Laura Harring Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Casting Bites: Signs, Drool, and More!
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Independent », Casting »
As we come out of the weekend, Juno's dad and Claire Fisher's conservative boyfriend are teaming up for a new film. The Hollywood Reporter posts that J.K. Simmons and Chris Messina are joining Jessica Alba in An Invisible Sign of My Own. Described as an Amelie-style film, the indie "follows the transformation of a sheltered, math-obsessed teacher when a new science teacher arrives at her school." No word on who Simmons and Messina will play, but does it really matter when we have Alba not only taking over the whimsical shoes of Audrey Tatou, but also trying to be a math nerd? Strrrange casting!And have you ever wondered what Thelma & Louise would've been like had they driven all over the place with a corpse? THR also posts that Laura Harring, Jill Marie Jones, and Oded Fehr have signed on to star in a new dark comedy called Drool. Basically, Harring will play an abused wife who accidentally kills her husband (Fehr) as she plans to leave her "better" half with the help of her friend (Jones). What does she do? She decides to "drive the body cross-country." That just doesn't sound sanitary.
To some, he's a dancer from Fame. To others, he's Baz's Mercutio in Romeo + Juliet. (He needs to do more Shakespeare!) To most these days, however, he's Michael Dawson from Lost. And now THR posts that Harold Perrineau is going to executive produce and star in a new indie drama called Case 219. Based on Walter Dean Myers' novel Shooter, the film focuses on three misfit teens after a high school shooting.
And one more little bit: Henry Thomas has joined Dear John.
Review: One Missed Call
Filed under: Horror », New Releases », Warner Brothers », Theatrical Reviews »

It seems like an odd choice to hire a Frenchman to remake a film by Japanese master Takashi Miike. I've only seen half a dozen Miike features to date, which isn't many considering that he makes at least that number in any given year. But I can say that his style ranges from utterly insane to completely cracked, and few French filmmakers -- who generally specialize in intelligence and austerity -- could match him. But director Eric Valette brings something interesting to the new remake of One Missed Call. Most horror remakes come complete with an undisguised sense of callousness, and almost flat-out disdain, for their intended customers. But One Missed Call has a kind of effective low-key tone. Perhaps it was confusion or sheer laziness, but it worked for me far better than some other junky remakes I've seen.
Sure, the story is unbelievably stupid, and the film doesn't do much to justify its silly logic. Both this and Miike's film were adapted from a novel by Yasushi Akimoto, and I'd like to believe that the novel made a far better argument for its plot. A med student, Shelley (Meagan Good), dies after receiving a mysterious phone call. After her death, her phone mysteriously dials a friend, and that friend dies. And so on. The calls come in dated and timed to some point in the near future, and the recipient of the call hears his or her own voice at the moment of their death. So they know exactly what day and time they're going to die and they know what they're going to say, but that information can't help some of the dumber characters from saving their own lives. One character sits at a café with only one minute to go to his impending death. Instead of sitting there safe one minute longer, he decides to get up and cross a busy street.









