bellino-angelo2014

CROSS COUNTRY is considered a forgotten movie probably because in the US it hasn't been released on DVD tho back in the 1980s on VHS. Tho there was another reason for me to see it apart from Michael Ironside; the comeback of Richard Beymer. Many probably today wouldn't care but between the 1950s and 1960s Beymer was on top of the world appearing in one acclaimed movie after another (such as THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, WEST SIDE STORY and THE LONGEST DAY) but in 1968 he kinda vanished only to return in 1982 with this and as usual he was good. Now I can go to the review.

Evan Bley (Beymer) is an advertising executive that in the beginning is suspected of murder when his ex is found dead in her apartment in Philadelphia and he's already on the road. When he has to stop he goes to a strip club hooking up with stripper Lois and her friend John tho nothing is clear for the viewer (we'll never know if John is her lover or her pimp or her ex).

As many students in my faculty I read THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY at least once because English literature is among the subjects in the course. As for the movie adaptations I saw only the 1945 one which is considered by many the most faithful adaptation with the movie in black and white but the painting scenes in colour. And when in January 2024 I finally started assaulting Michael Ironside's neverending filmography, I stumbled upon this different version. Is it good and faithful to the book or not? We'll find out.

The main difference with the novel and the previous movie versions is that this time Dorian Gray (Belinda Bauer) is a woman, and very beautiful and wealthy to boot but there is one problem; she repels and damages everybody around her tho she has been on the top of the world for at least 20 years. Well it's because she sold her soul with a screen test (unlike the original novel and other adaptations with a painting) for eternal youth and beauty while the screen test becomes older and depraved to the point that everyone seduced by it then has bad things happening. This goes on and on until one evening Dorian plays the screen test in her living room and she understands that she has to destroy the screen test for her safety and she does, accepting finally to become old.

Looking among the reviews I noticed only one that gives it a 10, only one that gives it a 1 and most of scores between 4 and 6 meaning that it might be a bad movie. Well, when I saw it I liked it more than the average people that reviewed it here probably because I saw it as just another version of the Dorian Gray story and it was just as good. So for this reason alone I'd recommend it.

SPACEHUNTER ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE is one of those movies made in the 1980s when there was the 3D craze (in fact in the same year it came out JAWS 3D tho there is very dated) tho when I saw it on my TV on January 2024 I wasn't bothered by the lack of 3D but nonetheless I nearly loved it, it's that great.

When the story begins it's set in the 22nd century when a space cruise liner is destroyed by a bolt of nebular lightning tho three women - Nova, Reena and Meagan - survive and are taken to a nearby planet. In the meanwhile a former soldier turned bounty hunter named Wolff (Peter Strauss) intercepts the message of 3,000 mega credits for saving the girls, and decides to go to the planet Terra 11 that is a failed pre-war Earth colony because with the rescue's bounty he might repair the spaceship. Once on the planet Wolff and Chalmers go on an Earth four-wheeled vehicle named the Scrambler and become involved in a battle with the ferocious mutants named Zoners that have just captured the three women and fly away.

Soon Wolff learns that the Zoners took the three women to Overdog McNabb (Michael Ironside under heavy makeup), a human that became a cyborg that proclames himself planet dictator after a medical experiment gone wrong when he worked with Wolff more than 30 years before the film's events. When Wolff meets a chatty girl named Niki, she convinces him to be his guide for survive in the planet. After dealing with various strange creatures Wolff loses his scrambler and he and Niki are forced to continue on foot when Washington (Ernie Hudson), Wolff's former comrade, has remained with no way to returning to Earth and Wolff reluctantly accepts to make him join the team.

When Wolff and Washington sneak in Overdog's fortress they see the three women in a cage forced to watch other Earth women going in a maze full of deadly obstacles for entertaining the prisoners; when Niki (who was left out of the rescue for her own safety) goes to snoop around she is captured and forced to do the maze; once she wins, Overdog drags her to his lair attacking her to a machine that while draining Niki's energy Overdog is re-charged. When Wolff arrives to the rescue he confronts Overdog but after the cyborg says 'You can't hurt me but I can hurt you!'... Wolff makes Overdog take a power cable in one of his claws and after Overdog overcharges, he explodes! As the fortress crumbles behind them, Wolff and Niki escape just to be saved in time by Washington that drives the Scrambler with also the three women on the ride. Again on his spaceship, Wolff accepts the request of Washington, Niki and the three saved women of going to Earth.

As I said in the summary this is very reminiscent of MAD MAX (only with Strauss instead of Mel Gibson) especially when they reach Terra 11 as the planet is like a huge wasteland and Wolff is like Mad Max. But while in that trilogy there were human villains here we have something better... a cyborg played by none other than Ironside, and not only he must have had fun with the role but every time he talked he sounded like he was possessed. And when in the end exploded with the fortress crumbling around him, it was among the best moments of the movie with Elmer Bernstein's soundtrack fitting it perfectly. As for the rest you can see that they spent a lot of money for making the creatures so life-like and the sets so huge in comparison to the stars.

Overall, one of those forgotten sci-fi gems from the 1980s that needs to be watched just once because it's one of those movies made for just entertain - believe me, I saw it after I had a bad day.