Jennie Lew Tugend

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One Missed Call Review

By Blake French

Terrible

People are obsessed with cell phones. They talk while shopping for groceries, getting their hair done, even running on treadmills at the gym. Hell, I've seen a person talk on their cell phone while swimming in a pool. With this in mind, it isn't surprising that there's now a horror movie about ghosts traveling through cell phones. Want to witness the exorcism of a cell phone? Behold One Missed Call.

The cell phone-jumping ghost plays by unique rules. Sometimes, it's a physical creature and attacks people like the ghost from The Ring. Other times, it causes fatal freak accidents like the ghost in Final Destination. Often, it finds victims by searching through the former victim's cell phone address book. It gives a few days notice by leaving a post-dated voicemail of the victim's voice right before death. The ghost is kind enough to leave red candies in the deceased's mouth, too.

Continue reading: One Missed Call Review

Free Willy Review

By Christopher Null

What won't a boy do for his whale?

Back in 1993, Free Willy became an inexplicable sensation despite its relatively unlikeable lead character Jesse (Jason James Richter) and the fact that the cuddly creature he frees is not cuddly in the slightest.

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Return To Me Review

By Robert Strohmeyer

Good

Let's cut to the chase; the Weekly World News could have given us a better story about a man and a woman united by a heart transplant. It's not for lack of talent, either, that this flick stumbles. If anything, Return to Me hosts almost as overqualified a cast as Brian De Palma's lame duck blockbuster, Mission to Mars. The real problem here seems to be lack of directorial focus. After a career of feature film supporting roles, television walk-ons and cartoon voiceovers, Bonnie Hunt somehow convinced MGM to let her sit in the folding chair. The result is a charming romantic comedy tragically bogged down by the uncomfortable avoidance of its central plot point.

The drama of this film is the elephant in the room that everyone pretends to ignore. Bob Rueland (David Duchovny--The X Files) is a successful Chicago architectural engineer who is emotionally crushed when his gorilla-training wife (a role apparently inspired by real-life Gorilla Foundation president Dr. Penny Patterson), Elizabeth (Joely Richardson--101 Dalmatians), dies in some unspecified accident that we never really see. I guess they thought it might bring us down. Fortunately, Elizabeth filled out her organ donor card, affording local waitress Grace Briggs (Minnie Driver--Good Will Hunting) a second chance to live.

Continue reading: Return To Me Review