Sacramento (Michael Forest) is an amiable and laid back Western outlaw who can barely ride his horse and who drifts from town to town. When he arrives at a local saloon, he meets Big Jim (Fred Harrison) who ridicules Sacramento for only ordering a glass of milk. What Big Jim doesn’t know is that the milk is Sacramento’s house. After Sacramento returns, accepts a whiskey-drinking challenge, and proceeds to drink Big Jim under the table, an unlikely partnership is born.
Since it’s the old west and there’s nothing better to do, Sacramento, Big Jim, and Big Jim’s father, Old Tequila (Luigi Bonos), hold up a train and get away with a fortune. By doing so, they thwart the schemes of an evil banker was planning on robbing the train himself in order to prevent the money from getting to a town of women who the banker wants to evict. With the banker’s men pursuing them, Sacramento, Big Jim, and Tequila all end up in the town where Sacramento falls in love with the town’s mayor, Jenny McKinley (Malisa Longo).
Now They Call Him Sacramento is an amiable Spanish-made Spaghetti western. It’s a comedy, one that was obviously based on the very popular series of Italian films that starred Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Michael Forest plays the Hill role while Fred Harrison steps into the typical Spencer part. While Forest and Harrison may not have as strong of a humorous chemistry as Hill and Spencer, they’re still likable in their roles and Forest, in particular, scores just enough laughs to keep the movie entertaining. (Just watch him trying to get on his horse.) Now They Call Him Sacramento may be predictable but, like it’s title character, it’s an amiable and likable comedy and the climatic fight scene — in which a fistfight escalates into the entire town has been destroyed — is a minor classic.
During the Gold Rush, a young boy named Jim Chambers (Fernando E. Romero) rescues a German shepherd from a bear trap. Jim’s father doesn’t want Jim to adopt the dog but then he gets killed by Indians so what is he going to do about it? Traveling with two trappers who are also brothers (played by Manuel de Blas and Remo De Angelis), Jim, his sister, Mary (Elisabetta Virgili), and the dog move to the nearby town of Dawson City.
Jim and Mary want to take over the town’s newspaper, which was originally founded by their family. However, both the newspaper and the town have been taken over by an evil gambler named William Bates (Jack Palance). Bates may be willing to let the children run the paper but only if they allow him to take their dog. Meanwhile, one of the trappers falls in love with the local saloon keeper, Sonia Kendall (Joan Collins).
Though The Great Adventure is set in Alaska and tells a typical Western story, it’s an Italian film through-and-through. Jack Palance and Joan Collins may be top-billed but the movie itself is dominated by actors speaking in poorly dubbed English. This was one of several films based on White Fang that was released in the 70s and, like many of them, it’s an uneasy hybrid of a treacly family film and a violent western. On the one hand, it’s a film about two children and their dog trying to publish a newspaper and, on the other hand, Jack Palance kills people in cold blood. The film is so badly edited to be almost impossible to follow but I’m an unapologetic Jack Palance fan and I almost always enjoy any film that lets Palance do his thing. Unfortunately, The Great Adventure didn’t have as much Palance as I was expecting and Joan Collins is beautiful but hampered by the film’s G-rating. (For an actress who was affectionately nicknamed The Great British Open, Collins is always a strange presence in a family film.) At least the dog was a good actor. He eventually abandons his newfound family so that he can rejoin a wild dog pack in the wilderness and he probably made the right decision. He looks very happy at the end of the movie.
Welcome to the down and dirty world of the music industry in the 1970s.
Coleman Buckmaster (Harvey Keitel) is a record producer who is known as the “Golden Ear,” because of his success at discovering new talent. Coleman is the son of a jazz pianist (to whom he brings a birthday present of cocaine) and he is convinced that consumers are not as dumb as music execs assume that they are. He believes that his latest group, known simply as The Group (but played by Earth, Wind, & Fire), have what it takes to become a big success despite not having a conventionally commercial image.
Coleman’s boss, Carlton James (Ed Nelson), disagrees. Carlton orders Coleman to spend less time working with The Group and to instead devote his energy to producing a single for a new band called The Pages. Led by Franklyn Page (Bert Parks), the Pages present themselves as being a clean-cut and wholesome family band. Carlton is sure that their innocuous style and feel-good harmonies are going to be “the sound of the 70s.” Coleman disagrees but he tries to balance working with both groups. While he tries to make The Group into a success, he also tries to find something worthwhile in The Pages’ new single, “Joy Joy Joy.” Complicating matters is that, against his better instincts, Coleman has fallen into a relationship with Velour Page (Cynthia Bostick), who is not as innocent as the band’s image makers makes her out to be.
Written by journalist Robert Lipsyte and directed by producer Sig Shore (he did Superfly), That’s The Way Of The World is an interesting look at what was going on behind the scenes of the music industry in the 70s. It’s not the first film to suggest that the recording industry was run by unethical and corrupt record labels (nor would it be the last) but it feels authentic in a way that a lot of other music industry films don’t. That’s The Way Of The World emphasizes just how manufactured most popular music is. Insisting on trying to do something different, as the Group does, will only lead to you being snubbed by the industry. Play ball and record music that means nothing — like the Pages — and you’ll become a star overnight. Having a hit has less to do with the work you put into it and more with how many people your label is willing to pay off. As one exec puts it, getting your record played on the radio (in those days before YouTube and Soundcloud) means resorting “payola, layola, and drugola.” Harvey Keitel performs his role with his trademark intensity and Bert Parks is brilliantly cast as the thoroughly fake Franklyn Page.
Today, The Way Of The World is best-known for its soundtrack, which was also one of Earth, Wind, and Fire’s best-selling albums. Though the film was a bomb at the box office, the album was not. The Group may have struggled to get anyone to listen but Earth, Wind, and Fire became the first black group to top both the Billboard album and singles charts.
Sergio, which dropped on Netflix last Friday, is a biopic of the Brazilian diplomat, Sérgio Vieira de Mello. Sergio spent 34 years as a diplomat with the United Nations, going to some of the most dangerous places in the world and trying to negotiate with people who were determined to kill one another. Sergio was so respected within the UN that he was seen as a likely candidate for Secretary-General. Instead, in 2003, Sergio was killed in a terrorist attack while he was in Baghdad, observing the American occupation of Iraq.
Starring Wagner Moura in the title role, Sergio opens with Sergio arriving in Baghdad. For the majority of the film, he’s buried in the rubble of his blown-up office, thinking about his past life while an American soldier (played, with quiet authority, by Garret Dillahunt) tries to dig him and his assistant, Gil (Brian F. O’Byrne) out. Through the use of flashbacks, we watch as Sergio negotiates peace in East Timor and argues against the occupation of the Iraq. We also watch as he meets and falls in love with Carolina (Ana de Armas), pursuing a passionate affair with her despite being married.
Sergio is a rather staid biopic. If you’re expecting to see an Adam McKay-style screed about international diplomacy and American war crimes, that is not what this film is and we should be happy for that because, seriously, have you tried to watch The Big Short or Vice lately? Instead, Sergio is more like a Jay Roach film without the attempts at humor. It’s a blandly liberal biopic that is conventionally structured and a bit too convinced that the audience is going to automatically agree with its points. Indeed, one of the film’s most glaring flaws is that it assumes that we’re all as enamored with the UN as it is. Instead of making a case for why the UN should be taken seriously, Sergio just assumes that it is.
The other big problem with the film is that it’s just boring. There’s nothing interesting about the film’s structure and, as portrayed in the rather bland script, both Sergio and Carolina come across as being ciphers. We’re constantly told that Sergio is charismatic and controversial but we really don’t see much evidence of it. The film itself doesn’t seem to know what made Sergio tick but what’s even worse is that it doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in finding out. There’s not much interest in digging into Sergio’s mind or his motives, The film forgets that you can portray someone as a hero and celebrate their accomplishments without necessarily idealizing them. With the exception of one or two scenes (and there is an effective moment where one of Sergio’s assistants does call him out for putting everyone’s life in danger by refusing to accept protection from the U.S. army), Sergio is portrayed in such an idealized that he comes across as being a bit dull. Wagner Moura is an appealing actor but there’s no depth to his performance. Meanwhile, Ana de Armas is reduced to playing the stock girlfriend with a social conscience role.
All that said, I almost feel guilty about not liking Sergio. The film was made with good intentions but good intentions don’t necessarily translate to compelling storytelling.
Blast opens with a title card telling us that what we’re about to see is based on a true story except that it’s not. In the days leading up to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the FBI thwarted many potential terrorist plots. Only one of the plots was a domestic terror plot. Blast is the story of what would have happened if that plot had not been disrupted.
(What about Eric Rudolph and the Olympic Park bombing? That’s not mentioned, probably because this film went into production before the Atlanta Olympics actually began.)
Omodo (Andrew Divoff of Wishmaster fame) is a terrorist who does evil things because he’s evil. He and his group have taken the American Olympic swim team and their coach, Diane Colton (Kimberly Warren), hostage in an Atlanta gym. They’re demanding money and an opportunity to escape. The police (led by Tim Thomerson) don’t know what to do. The FBI (represented by Rutger Hauer with braided hair) are not much help either. Fortunately, the gym’s janitor, Jack Bryant (Linden Ashby), is a former Olympic gymnast who is a master of Tae Kwon Do! Jack also happens to be Diane’s ex-husband!
Blast comes from us the time when every action movie was a blatant rip-off of Die Hard and we were all cool with that because Die Hard was so awesome that it deserved to be remade a thousand times. Blast is more of the usual. Jack sneaks around the facility, defuses bombs, and picks the terrorists off. Omodo kills two hostages in cold blood. Shannon Elizabeth of American Pie fame plays one of the hostages but she doesn’t get many lines beyond, “Help us!” Why does Rutger Hauer have his hair in braids? Because he was Rutger Hauer and everyone was probably so happy to have him on set for a few hours that they were willing to let him do whatever he wanted to do with his hair. Rutger Hauer only gets about five minutes of screentime but he makes the most of them.
Lindsen Ashby is convincing in the fight scenes but I think the movie would have been better if he had just been an ordinary janitor, instead of a Tae Kwon Do supstar who has fallen on hard times. That would have added some suspense to the story because, as it is, Jack is so obviously superior to his opponents that there’s never really any question as to whether or not he’s going to succeed. Andrew Divoff is a good actor but his villain isn’t given any good lines and the people working for him are all pretty bland. One of the best things about the first three Die Hard films was that the villains were just as interesting as the hero but the same cannot be said for Blast.
Blast is forgettable but still, five minutes of Rutger Hauer is better than no Rutger Hauer at all.
A couple checks into a vacation rental, only to find that the anonymous host likes to play games on its guests and you!
Ashley Bell (The Last Exorcism) and Noureen DeWulf (Good Girls) as a couple who soon regrets renting this picturesque home for their long awaited vacation.
Quote:
“Dear Guest, you are staying in my home now. You are locked in so don’t try to run.”
My Review:
Dear Guestis only about a 12 minute short horror movie. However, in those short 12 minutes Megan Freels Johnston (Director and writer) did everything she could to intrigue, scare, and horrify. After watching it several times I am still shaken. The music that plays in the background is just so enticing and enchanting…before you know it you are completely…Locked in….
Would I Recommend this movie?
Seriously, in less than 12 minutes ‘Dear Guest’ scared me, not only scared me, horrified me beyond most recent short books, movies, and novellas I have watched or read recently. So, for short story horror fans…. This!
I’m not sure how to explain it, but…. Enjoy Your Stay….
In the near-future (the movie takes place in 2011 but it was made in 1981 and it’s 2020 today so you do the math), over half of humanity has been wiped out by a plague and America has been taken over by a totalitarian government. The government has outlawed cars and instead requires everyone to use public transportation. The are rumors that, if you can make your way to Free California, you can drive whatever and whenever you want. But to do that, you’d have to be able to drive down a highway and no one has a car!
Franklyn Hart (Lee Majors) is a former race car driver who lost his family to the plague and who now serves as an official government spokesman, encouraging people to ride public transportation and to not use fossil fuels. However, Hart doesn’t believe what he’s preaching. In fact, in a secret basement, he has a car! It’s an orange Porsche and, by breaking into junkyards at night, he’s been able to get the parts necessary to rebuild its engine. His plan is to show up the government by driving the Porsche across the country, all the way to California. Accompanying Franklyn will be Ring McCarthy (Chris Makepeace), a bullied teenage computer expert who needs a father figure. That sounds like a job for Lee Majors!
With Franklyn now driving across the country, the government knows that they have to stop him! But how? Because all of the other cars have been destroyed, the police have to ride around on golf carts that can’t keep up with a Porsche. Since they’re apparently not a very well-organized group of fascists, they also don’t have any drones, bombs, or apparently anything else that they could use to take the incredibly conspicuous race car that is driving across America. The government turns to J.G. Williams (Burgess Meredith), mostly because Williams owns a fighter plane that was last used in the Korean War. Williams agrees to stop Franklyn and Ring but secretly, he finds himself sympathizing with their cause.
The most interesting thing about The Last Chase is the idea of California becoming a libertarian paradise where the residents are rebelling against overly stringent environmental regulations. That alone makes this a fun film to watch on Earth Day. Unfortunately, The Last Chase never really lives up to its intriguing premise. Ironically, for a film called The Last Chase, there just aren’t enough chase scenes. Instead, the movie spends a lot of time on Ring needing a father figure and Franklyn needing a new family to replace the one that he lost and who wants to see that when you could be watching an orange Porsche racing down the highway? This is a movie that calls out for a Mad Max approach but instead, it’s more of an After School special about accepting your stepfather and running away with him to California. It’s a strange message but at least the car’s cool.
Judd (Cliff Robertson) is an aging stunt driver who has been reduced to doing minor car shows in New Zealand. He’s having trouble paying the bills and his young mechanic, Casey (Leif Garrett, looking like he’s a few days away from checking into rehab), is on him to do something — anything — to bring in some extra cash. The opportunity presents itself when the duo are hired by an enigmatic woman named Christine (Lisa Harrow) to drive across New Zealand with a mysterious package hidden away in their trunk. Christine will be accompanying them on their trip. Sounds simple, right?
The only problem is that Christine is a research scientist who has developed a deadly new virus that she doesn’t want to get into the wrong hands. She fears that the military might want to use it as bioweapon. It turns out that she’s right and no sooner has Judd tapped the accelerator than they’re being chased across New Zealand by different factions, all who want the weapon for themselves.
Usually I love car chase scenes but Shaker Run didn’t really do much for me. Some of the stunts are impressive but there’s also a lot of slow spots, especially at the start of the movie. As I watched the chase scenes, I wondered why, if Christine is trying to sneak the virus out of the country, she would be stupid enough to hire someone who drives an incredibly conspicuous pink race car. It’s not as if it’s going to be difficult for anyone to spot them on the road. As well, one of the biggest chase scenes takes place during the dark of night, making it next to impossible to discern what’s actually going on. The film also features Leif Garrett, giving a performance that’s obnoxious even for him. What’s bad is that Garrett’s character probably could have been removed from the film without it making much difference. If you’re going to put Leif Garrett in your movie, you better have a good reason.
One thing that the movie does have in its favor is Cliff Robertson in the lead role. Robertson was a good actor whose career as a leading man was pretty much topedoed in 1977 when he discovered that David Begelman, who was the head of Columbia Studios, was using Robertson’s name and forging his signature to embezzle money from the studio. Though the studios pressured Robertson to keep quiet, he went to the police and later spoke publicly about the incident. Though Begelman was the one who had committed the crime, Robertson was the one who was subsequently blacklisted. While Begelman paid a fine, did some community service, and remained a member of the Hollywood community, Robertson was blacklisted for five years. When he finally did start appearing in movies again, it was almost always in supporting roles. Shaker Run gave Robertson a rare leading role and, even if the movie isn’t good, Robertson is still good in it.
Unfortunately, even after people finally started to acknowledge that Cliff Robertson was mistreated, it still didn’t do much for his career and he continued to be cast in mostly forgettable movies. Fortunately, before he died in 2011, he did get offered one iconic role and, as a result, a whole new generation of filmgoers got to know him as Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben. If anyone could make you believe that “with great power, comes great responsibility,” it was Cliff Robertson.
Earlier tonight, as I watched the 2008 Italian film, Il Divo, it occurred to me that political corruption really is an international language.
The film is heavily stylized biopic of Giulio Andreotti. Andreotti (who died five years after the release of this film) is nearly unknown figure in the United States but, in Italy, he spent several decades as a member of the country’s political elite. He was a controversial figure, a man who served several terms as prime minister and was later appointed senator for life but who was also accused of being politically corrupt and affiliated with some of the worst elements of the Mafia. People who threatened to investigate Andreotti or who could have contributed to his downfall had a habit of ending up dead. No sooner has Il Divo begun then we’re treated to a lengthy montage of Andreotti’s associates getting killed in various ways. Some are gunned down. One is found hanging underneath a bridge. One is in an exploding car. The film also opens with a title card that informs us that, over the course of Andreotti’s long career, he was rumored to be one of the leading members of the P2, a masonic lodge that counted among its members some of the most powerful men in Italy. P2 is one of those organizations that conspiracy theorists love to obsess upon.
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, Il Divo is an Italian film that deals with the life of a prominent Italian political figure and, needless to say, it was made for an Italian audience. For an American viewer like me, it was often impossible not to get confused as I tried to keep up with who was working with who and who had just been killed. In short, this film was made to be viewed by people who already know who Guilo Andreotti was and who are familiar with the details of his long career. It was not made for someone like me who is still struggling to wrap her mind around the fact that Italy has both a prime minister and a president.
But, in the end, it really didn’t matter if I occasionally struggled to follow every twist and turn of Andreotti’s career. Il Divo may technically by a biopic of Giulio Andreotti but, on a larger scale, it’s about how power corrupts and the banality of evil. Those are universal themes and you certainly do not have to be any particular nationality to be familiar with the fact that people who dedicate their lives to accumulating political power often turn out to be, at the very least, willing to cut some ethical corners. I may not have always understood every detail of Il Divo‘s story but I did understand exactly what the film was ultimately about.
As played by Toni Servillo, Andreotti does not come across as being particularly charismatic politician. With his hunched back and his bat-like ears, Andreotti almost seems like a caricature of a corrupt leader. In the film, one immediately sees that Andreotti hasn’t held onto his power because he’s particularly loved by the people. Instead, he’s held onto power by being smarter than those who would try to defeat him. No matter how determined his enemies may be, Andreotti is always just a little bit more ruthless. Andreotti succeeds because he’s willing to do what he has to do to succeed and he’s willing to ally himself with people who have a stake in his continued success. While the film never comes out and says that Andreotti was personally responsible for ordering the deaths of any of his enemies, it does suggest that he purposefully surrounded himself with men who would do anything to keep Andreotti in power, if just to protect their own fiefdoms of corruption.
There’s an early scene in Il Divo where Andreotti’s allies all arrives for a meeting with the prime minister. Most of them are politicians. One of them is a cardinal. Another is simply identified as being a “businessman.” They pull up in their expensive cars and then we watch as they walk across the screen in slow motion, arrogantly confident in the fact that they’re above any and all legal or ethical considerations. They’re all wealthy men and they all seem to understand the importance of keeping Andreotti happy. Carlo Buccirosso plays Paolo Cirino Pomicino, who was one of Andreotti’s chief allies. Buccirosso plays Pomincino as being glibly hyperactive, a cheerfully corrupt ball of energy who seems to be having all of the fun that Andreotti denies himself. Because Andreotti denies himself an interest in anything other than wielding and holding power, he is invulnerable to attack and prosecution but sometimes it’s hard not to wonder if he would have rather have been Pomincino, dancing at parties and sliding across tiled floors.
Indeed, Andreotti begins and ends Il Divo as an enigma. How deeply involved is he in the murders occurring around him? Is he ordering them or is he just turning a blind eye? What makes Andeotti tick? By the end of the film, his main motivation seems to be bitterness. Death may be inevitable but he’s not going to go until everyone else goes first. That is a motivation that many politicians across the world probably share. Corruption is universal.
An evil businessman named Brightmore (Jan-Michael Vincent) abducts Cheetah the Chimpanzee from Africa and takes him back to Manhattan. It’s up to Cheetah’s best friend, Tarzan (Joe Lara), to rescue him. Tarzan goes to New York where he meets a cabbie named Jane (Kim Crosby) and her father, a tough private investigator named Archimedes (Tony Curtis). Tarzan is also briefly detained for being in the country illegally but he pulls the bars out of his cell window and escapes. Presumably, so does everyone else in the jail. Way to go, Tarzan.
Lisa and I discovered this playing on the Z-Living Channel last night and we watched it because it was either watch this or start binging the Police Academy films on Netflix. That’s what this damn pandemic is leading to. We know we’re probably going to have to watch the entire Police Academy franchise at some point but we’re trying to put it off. So, we watched Tarzan in Manhattan. Damn you, COVID-19!
It was bad. It was really, really bad. It was obviously meant to be a pilot for television series but I guess it didn’t happen. The timing was off. If Tarzan in Manhattan had been made in the 90s, it probably would have led to a syndicated series that would currently be airing on H&I, next to episodes of Renegade and Sheena. It came out in 1989, though, too early to cash in on the wave of syndicated crap that was unleashed after the success of Baywatch proved that you didn’t have to produce a quality show to find success in syndication. Because it came out too early, we were spared annual Tarzan in Manhattan conventions. Let that sink in and be happy.
Plus, it’s just really, really bad. Did I say that already? It’s true. There’s nothing consistent about Tarzan in Manhattan. It wants to be a comedy, it wants to be a drama. It wants to be an updated version of Tarzan but it still wants him to be confused by the modern world. The movie also doesn’t seem to know if Tarzan is famous or not. It seems like he must be because Brightmore went through a lot of trouble to kidnap his chimpanzee. But, in Manhattan, no one seems to know who he is. The movie also doesn’t get Tarzan’s famous jungle call right, either. This Tarzan just yells, without any special inflection to let the world know that he’s Tarzan. Instead of It’s like he’s not Tarzan at all. Jan-Michael Vincent and Tony Curtis both seem bored while Joe Lara has the right look for Tarzan but not much else to recommend him. The chimpanzee survives without being used to test makeup or whatever it was Brightmore was planning on doing with him so at least the movie has that going for it.
Sacramento (Michael Forest) is an amiable and laid back Western outlaw who can barely ride his horse and who drifts from town to town. When he arrives at a local saloon, he meets Big Jim (Fred Harrison) who ridicules Sacramento for only ordering a glass of milk. What Big Jim doesn’t know is that the milk is Sacramento’s house. After Sacramento returns, accepts a whiskey-drinking challenge, and proceeds to drink Big Jim under the table, an unlikely partnership is born.
Through the Shattered Lens 