BLINDNESS

As I write, I am still trying to recover from having watched this apocalyptic vision of our society if, rapidly and without explanation, people become visually impaired en masse.

Here's the lowdown; there's a doctor (optometrist) played by Mark Ruffalo and his wife, played by Juilanne Moore. Patient Zero, played by a Japanese man is the first to become afflicted and visits the doctor at the insistence of his wife to secure a prognosis. Within 24 hours of that visit, doctor and his wife are both quarantined, though only the doctor has lost his sight. Within 72 hours most of the people who had any contact with Patient Zero join the doctor and his wife in Ward 1 of the quarantine. Shifting from the doctor's perspective to that of his wife, we see what a sighted person would experience as civilization and the activities, habits, and thoughts of civilized people become secondary to the emotional and physical needs of those who have lost their grip on reality.

It took ten years to acquire the rights for this film, development is a slow process, and with few exceptions, development is generally a slow process. Daniel Craig, not Mark Ruffalo was the original choice for the film and I cannot say he would have been better, but a different performance might have made this insufferable qualities for the doctor more bearable. Other incidentals: even though a city is not identified, the film definitely feels very different than an American city or culture. In the beginning of quarantine, even with characters speaking a predominantly English vocabulary, you feel as if this would not or could not happen in the U.S. The point that the director attempts to translate is that it did happen in a civilized society, and it happened to the highest and lowest elements of the population cutting across all races, religions, and physical aptitudes. By the end of the quarantine sequence, you're fairly certain this is exactly how your neighbor, boss, teacher, even a congressman or a convict would react to prolonged blindness and imprisonment.

Something I noticed that really seemed illustrate fear from outside the walls of quarantine was how people were transferred, guarded, and supplied in the beginning and how that process evolves. It's very telling that as the blindness is spreading, people are becoming more and more scared of the remote possibility of contact with those afflicted.

I'm tough, and I can handle some difficult scenes. I like horror movies, sci-fi, alternate realities, etc., but there were at least two scenes about five minutes in total, where I had to fast forward through. I'm not certain as to what could have been cut, but the film was too long, and for a period in quarantine, too depressing. The best way to relate this story would be to assure you that it is very much like I Am Legend, but the infected rely heavily upon the hero. Secondly, the ending is worth enduring through the isolation Moore's character expresses and the utter horror that Ward 3 is capable of producing.

Blindness is a difficult rental to recommend, but it is unique, and well-done in that respect.

WORST OF THE WORST ('08 and '09 Jan-Feb)

Ok, so I won't bother to review the following films in-depth individually if you promise to not rent them.

APPALOOSA
Maybe it was a great book, but not all things that provide for stimulating reads are adapted for the big screen with the same success. I'm thinking a film with Ed Harris, who delivered the only performance I enjoyed in A Beautiful Mind, and Viggo Mortensen, (who if you haven't seen him in Eastern Promises, you are missing out), would capably deliver something intriguing. No such luck! Appaloosa is a virtually action-free Western, centered heavily on a story that is very much, lost in translation.

HOTEL FOR DOGS
Awww, these kids with no resources, no real parents, and apparently no school, turn their love for their pet into a hotel for displaced pups. It's a kid movie. I can't be too hard on it, except to say that kid movies are all about peaks and valleys, highs and lows in the stories. Because apparently being an adult means you can finally understand a tempered storyline without the throws of elation or depression. Hmmm. I think kids are smarter than that, and they don't have to be put to tears to understand sadness or disappointment. Happy ending for kids and dogs alike - whew...what a shock!

LAKEVIEW TERRANCE
Snooze...haven't we come far enough to rise above a neighborhood of one volatile who just happens to be a large African American man pitted against his white Hybrid-driving neighbor. I was largely indifferent to the technical qualities of the film, but the storyline is the same crap we get fed every year: he's the aggressor, he's the guy you thought he was going to be and he's totally tortured. Here's the hero, he's unassuming and everybody, I mean everybody would want to be his friend, and oh yeah, he's just WASPier than you can probably stand. Barf. I'd rather watch Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane or Patrick Wilson in Hard Candy, both of which incidentally are far better films.

MAX PAYNE
No way! What-to-Rent is actually going to tear apart a sci-fi film? Actually, no, but only because I am writing only this snippet of a review. Taking a video game, comic, or graphic novel, and developing it into something that is worthy of the big screen is more challenging than one would think. This film casts Mark Whalberg, who, hey everybody, is a decent if not a good actor. It shouldn't stumble, but it does, as if it were a drunk, not yet out of a stuper that may have involved a toxic combination of NyQuil, O'Doul's, and TylenolPM. Joking aside the mettle of the film is tested in character development, story, and creating a singular compelling antagonist.

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE
The Officer and a Gentleman and Pretty Woman money ran out long ago and despite his reputation for being a bit lackluster, Richard Gere continues to get work. But really, let's put the blame where the blame is due...writing. Who wants to watch an hour of struggle to get to the end where there's just more disappointment. Billed as a rentable watchable film for couples, that billing might be more appropriated for the lovelorn or estranged. I gleefully rejoiced when the disc ejected from the DVD player. By the way, the Outer Banks backdrop is incredible, and if you can't make something out of nothing -you could have made something out of that!

WALL-E
What is this? Ok, it is a kid movie and I can go hard on it. This is from the Monsters Inc. folks who have delivere on quality family entertainment in the past! Don't feed me this BS about droids, robots, and their like falling in love and getting their feelings hurt. There is nothing incredible about the animation, and the story is lame. Let's stop worrying about the marketing, i.e. the kind of toys, sheets, and pencils, we can create based on the characters in the story and start actually giving our kids something that inspires and entertains them. The rest will follow! Basically, it's I-Robot in outerspace, but without the pleasure of Will Smith as a hero.