HOTEL AMERICA (1981)

After she nearly runs him over with her car, Helene (Catherine Deneuve) hooks up with total loser Gilles (Patrick Dewaere).  Right from the start this relationship is doomed, but yet for whatever reason they keep plugging away at it even though Gilles has the maturity level of an infant.  He's constantly pouting and throwing temper tantrums.  And when he's not doing that he's either storming off or getting drunk.  This dude is a total mess!  At one point he's shit faced and she's driving him home so he throws their house keys out the car window then tries to wreck the car while saying "We should get married."  What the fuck is wrong with this guy?!  Oh, yeah he's also extremely jealous of her last boyfriend...who died in a swimming accident!  Also, his best friend is an unemployed musician who goes around stealing calculators, begging for money and acting like a total creep to everybody including Gilles' younger sister.

Deneuve is beautiful as always, but I just couldn't get over what an asshole Gilles was.  I guess that's the point of the film, but it's too frustrating to be enjoyable.  Here this guy hooks up with a beautiful woman and he gets so butthurt over the fact that she still has a place in her heart for her dead ex that he sticks out his bottom lip and lays in bed for days(!!!) not eating and when she tries to be nice to him he jumps up and starts slapping her around!  What the fuck?

Technically, HOTEL AMERICA looks fine and the acting is good, but it's just not my cup of tea.  Maybe you'll enjoy watching these two cold, disconnected lovers more than I did.

QUARANTINE (2008)

If you've already seen [REC], then, outside of curiosity, there's not much of a reason to watch this remake, since it's literally just an American remake with the same general story.  It's even filmed in the same supershaky camera flopping all around the place way that [REC] was filmed.  The only real difference (outside of some different dialogue and a different explanation for the virus) is it has different actors and they're speaking in English.

A television reporter and her cameraman are doing a special on firefighters when a call comes in about a sick woman at an old style apartment building.  They go and the woman is totally rabid and chomping on people.  Next thing you know the building is locked down from the outside and now the people inside are trapped with a growing zombie population.  Great idea for a video game, but as far as movies go, it's just alright.  The reality TV camerawork gets old quick and the zombies aren't as awesome as you would expect.  I did enjoy the frantic pace at the ending though.  Worth a watch for zombie fans, but honestly I didn't think the original [Rec] series started getting good until Part 2. 

Original - [Rec] (2007)
Original Part 2 - [Rec] 2 (2009)
Original Part 3 - [Rec] 3: Genesis (2012)
Original Part 4 - [Rec] 4: Apocalypse (2014)
Remake Part 2 - Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)

WARM BODIES (2013)

You might initially guess that WARM BODIES is just somebody jumping on the zombie bandwagon and maybe even ripping off the zombie/human love angle from BIOZOMBIE.  But it's not, WARM BODIES is actually a pretty sweet/clever little movie that has more to do with "Romeo and Juliet" than anything else.

Poor R is just a lonely misunderstood zombie who spends all of his time shuffling around the airport and hoarding vinyl records in his airplane/house.  Then one day while out eating humans, he sees Julie and she's beautiful...and alive!  He smears her face with blood and hides her in his airplane.  There they bond and a little piece of him comes alive.  And I'm not just talking about his boner you perverts!  Gosh!

Corny as that sounds (and it is) it's still a fun movie if you're a romantic nerd like myself.  Brain eating, John Malkovich, small amount of zombie violence, good special effects, fun soundtrack, blood, not even scary in the least...actually this movie is probably even safe for kids.  Worth a rent at least.