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By Cole Smithey

‘One Missed Call’

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Ed Burns (“Sidewalks of New York,” “15 Minutes”) entrenches himself as Hollywood’s go-to-B-movie actor with an excruciatingly dull remake of a Japanese horror movie that, like every other American attempt at translating the genre, fails from the start. Burns plays Jack Andrews, a hunky detective in a nondescript college town where psychology student Beth (Shannyn Sossamon) witnesses her circle of friends dying in freak accidents after receiving cell phones calls foreshadowing their last words and screams before each violent event actually occurs.

In keeping with the predictable demands of modern Japanese horror, a troubled little girl is responsible for the deadly phenomenon that gives the picture its numerous body count. Director Eric Valette’s fumbling with atmosphere, suspense and surprise further detracts from an already nonsensical script that redoubles the axiom about cell phones being an off-limits movie subjects. If the first wide release movie of 2008 is any indicator of the kind of year a writers’ strike Hollywood has in store, we may all be watching DVDs.

The best scene comes early on when a young woman puts down her cell phone and enjoys the backyard view from her Japanese styled patio overlooking a murky pond where her exotic cat studies the goldfish swimming below. A moldy hand reaches out and snatches the kitty before grabbing the girl with a fast twitch speed that induces a gulp for its striking efficiency. We’re perfectly set up to spend the next hour discovering the identity of a water-breathing swamp killer, but instead the story slips around like a fawn trying to stand up on an oil slick floor.

Unexplained hallucinations of ghoulish characters, both life sized and miniature, with bone white skin and mouths-for-eyes creep into view like puppet rejects from a disused Tim Burton movie. There’s some satisfaction to be had in the death of one of Beth’s obnoxious male friends as we wait for him to repeat his last words before being impaled. Sad then that his is the most developed character the script offers before devolving into a third act tension-free chase scene and late death surprise that oddly comes as a relief rather than with any dread the filmmakers might have intended.

“One Missed Call” is not a movie that the studio heads at Warner Brothers care if audiences see. It’s a throwaway picture meant to fill theater screen space for a week or two with the intention of breaking even as a place-marker to clog up space at a local multiplex that might otherwise play something worth seeing, like “There Will Be Blood.” For audiences who have dutifully worked their way through the litany of great pre-Oscar movies like “Atonement,” “Juno,” “Lars and the Real Girl,” and “No Country For Old Men,” January doesn’t promise much. Diane Lane’s upcoming thriller “Untraceable” looks like a solid horror/suspense bet and Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” is required viewing as an insightful character and culture study set in Communist Romania that is pure cinema.   

In the meantime, shabby movies like “One Missed Call” serve to make even mediocre achievements like Woody Allen’s January release “Cassandra’s Dream” seem competent. Perhaps “One Missed Call” won’t break even and Hollywood will learn its lesson about remaking Japanese horror movies. In any event, Burns can still claim to have a career. CV

By Jared Curtis

‘King Corn’

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In the opening shots of director Aaron Woolf’s documentary, “King Corn,” we see the small farm towns and rolling hills of Iowa. As the film began, I found myself bored. Living in Iowa for 27 years, I had seen and heard everything the documentary offered. But once it got past the nostalgic stories and repetitive scenes of stars Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis playing baseball (I think secretly the director wanted to make a documentary on the Field of Dreams), the documentary turned into an informative and eye-opening story in the vein of “Supersize Me.”

We are introduced to Cheney and Ellis at the beginning of the film as they have their hair tested and find out there is corn in their hair. They realize that not only is it in their hair, but the reason being is that almost every processed thing you eat contains some kind of corn. To find out how this happens, the two city slickers from Boston decide to visit the farming community of Greene (population 1,105) and grow their own acre of corn.

But when they get their acre in, the film comes alive. Gone are the long scenic views of Iowa as we are shown the greed of industrialized farming. Taking only 18 minutes to plant an acre, Cheney and Ellis ponder how long it would have taken their relatives to plant the same amount, one of the many advantages to the current farming industry. As they drive around with a commercial farmer pointing out every farm he works (which is almost every farm they pass), they begin to see how family farms are changing into the industrialized farming acres of fuel and sugar.

The filmmaker ponders why corn is being overproduced as Cheney and Ellis see sky-high concrete silos overflowing. The two realize that farming corn is not about eating it; it’s about money. In July the two try an ear of their corn, remarking how it is horrible and “tastes like chalk.” They talk with local farmers who reminisce about how people used to be able to eat the foods they grew, but not anymore. This is where the documentary turns to gold. Cheney and Ellis find out that of all the corn produced in Iowa, the majority is either used for Ethanol or high-fructose corn syrup. Not only can’t Cheney and Ellis can’t eat their corn, and now realize they have been “growing an acre of sugar with no nutritional value.” Thanks to corn, our soda is sweeter and we have a greater chance of getting diabetes.

After not being allowed to see the process of how corn is turned into sweetener “for our own safety,” Cheney and Ellis decide to investigate another use for corn: beef farms where cows are force-fed all day long. Cows are jammed into pens and force-fed a corn-based diet to make them fat. After 120 days of a corn diet, the cow bodies start to break down, and they are sent away for slaughter. [The corn-fed beef patties that we eat every day contain nine grams of fat, where as a grass feed beef patty contains 1.3 grams. Did you also know that hamburger meat coming from corn fed cows contains almost 65 percent fat? No wonder fast food is slowly killing America.]

“King Corn” could be seen as two different films: one, a look at small town faming communities; second, a commentary on how industrialized farming is overproducing lower quality products. It really makes you think about what you are putting in your body. Just like “Supersize Me” kept me away from McDonald’s, this film will make people stop and think before hitting the drive through. The city slickers get their revenge on the industrialized farming community, even though it is only one small victory in a larger nationwide battle. CV

“King Corn” will be shown at the Practical Farmers of Iowa annual conference on Jan. 11. You can find more info at www.practicalfarmers.org. The film is also being shown throughout Iowa, check your local theaters or check www.kingcorn.net for screenings.

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