Tag Archive: Starring
Early in “One Missed Call” a snooty cat is yanked into a fish pond by a disembodied arm, unexpectedly following her owner to a watery grave. The moment is wickedly humorous and suggests a movie that’s unwilling to take itself too seriously. If only.
The latest Japanese knockoff to fetishize death by technology, Eric Valette’s reworking of Takashi Miike’s “Chakushin Ari” is a poker-faced puzzle whose biggest shock is the absence of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Subbing for so as to reconstruct regular is Shannyn Sossamon as Beth, a stern psychology student whose friends suffer grisly deaths after receiving heads-ups on their cellphones. These wireless warnings, each heralded by an eerie ring tone and disturbing visions, persist even after battery removal — as if the medium’s viral ubiquity weren’t already sinister enough.
A brow-furrowing blend of kid’s abuse and adult trauma, Andrew Klavan’s screenplay sacrifices coherence for atmosphere at every turn. As Beth tries to evade her own telegraphed demise — accompanied by a fantastically irrelevant police detective (Ed Burns) — the movie crawls with furry millipedes and creepy china dolls. When even the cunning Ray Wise (currently hamming it up on television as the cheeky Devil of “Reaper”) appears lost in the role of a reality-television producer, disconnection is the only possible response.
“One Missed Call” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Characters are burned, drowned, run through and ring-toned to death.
Though the tagline of SHOWBIZ reads “the dark side of fame’, it has actually nothing to do with fame, but everything to do with television channels hungry for a scoop. Choreographer Raju Khan makes his debut behind the camera tackling an issue which requires the sensitivity of a veteran, but what he cooks up is amateurish stuff at its best.
True, there may be channels fabricating stories to push the TRP’s to get viewer eyeballs. True, there may be some news on television we see where the tapes may have been edited before airing them. It may also be true that television is going berserk trying to keep pace with the number of channels burgeoning and wanting to stay on top of the heap, come what may. But is what SHOWBIZ sensationalizing true??? That’s a multi-million dollar question.
News is one such television station where its owner, Gulshan Grover hires some journo, who can be classified as goons. And they do just that… what goons will do… twist a story to suit their require. And they make it a point to proudly say that they are “Journalists”. But what Raju Khan fails to show is the balance between the media and the glamour earth How the media is being used by those wanting their fame and moment under the sun. It’s a two-way street but what is shown is a one-sided view. How far it’s true, I don’t know. There may be instances of fabricated stories being aired to increase TRPs but that does not denote all television stories are fabricated!!
Tushar Jalota makes his debut as Rohan Arya, a much sought after singer. The media henchmen, if I may call them so, headed by Sushant Singh (brilliant job) goes after fabricating one story after another using him (Tushar) as the prop. They even go to the extent of almost getting him killed in a car accident (sic) and to sensationalize it further, pour alcohol in his mouth while another pulls down the zipper of the blouse of the woman involved in the mishap. If this is what television journos do to earn their living, then this has to be a scoop by producer Mukesh Bhatt!!!
Mrinalini Sharma is pleasing. She has the spark. Tushar Jalota too, makes a decent first appearance.