Doug Jones Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As far as Hollywood's reliably tepid horror output is concerned, Quarantine works as every bit the disposable jolt dispenser it's assembled to be. It's got a nifty enough concept in its favor and a mildly recognizable cast that needs not fear any characterization coming between them and certain death by the time the credits roll, and it's hard to believe that there's not at least one sequence in here that might get even the most cynical horror fan's heart rate to rise a beat or two -- and I say this as a documented fan of the (still superior) source material.

Young news reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman (Steve Harris) are covering a Los Angeles fire station during their nightly routines when the two tag along on an emergency call to an apartment building. Not terribly long after their arrival, all hell breaks loose and the building's occupants -- Angela included -- find themselves contained within against their will and left to fend off a dangerous virus that causes the infected to become a rabid zombie variant, one aggressively determined to spread the love around.

Eight weeks before Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer hits theaters, a number of Youtube videos have popped up featuring a giggly fat man in silver body paint and bald cap who walks around what looks like Venice interacting with the locals and declaring himself to be the real Silver Surfer, as opposed to the toned figure on the billboards. "I wanted to play myself and they said 'no.' I wanted to play Mr. Fantastic and they said 'no.' Racism. It's because of my skin color." I'll say this for Fox's viral marketing department -- at least these clips are mildly amusing. The best one features the chubby Surfer actually attempting to surf. "It's a beautiful morning," he says, chatting up a guy next to him who is also about to go out. "Kind of reminds me of the great deepness of space, you know? Kind of goes on forever." He then takes a running start at the water and freaks out because the water is too cold.

The other three videos aren't quite as good as the surfing one, and the one where he offers "surfing lessons from the Silver Surfer" on the street corner cuts way too fast for us to discern anything about what's going on. Fox should hire a cameraman who knows the principles of comedy a little better. Nevertheless, like I said, it's pretty funny if you're looking for something to watch on a rainy day, as it actually is today. I'll close by reiterating the point of the whole thing -- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer opens in theaters on June 15.

• Let's start things off on the right foot with a quickie from the 300 team: Soundtrack.Net, a site rarely referenced here in the Geek Bytes, has a nice little piece on the scoring of 300 by Tyler Bates.
• Have you been by the Transformers: The Movie website lately? I have, sorta by accident. It appears as though they've added quite a bit of stuff.
• CBR, a website which is frequently linked here in the Bytes, is running with some weird exclusive about Wonder Woman casting. There's really very little to the story so far, except the name Blythe Metz and a crappy MySpace. Stay closely tuned to Cinematical for full coverage of this rumor if any actual news surfaces on this front.
  
• Sci Fi Wire says the fantastic Doug Jones is done being the Silver Surfer for now. With any luck, we'll all see him back again for the certain third film in the franchise.
• Interested in the Fantastic Four trailer, but not interested enough to shell out some bucks and watch Night at the Museum? No problem, just swing by the SHH message boards, and read a brief, exciting play by play.