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.
The 1961 film, King of Kings, was the final biblical film that I watched on Easter. Like The Greatest Story Ever Told, it tells the story of Jesus from the Nativity to the Ascension. Like The Greatest Story Ever Told, it’s an epic film that was directed by a renowned director. (In this case, Nicholas Ray.) Like The Greatest Story Ever Told, King of Kings also has a huge cast and there’s a few familiar faces to be seen, though it doesn’t really take the all-star approach that George Stevens did with his telling of the story.
Probably the biggest star in King of Kings was Jeffrey Hunter, who played Jesus. Hunter was in his 30s at the time but he still looked young enough that the film was nicknamed I Was A Teenage Jesus. (Some of that also probably had to do with the fact that Nicholas Ray was best known for directing Rebel Without A Cause.) But then again, for a man who had so many followers, Jesus was young. He hadn’t even reached his 40th birthday before he was crucified. As well, his followers were also young while his many opponents were representatives of the establishment and the old way of doing things. It makes perfect sense that Jesus should be played by a young man and Hunter gives a good performance. As opposed to so many of the other actors who have played Jesus in the movies, Jeffrey Hunter is credible as someone who could convince fishermen to throw down their nets and follow him. He’s passionate without being fanatical and serious without being grim. He’s a leader even before he performs his first miracle.
King of Kings is one of the better films that I’ve seen about the life of Jesus. While remaining respectful of its subject, it also feels alive in the way that so many other biblical films don’t. Perhaps not surprisingly, Nicholas Ray focuses on the idea of Jesus as a rebel against the establishment. Ray emphasizes the casual cruelty of the Romans and their collaborators. When John the Baptist (Robert Ryan) is arrested by Herod (Frank Thring), it’s not just so the filmmakers can have an excuse to work Salome (Brigid Bazlen) in the film. It’s also to show what will happen to anyone who dares to challenge the establishment. When Jesus visits John the Baptist in his cell, it’s a summit between two rebels who know that they’re both destined to die for the greater good. When Pilate (Hurd Hatfield) makes his appearance, he’s smug and rather complacent in his power. He’s not the quasi-sympathetic figure who appears in so many other biblical films. Instead, he’s the epitome of establishment arrogance.
As a director, Nicholas Ray keeps things simple. This isn’t Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments. The emphasis is not on grandeur. Instead, the film is about common people trying to improve the world in which they’re living, while also preparing for the next. Jeffrey Hunter gives an excellent performance as Jesus and, all in all, this is one of the better and more relatable biblical films out there.
The 2016 film, Forty Nights, opens with John the Baptist (Terry Jernigan) baptizing a surprisingly mellow Jesus (DJ Perry) while John’s followers watch. After Jesus is baptized, the voice of God echoes through the land and, once again, the thing that struck me was just how laid back God sounded. It’s rare that we ever see either Jesus or his Father portrayed as being so calm and easy-going and I have to say that I found it to be a somewhat nice change of pace from the more intense approach the most actors tend to take. Of course, I don’t know if that was intentional or just a happy accident. It was probably the latter.
After getting baptized, Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights, fasting in the Judaen desert and proving his own faith. During that time, Jesus was tempted three times by the Devil, who appeared in various guises and tried to convince Jesus to not only break his fast but to also wantonly display his power. The Devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread. He tempted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of a temple so that the angels might break his fall. Finally, he offered to give Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world in return for Jesus worshiping him. Not surprisingly, this confrontation between Satan and Jesus has proven popular with both writers and filmmakers. For instance, The Greatest Story Ever Told featured Donald Pleasence as a smug Satan. The more recent Last Days In The Desert featured Ewan McGregor playing both Jesus and Satan.
Forty Nights takes a no-frills approach to the 40 days and nights that Jesus spent in the wilderness, alternating between scenes of Jesus being tempted and flashbacks to Jesus’s youth. Sometimes, the low-key approach is effective and sometimes, you find yourself longing for the more over-the-top approach that other films brought to the same material. For a battle between good-and-evil, there’s not really much of a battle to be found in this film. Over and over again, Satan appears, taunts Jesus, and then Jesus tells him to go away. While that may be faithful to the narrative, it doesn’t quite work in the film because, at no point, does there seem to be any risk of Jesus giving into Satan’s temptations. Because Jesus, in this film, never seems to be truly tempted, there’s less triumph to him refusing to give in. Instead of being about Jesus showing strength and faith, Forty Nights often seems like it’s more about Satan’s inability to take the hint and go away. The film is at its best when Satan and Jesus are debating each other atop of the temple and oddly enough, the effectiveness of that scene is largely due to how badly the film’s green screen effects are integrated into the film. It gives the entire scene an otherworldly, almost dream-like feel.
Anyway, Forty Nights is a film that will probably be best appreciated by those who already agree with the film’s viewpoint. This is not the faith-based film that’s going to convert unbelievers and ultimately, it fails to maintain any sort of real narrative momentum. Still, the temptation in the wilderness is still an effective and intriguing narrative and one to which filmmakers will probably continue to return.
The 1965 biblical epic, The Greatest Story Ever Told, tells the story of the life of Jesus, from the Nativity to the Ascension. It’s probably the most complete telling of the story that you’ll ever find. It’s hard to think of a single details that’s left out and, as a result, the film has a four hour running time. Whether you’re a believer or not, that’s a really long time to watch a reverent film that doesn’t even feature the campy excesses of something like The Ten Commandments.
(There’s actually several different version of The Greatest Story Ever Told floating around. There’s a version that’s a little over two hours. There’s a version that’s close to four hours. Reportedly, the uncut version of the film ran for four hour and 20 minutes.)
Max von Sydow plays Jesus. On the one hand, that seems like that should work because Max von Sydow was a great actor who gave off an otherworldly air. On the other hand, it totally doesn’t work because von Sydow gives an oddly detached performance. The Greatest Story Ever Told was von Sydow’s first American film and, at no point, does he seem particularly happy about being involved with it. von Sydow is a very cerebral and rather reserved Jesus, one who makes his points without a hint of passion or charisma. When he’s being friendly, he offers up a half-smile. When he has to rebuke his disciples for their doubt, he sounds more annoyed than anything else. He’s Jesus if Jesus was a community college philosophy professor.
The rest of the huge cast is populated with familiar faces. The Greatest Story Ever Told takes the all-star approach to heart and, as a result, even the minor roles are played by actors who will be familiar to anyone who has spent more than a few hours watching TCM. Many of them are on screen for only a few seconds, which makes their presence all the more distracting. Sidney Poitier shows up as Simon of Cyrene. Pat Boone is an angel. Roddy McDowall is Matthew and Sal Mineo is Uriah and John Wayne shows up as a centurion and delivers his one line in his trademark drawl.
A few of the actors do manage to stand out and make a good impression. Telly Savalas is a credible Pilate, playing him as being neither smug nor overly sympathetic but instead as a bureaucrat who can’t understand why he’s being forced to deal with all of this. Charlton Heston has just the right intensity for the role of John the Baptist while Jose Ferrer is properly sleazy as Herod. In the role Judas, David McCallum looks at the world through suspicious eyes and does little to disguise his irritation with the rest of the world. The Greatest Story Ever Told does not sentimentalize Judas or his role in Jesus’s arrest. For the most part, he’s just a jerk. Finally, it’s not exactly surprising when Donald Pleasence shows up as Satan but Pleasence still gives a properly evil performance, giving all of his lines a mocking and often sarcastic bite.
The Greatest Story Ever Told was directed by George Stevens, a legitimately great director who struggles to maintain any sort of narrative momentum in this film. Watching The Greatest Story Ever Told, it occurred to me that the best biblical films are the ones like Ben-Hur and The Robe, which both largely keep Jesus off-screen and instead focus on how his life and teachings and the reports of his resurrection effected other people. Stevens approaches the film’s subject with such reverence that the film becomes boring and that’s something that should never happen when you’re making a film set in Judea during the Roman era.
I do have to admit that, despite all of my criticism of the film, I do actually kind of like The Greatest Story Ever Told. It’s just such a big production that it’s hard not to be a little awed by it all. That huge cast may be distracting but it’s still a little bit fun to sit there and go, “There’s Shelley Winters! There’s John Wayne! There’s Robert Blake and Martin Landau!” That said, as far as biblical films are concerned, you’re still better off sticking with Jesus Christ Superstar.
Movies should first entertain, BUT in a pandemic, they really just need to be on the TV and better than Hallmark Channel Christmas movie background noise. Lennart Ruff, the director, has an IMDB page similar to the film itself: there’s moments of talent, but they’re muffled by a plot and directing style that morphs more than the lead character and he loses his fingers and genitals.
The Titan is part of an ever growing eco-disaster film sub-genre that basically want us to recycle or die. If it means these movies will stop, I will sort my plastic (no…no, I won’t). The Earth is in collapse, but that doesn’t totally make sense either because the film says that the Earth is overpopulated, causing this eco-disaster. However, it posits that 50%+ of the Earth population will perish….Ok….so wouldn’t we just be Populated then and return to normal over a period of centuries? This is where I don’t get environmentalism; it has this underlying “I Told You So! Now, it’s all over and there’s nothing you can do about it! HA!” feel to it.
Professor Martin Collingwood (Tom Wilkinson) has a plan to get us off earth and survive by moving to Brooklyn… no wait… Titan the moon that’s around Saturn. But how will Professor Collingwood accomplish this task? He will do it with forced evolution and yelling a lot. The key to his plan is Lieutenant Rick Janssen. A number of critics and dry white toast claim that Sam Worthington is a bland actor. I don’t really see that as much as I think he’s trying to be very Gary Cooper and maybe he succeeds. Professor Collingwood arranges to have all these military heroes and Rick go through forced evolution so that they can survive the horrible conditions on Titan, lose their genitals.
As the forced evolution goes forward, Rick changes into an alien. Well? So? That’s what he was supposed to become and …. he did. I did not understand the outrage with that. He does end up looking like a space alien mated with a Pandora escapee, but this is about saving the species- sort of.
The last act act was as entertaining as it was disconnected from the preceding plot-line. There was killing, speeches, more killing, a quasi-love scene, anime-tentacle stuff goin on, and he kinda flies at end. It was weird. It did have some syfy elements, but overall – it was really really dumb.
The biggest issue that I have with the film is that it goes from being directed like a documentary, which was fun to watch like an Apollo 11 behind the scenes feel. Unfortunately, it went from that to a marriage struggle film, to an Erin Brokovich feel, to a monster movie, and then there was the whole flying around thing, tentacles doing things. It was was more all over the place than a drunken Jackson Pollack.
If it had just picked one genre instead of 30, it would’ve been a pretty great film. Who are we kidding? You can’t leave your house and those 4800 rolls of toilet paper aren’t making you any healthier. Really, it’s either this movie or Tiger King. I knew about people in Arkansas getting tigers for years and never sought to know more. I might watch it eventually, but it rubs me the wrong way for now at least. See how annoying it is when a person goes off on a tangent? Imagine that for about two hours, but The Titan is louder than background noise and has no genitals.
Joe Maloney (Brad Pitt) is a senior at a high school in Los Angeles. He lives with his mother (Carrie Snodgress) in a trailer park, located in a high-crime neighborhood. Joe has managed to resist giving into all of the temptations around him. He’s a good students with a clean record and a bright future. He’s a track star and all he had to do is when the big race at the end of the year and he’ll get a scholarship to Sanford.
Joe’s slightly younger brother, Billy (Rick Schroder) is a different story. Billy is always getting into trouble and, because he got caught driving a stolen car, he’s spent the last few months in reform school. Once Billy is released, he returns to the trailer park. His mother welcomes him with open arms but Joe wants nothing to do with his good-for-nothing brother. Because Billy has caused too much trouble at his old high school, he’s transferred to a school in a rich district.
Things get even worse when Billy joins Joe for one of his morning runs and he discovers that he’s also a good runner. Joe suggests that Billy try out for his new school’s track team. Billy does so and soon, he and Joe are in direct competition. With the the scholarship to Stanford on the line, who will win the big race?
With the exception of some language that was probably only tossed in to get an R-rating, Across The Tracks feels like an old after school special. The brothers may not always get along but they learn a lesson. It’s not really a bad movie but it is a very predictable one and, if you’re watching this to see an early performance from future Oscar-winner Brat Pitt, keep in mind that his role is largely a supporting one. Rick Schroder is the star of this one and he gives a performance that, like the rest of the film, isn’t really bad but isn’t exactly memorable either. Across The Tracks was designed to make audiences look at Rick Schroder and say, “He really can act!” but Schroder is miscast as both a juvenile delinquent and a track star. Ironically, Brad Pitt is more believable as a high school student even though he was 26 when this film was made while Schroder was only 20.
Personally, if I had an older brother and his entire future depended on him beating me in a race, I’d probably let him win.
Through the Shattered Lens 