Now, for what may be the very first time, one of these subjective shockers is getting remade in the form of Quarantine, a stateside redo of [Rec] that attempts to translate the terrors Belaguero and Plaza’s highly-effective frightener for American moviegoers. Will the remake pack the punch of the ambitious Spanish original? While only time will tell, for the moment why not have a bit of fun comparing the newly released Quarantine trailer with the original English-language teaser for [Rec]? From the looks of things, Poughkeepsie Tapes masterminds John and Drew Dowdle’s remake has kept many of the original scares intact, a sign that may bode well for fans of the original film.

[Rec] Trailer:

Quarantine Trailer:

The artwork was unveiled at USA Today this morning and looks to be one of the hottest Internet news stories of the day.

As far as its quality goes, Struzan once again delivers a solid design, with major emphasis on the extraterrestrial influence as can be seen in the glowing crystal skull, though the illustration is a bit less graphic than expected — with less of the artist’s patented outlining on display. Other than that — love that Marion smile, as well as the return of the jungle theme once equated with the series’ art before the dusty settings of The Last Crusade.

After the jump, enjoy a bigger version of the new ad art, along with a refresh of the already released teaser poster.

Perhaps one of the most under-appreciated and influential techno-based bands of the 1990s, Curve was the collaborative creation of guitarist Dean Garcia and Toni Halliday, and created atmospheric music that could be at once ferocious, vulnerable, sensual, and hypnotic. Don’t believe us? Take a listen to any Garbage album and try to deny that it’s a more mainstream reworking of the exact same musical model. As enjoyably poppy and radio-friendly as the music of Garbage may be, it sounds downright anemic compared to the overwhelming sonic assault of their primary influence.

Which, of course, means that the music of Curve perfectly compliments just about any trailer where lots of stuff blows up, superheroes duke it out with villains while dangling precariously from instantly-recognizable landmarks, and the camera glides smoothly around the protagonist in an impossible, CG-enhanced 360 degree shot. The first time I remember hearing “Hell Above Water” in a theater was when I saw the trailer for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, and it truly flipped me out; I couldn’t believe that someone had finally realized the cinematic potential of what just may be my favorite band. Over the course of the next few years, it seemed as if others had also become privy to this fact as the song turned up frequently in trailers for such films as X-Men, Miami Vice, and, most recently, both the teaser and full trailers for Iron Man.

But that’s only the beginning, because Curve’s music could frequently be heard as background buffer music on MTV, featured in a memorable scene on the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and even in a version of the ongoing FIFA Soccer series as well as the official trailer for the PS3 game Motorstorm.

Of course the double-edged sword to this is the fact that some of the best tracks by Curve aren’t the most frenetic ones, but the more pensive, dreamlike tracks that masterfully layer instruments, vocals, and ambient sounds in a way that completely envelopes the listener: tracks such as “Superblaster” and “Horror Head.”

Curious to hear more? No need to scour the web, as your ever-accommodating reporter here at the All Movie Blog has assembled a collection of trailers featuring the music of Curve, as well as links to some of the band’s best music videos. While I couldn’t locate the trailers for Miami Vice or the X-Men that used Curve’s music, I think the modest collection below is a decent introduction to both the band and their unique cinematic legacy. And though the band proper may be no more, I for one look forward to many years of watching trailers and being pleasantly, nostalgically surprised by those familiar ethereal sounds.

Enjoy!

Official:

Iron Man

Spider-Man

X-Men

Miami Vice

Video Games:

Motorstorm

Fan Made Fun:

Godzilla

Little Mermaid

Titanic

Curve Music Videos:

Horror Head
Clipped
Coast is Clear
Ten Little Girls
Fait Accompli
Superblaster

…and then, for the die-hard fans, there’s always this.

If these sources are not, in fact, cruelly mucking about with our dreams, all of Indy 4’s major players, from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, to Karen Allen and Harrison Ford, will make their first Jones-related red carpet appearance since the 1989 release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There will be no Nazis on the premises.

Rumors are flying that ADV is about to go the way of Geneon and shut down, and unsubstantiated speculation is rampant. Some forum-based gossip even claims that ADV is bankrupt from pouring too much money into the live action Neon Genesis Evangelion movie, which began development in 2003 but has been on hold for the past three years. That all seems pretty unlikely though. If ADV is indeed trimming a whole crap load of anime titles out of their distribution list, and are going forward with a pop-culture magazine that broadens its coverage to deal with more than just anime, then it sounds like ADV is just changing focus, and tweaking its place in the market. The anime titles that have suddenly gone missing from the website are almost all relatively obscure stateside — not shows that have generated major cult followings or been snatched up by Cartoon Network. Looks like they just don’t plan on continuing to include the hardcore otaku in their consumer base. It sucks, but that’s what fansubs are for.

After approximately eight grueling months of picking apart that tantalizing teaser frame-by-frame, flipping pictures on 1.18.08.com, pondering the role that a fictional soft drink may play in creating a giant rampaging monster, taking in various internet teaser clips, and generally wondering what to even call the damn thing – the wait is finally over! Recently, the faithful staff of film fanatics here at the All Movie Guide was able to kick back, twist open a Slusho (ok… maybe it was just Faygo), and bask in the chaos of the year’s most skillfully-marketed movie. So did Cloverfield truly have the goods needed to rattle this jaded crew of movie geeks, or did it simply send us stumbling out into the lobby with a bad case of motion sickness and a bitter resentment for having helplessly succumbed to all the hype? AllMovie’s Cammila Albertson, Jason Buchanan, Perry Seibert, and Jeremy Wheeler all do battle with the biggest, baddest movie monster this side of Japan… and as usual, the consensus is decidedly split.

Cammila Albertson: At the risk of sounding like a total slut for cheap thrills, I am a total slut for cheap thrills. Maybe I’m alone in this, but all I was looking for Cloverfield to deliver was adrenaline. I wanted my 9/11 trauma exploited with grainy footage of people ducking and running through plumes of smoke in the smoldering wreckage of destroyed New York City streets. I wanted a series of sequences built squarely around the principle of keeping me at the peak of a terrified startle for 5 to 10 seconds — a tantric, prolonged “Boo!”. And I wanted the frantic jostling of the Blair Witch-style first-person camera to keep me from ever getting a good, clear look at the monster because not even the most sinister creature design from H.R. Giger’s as-yet-unseen dark side could live up to my Gen Y sense of seen-it-all media saturation. Based on these expectations, Cloverfield was a success. That said, certain aspects of it were pretty effing bad. To give you some perspective, I can count myself as AllMovie’s sole appreciator of the works of Michael Bay, and even I thought the script and the dialogue were distractingly stupid. It didn’t affect my ride though, and that’s all I was in it for.
 
Jason Buchanan: While I readily admit to having purposefully avoided most of the hype surrounding Cloverfield (I watched the trailer twice online, jiggled a few of the pictures on the website, then promptly moved on), I’d say that it definitely satisfied my craving for a solid giant monster flick presented in a (somewhat) new and innovative style. As the classic movie monsters of yesteryear become part of the public lexicon and we discover their strengths and weaknesses, they gradually lose their capacity to truly frighten us. For this reason I believe it’s the job of the contemporary writer and filmmaker to somehow figure out a way of reminding us just why these monsters were so terrifying in the first place – whether that means simply modernizing the setting to reflect current social or humanistic concerns, or actually using the original idea as a springboard for something new entirely. In the case of Cloverfield, I feel like it was a bit of both: On one side of the coin, the filmmakers seemed to be updating the nuclear fears that drove the original Godzilla to reflect the fears of terrorism that still linger vividly in the minds of New Yorkers – and Americans in general – nearly a decade after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; on the other, they’re no doubt striving to create a distinctly original creature possessing traits that are genuinely frightening in their freshness and unfamiliarity.

Essentially a perfect hybrid of The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla, Cloverfield is most effective in the early disaster scenes that eerily recall shaky videocam footage of New York City streets being swallowed-up by enormous clouds of dust and debris immediately after the fall of the World Trade Center. Still, once it gets moving and our frightened protagonists race through the wreckage on a selfless (and somewhat suicidal) rescue mission, there are still plenty of unnerving surprises to feed that feeling of dread, and keep the viewer riveted to their seat.

Perry Seibert: I can respect the audacity of what the filmmakers in Cloverfield were trying to do, and they do come up with some really good laughs and interesting edits during the opening party sequence, but the strict formal exercise of maintaining the first-person camera POV at all times eventually undercuts the film. The style ends up having the opposite effect of immediacy – it calls attention to itself so that you’re constantly aware of how fake it all is. The film lost what little goodwill it had left when, during the first scene in the film where the camera actually stops moving for a few seconds, the viewer is treated to a crystal clear ad for Mountain Dew. Product placement is even more annoying when the film itself is nothing more than an advertisement for itself.

Jeremy Wheeler: I’ve always considered myself a connoisseur of extreme cinema, so it seemed like a no-brainer to take my Cloverfield experience to the limit and guzzle down a Diet Rockstar before leaving the house, which of course was followed by my patented movie snack –a medium Coke along with a box of those sweet nuggets of heavenly joy, Nestle’s Goobers. Unfortunately, add in an empty stomach as well as a herky-jerky movie seen from our near-the-front press row and one wouldn’t be strained to guess the queasy outcome that was in store for this audience member. Needless to say, the months of anticipation I had built up were squashed before my eyes as this devilish equation I’d prescribed for myself took hold, not to let up until long after I’d left the theater. As far as the film goes, I can see where people would be doing back flips for it. Its reinvention of not only the monster film, but of the Hollywood promotional machine are quite commendable. However, I can’t say that I was all that frightened during it, but that’s probably because I was more scared for my rapidly beating heart and tingling fingers than I was for anything happening on screen. In the end, I was glad for it to be over and I yearned to watch something – anything – that looked like it wasn’t shot by a jackhammer. It saddens me to think that I’m now grouped in with the poor chaps that were struck ill during Blair Witch, but at least maybe now this gives me a reasonable gripe against shaky cam on the big screen. God help me when Romero’s Diary of the Dead comes out – you’ll find me in the back row sucking on Dramamine with a full belly and my John Waters barf bag in tow just in case sh*t goes down.

That’s right, the same crew who previously took on some of the most hilariously awful films ever to hit the silver screen in Mystery Science Theater 3000 are back doing what they do best in Cinematic Titanic, and the first film to hit the iceberg is Al Adamson’s abominable 1972 sci-fi schlock-fest The Oozing Skull. Original cast members Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein also have their own chairs on the deck, as do longtime MST3K writers and co-stars Frank Conniff and Mary Jo Pehl.

If this preview clip is any indicator, the gang that once blasted turkeys from the deepest depths of outer space are equally comfortable carving them up while cruising the oceans here on Earth.

Instead of airing on television, each episode will be available to purchase on DVD through the show’s official website - where fans can also find out more by reading the press release and signing up for the Cinematic Titanic e-mail club.