short), paranoid residents (Rade Serbedzija), and an anxious medical professional (Greg Germann), Angela and her roving camera discover the true reason for the quarantine...and it's hungry for flesh.

There's nothing broad to be found in "Quarantine" that directly separates it from "Rec." Director John Erick Dowdle (of the unreleasable "The Poughkeepsie Tapes") crafts a straightforward copy of the Spanish film, preserving the same plot and scare beats, but altering the corners of the writing to put his fat stamp on the picture. To Americanize "Rec," "Quarantine" introduces crude sexual tension between Angela and the firemen, and turns our camera-ready hostess from a frustrated lifestyle reporter to a veritable sorority pledge, with Dowdle encouraging Carpenter to play daft instead of confident, ultimately reducing Angela's role in the overall scheme of things.

The changes are minor, but they do add up, wandering away from "Rec" in all the wrong ways. The original film spent some time with the characters, "Quarantine" quickly sets up the humans as zombie food, with little development beyond differing puncture wounds. "Rec" was a multi-layered visual piece of broadcasting verisimilitude, resembling a chaotic news explosion; the remake retains an unacceptable glossy look, highlighting the already recognizable cast as humdrum actors, not frantic citizens trapped in Hell. Also, while "Rec" didn't win any awards for steady cinematography, director Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza composed carefully for maximum suspense and exposition. Dowdle just throws his camera around arbitrarily, with huge sections of the film lost to inane handheld blur and iffy technical believability. In other words, "Rec" invited the viewer to get lost in the terror. "Quarantine" can't stop reminding everyone that it's just a dopey movie.

Reviewing "Quarantine" on its own merits is a difficult challenge, since "Rec" is as close to perfection as fright films get these days. To the uninitiated, the remake will be easy enough to swallow, with plenty of cheap boo scares and hysterical Carpenter overacting to justify the price of admission. For "Rec" fans, there's no reason to return to this story, since Hollywood has drained the tension away, replacing Spanish innovation with American stupidity.

If you are, man oh man, "Shoot" is the perfect little film for you. If you've read the above paragraph and felt the all-too-familiar wave of bad movie nausea, than you're much like me. There's a time for ultra-hip, self-aware, over-the-top pretense, and then there's "Shoot 'Em Up:" a creatively bankrupt aria of stupid ideas stupidly assembled with a desire to register even more stupidly than human intelligence will comprehend. Get it? It's supposed to stupid. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

For the last year or so, director Michael Davis (the man behind such duds as "100 Girls," "Monster Man," and "Eight Days a Week") has been proclaiming his love for action movies, yet "Shoot" is almost a slap in the face of the genre. The film comes from the same cesspool that germinated several other adrenaline-milking features of the last few years, including the excretal "Crank" and the vile "Running Scared." These are snot-slicked creations intended to ride the audience hard with a smug orgy of violence, only to undercut the horror with creamy black comedy so nobody goes home with a grudge. Parody is the lazy man's game, and Davis plays "Shoot" like a guy cashing in his last favors in Hollywood.

Taking Wooesque gunplay theatrics to a "Looney Tunes" level (a reference Davis crudely underlines at every turn), the film is nothing short of an orgasm of banal brutality, with bullets flying, limbs torn off, and babies put in harm's way for cheap effect. Love him or hate him, at least Woo played his cards straight, brazenly walking towards absurdity with a straight face and more squinty conviction than a spelling bee champ. He believed in his mayhem and fought to sustain his funhouse of violence, even when, at times, it was all a little too much. Hell, even caloric escapism like "The Transporter" imagines a loose reality for itself.

Davis isn't nearly that brave, and turns "Shoot" into a reckless wild comedy that scraps even the faintest hint of realism and dignity to become a flashpoint of lunacy; an acidic cartoon for those with a more inebriated sense of humor and tolerance for nincompoop direction. If previous cinematic efforts didn't already covered this ground repeatedly, perhaps "Shoot" wouldn't seem like a death row meal of dry toast and warm water. It craves the Woo seal of approval with wickedly-mounted sequences of bullet-whizzing combat, but it's afraid of facing such bold style head-on, cowardly snickering at itself time and again with a kind of ghastly self-deprecation that would make Kevin Smith wince. The film literally begs the viewer to scoff at the preposterous nature of it all, leaving nothing to root for but a hollow exercise in masturbatory filmmaking. Yay?

Oh, there's a plot somewhere inside "Shoot," but one holds the feeling, as the film steamrolls over anything in its path, that the storyline was an afterthought following the years Davis spent choreographing the action beats. Somehow he tricked Monica Bellucci (Heaven's second greatest gift to the planet) into starring as Mr. Smith's lactating hooker/pal (don't ask), permitted Paul Giamatti to slip into his earsplitting overact zone (an era I thought was finally over with "Sideways"), and looks to sneak a mutated message on gun control inside the exhaustively winky, persistently-crinkled script. That is, when he's not spinelessly backpedaling on the cardboard characters, trying, in the film's only infinitesimal moments of sincerity, to embellish their haunted souls as if anyone is going to give a flying fig how these characters earned their "life stinks" badges. Either you put the time and effort into emotional resonance or you imagine berserk gunfights occurring mid-penetration. There's no room for both.

Of course I realize that by taking the dreadfulness of "Shoot" so personally, I'm playing directly into Davis's sweaty, calloused hands, potentially revealing my critic heart to be black and shriveled when it comes to exclusionary geek-treehouse entertainment such as this. I'll take the risk, since "Shoot" is one smothering, viciously unfunny spanking machine to sit through. Last spring's "Hot Fuzz" tangoed on a similar reverential terrain, mimicking action movies to create an action movie, but it had, gasp, genuine wit to support its homages and parodies. It used, gasp gasp, actual care, concentration, and thought when serving up a hot plate of havoc rooted in established genre entertainment.

The bottom line is: "Hot Fuzz" had skill. "Shoot" has noise and a debilitating reliance on the absurd to power it through scenes of gag repetition (yeah, we get it: Mr. Smith uses carrots as a weapon), high-school-dropout screenwriting, and numbing usage of ironic cock-rock music to stroke off Davis's less perceptive audience members. If there's a Hell, an honest-to-God place of eternal torment, "Shoot 'Em Up" would make the ideal introductory video, promising a lifetime of anguish to come.

Well, I'm glad you asked, because Lance Weiler's Head Trauma is a big part of the reason why I sit through so many potentially crappy horror movies. (The other reasons should be obvious: fake violence and frequent female nudity.)

Now, I'm not about to call Head Trauma the next big cult classic or a stunning little indie masterpiece -- but the flick IS a whole lot more intelligent and compelling than I expected it to be. And yes, creepy.

George Walker is a sad-sack drifter-type who returns to his late grandmother's old house in the hopes of refurbishing the place into an actual home. Aimless, friendless, and clearly hanging on by a few skinny threads, George is the sort of sympathetic loser we begin to feel for almost immediately. (It's a big help that the actor playing George is pretty excellent. His name is Vince Mola and he reminded me of a bulkier, less amusing version of David Cross. The guy's got some serious acting skills.)

Anyway, it looks like the local neighbors are none too happy about George's return. They'd prefer the house get destroyed, since it's a withering eyesore that's long been the squatting place of various unsavory characters. Local jerk Chet has his eye on the location, and he's not real shy about telling George to hit the road. There's also the matter of a local bartender who earns some unwanted attention from George, as well as a good-intentioned teenager who aims to help the guy fix his house up.

But what's with the ridiculously flooded basement, the creepy night-time noises, and the frequent nightmares that bounce around George's head? Is the guy nuts? Is granny's old house haunted? Are the neighbors trying to shock George out of the neighborhood?

Hell, maybe it's all of the above. All I can tell you is that, after a few moments on Act I skepticism, I was pretty darn wrapped up in poor Georgie's story. And for such an obviously low-budget feature, Head Trauma boasts an impressively wide array of quality components: the supporting actors, though raw and inexperienced, do a fine job throughout (particularly Jamal Mangan as the helpful kid from next door); the "real life" narrative flows smoothly into the quietly effective "nightmare moments," although the director doesn't over-rely on the dream sequence gimmick; and the sound design (yep, the sound) is really quite excellent.

All in all, a quality piece of indie filmmaking from Lance Weiler, who did The Last Broadcast seven years ago and not much since. Here's hoping we don't have to wait another seven years for the guy's next project. And that someone gives this guy a solid budget the next time out.

Final Thoughts: Quiet, unassuming, and surprisingly satisfying, Head Trauma is a solid piece of indie horror filmmaking. Just goes to show you that good actors, hard-working crew members, and a nifty idea can be breed success on any budget -- if there's talent involved.

Kuroiwa, now hot on a few leads in the investigation that were supplied to him by his pigeon, becomes enraged when he finds the Yakuza boss murdered by a rival gang. Conveniently, he also starts to fall for the late bosses wife, Keiko (the iconic Meiko Kaji of the Female Convict Scorption and Lady Snowblood films). Their relationship blossoms quickly and with her help, he begins to uncover more and more about the Yakuza gangs and the way the operate in hopes of apprehending his friend's murderers and bringing the money laundering ring to an end. Unfortunately for Kuroiwa and Keiko, there's a lot more going on under the surface of all of this than they realize, and there just might be some insiders working against them…

While it plays with a lot of the same themes as Cops Vs. Thugs, made by Kinji Fukasaku a year earlier in 1975, also for Toei Studios and also written by Kazuo Kasahara, Yakuza Graveyard is a more personable film with it's smaller cast and concentration on a lone detective fighting against a system in which loyalty and honor are so important to the society that has spawned it. It represents post war Japan as an angry place, a society in which honor means more than right or wrong and in which a messed up cop can make a difference and find love even if its in the completely wrong place and it could mean the end for him.

Fukasaku's camera work is flamboyant and kinetic with a great color scheme, some fast paced editing tricks, and a lot of handheld footage used in the action scenes. He also uses still pictures to accent scene transitions to good effect and the film is never unappealing to the eye. He had used some of these techniques in earlier films and would use them even more in later ones but here in Yakuza Graveyard he seems to have found the right balance, using them to punctuate certain scenes and accentuate certain characters rather than beat us over the head with useless exercises in style over substance.

Watari plays Kuro tough as nails and although he comes close to those he's trying so hard to bring down, the viewer has to question his motives and especially his methods… is he really any better than they are? He's a violent man and has no qualms whatsoever about beating a suspect for information or shooting first and asking questions later. His scenes with the stunning Meiko Kaji are great as the two have an obvious and strong on screen chemistry together which Fukasaku makes the most of. They're shot in a very flattering manner when they're on camera together, and their messed up romance is even idealized in spots, or so it would seem.

Yakuza Graveyard comes very highly recommended for fans of films like Dirty Harry and Death Wish as it has a similar style and holds its own against some of the best action films made during the 70s. It's not a pretty film but it is an intense one that benefits from some exceptionally good performances, a gritty and compelling storyline and some fine direction from one of the best director's Japan has given us. It's violent, it's mean, and it's completely uncompromising and for that reason it stands as an exceptionally good action film with some more cerebral moments, a few moments in fact that actually make you think and make you feel for the characters. If you picked up the semi-recent Home Vision Kinji Fukasaku Yakuza movie releases and enjoyed those films, than this one should be right up your alley.

Final Thoughts:
...The movie...completely delivers, making this one an easy and very solid recommendation for Fukasaku fans or Yakuza movie buffs in general. Tough guys are rarely this cool, or this slick.

The three encounter many hardships. At first the city is in chaos, ruled martial law, and eventually, it turns fearful under the stern hand of the Japanese soldiers. Ah Nam's wealthy family is in ruin. Ah Fay, plays the part of Japanese sympathizer so he can get papers that will allow them to leave Hong Kong and escape to the mainland. Wong finds himself trying to build a nest egg for himself and Ah Nam (by selling clothes off the dead), but ends up in trouble when he tries to bail out his criminal friends. All this, plus the growing affection between Ah Fay and Ah Nam only strengthens tension, though Ah Fay proves himself to be a noble third wheel, mainly concerned with the welfare of his friend, rather than his own hormonal and emotional urgings. Will they escape? Will they prosper? Will their hidden affections drive a wedge between friends? Well, I wont ruin the film.

An ambitious blend of the turmoil of war with a lovers triangle backdrop, Hong Kong 1941 (1984) is uneven, but despite its large shortcomings still manages to be pleasantly entertaining and moving. The problem is, the film is more a melodramatic tv movie when it wants to be more like Shindlers' List meets Jules and Jim. While there are many extremes and nice touches to the story (Ah Fay comforting Ah Nam during a seizure is almost a sweetly-strange sexual thing), it is the actors who save the film from some clunky direction and storytelling. Their camaraderie and command of their characters makes the film worthwhile. And, it does manage to not be black and white on the issues of the time- the Hong Kong residents who kowtow to the Japanese or prey upon their own people are boldly and harshly criticized, which surely wasn't an easily digestible matter for Hong Kong filmgoers. There is just enough scope to the story and good acting, that even if the overall execution is not solid, Hong Kong 1941 is a film that gets points for trying.

Director Po Chi Lueng has a very lukewarm career, a common plague among Hong Kong art house directors. Educated in Britain, his films are known for a certain, low key style, unfortunately contrasted by some blatant flourishes (like in HK 1941 when they observe the Japanese secretly beheading a man, and outside on the street are little children, mock beheading each other, an image used not once, but twice). After his initial success (Jumping Ash 1976, co-directed with Josephine Saio), his sensibilities never really connected with Hong Kong audiences, leading to long list of moderate to no-success films, some of which over time have gained more attention, like Hong Kong 1941 and Isle of the Dead. He hasn't filmed a movie in Hong Kong since the early 90's and has gone on to direct the direct to cable USA thriller Cabin by the Lake and the ‘love it or hate it' British horror film Wisdom of the Crocodiles with Jude Law.

As far as the actors are concerned: Two years after Hong Kong 1941, Chow Yun Fat would go from washed up tv actor to gain HK megastardom with A Better Tomorrow, and has only gone up from there. His role in Hong Kong 1941 won him some early acclaim and, even if his hands never touch a gun in the film, he is as charismatic as ever. Celia Yip has spent the last twenty years as a top billed HK actress in such films as Center Stage, Swordsman, Call Girl 92', and she manages well with her role, making “a rich girl who suffers from seizures and is divided between two men”, less a romance novel cliché than one would expect. Alex Man, stable HK actor in films like As Tears Go By, Rich and Famous, Rouge, also fares well, though his character does suffer from being clueless and lacks the dimension afforded to the other actors.

***On a geeky side note, Ah Nam's father is played by Kein Shih, the evil villain Han, from Enter the Dragon.