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Reviews
Paging Emma (1999)
Unintentionally hilarious and almost unwatchable, except for one sequence
I had the (dis)honor of attending this film's premiere in San Juan back in 1999 - after this screening, the film simply vanished from public view, and was never released, theatrically or otherwise, anywhere. Amateur hour meets decent exterior photography in Roberto Buso's first feature film. A completely audience-excluding narrative, blah acting, occasionally atrocious dialogue, a Puerto Rican actress speaking almost-unintelligible English during the film's most "important" moments, a cheap-sounding music score, all with rather mostly-nice-looking photography. An attempt at suspense that leads nowhere. I laughed when I saw that this page now has 69 user ratings (up to a year ago, it had less than 20) - since this movie continues to be gathering dust in a shelf somewhere, I smell IMDb-weighted-average-busting shenanigans. Said 'shennies' are probably related to the US release of Buso's second feature, The Condemned, which - SPOILER FOR BOTH MOVIES - as if it were 'Paging Emma Redux' basically follows the same structure as this film: narratives with almost zero 'exposition', and which end in a character showing up to "reveal" secrets / reasons, which not only seriously underwhelm, but also leave plenty of things frustratingly unexplained anyway. So, not only are you bored out of your mind, but you also end up feeling completely cheated. The 'watchable' sequence I referred to is composed of a few exterior scenes around a lighthouse. If you find yourself with the opportunity to watch this, don't.
The Caller (2011)
What were they thinking?
If it weren't for Rachel Lefevre, this would have been beyond unwatchable. Of all the things they could copy, why did they copy Frequency? The screening I went to was almost empty, had people laughing at the movie and had one couple leaving. The last half hour was unbearable, and not in a good way. After all the coverage this got here in Puerto Rico, and after deciding to trust the early reviews and ratings that were in this page (plants?) and in one of the local papers, me and my boyfriend felt cheated. Luis Guzman seems to have been in this movie just so they could put his name in the poster. Removing weeds from the ground has never made less sense. The moment that leads to the sex scene was funny, but I don't think that was the intention.