When the summer solstice arrived, it found me around the house facing boredom as my constant companion, until I saw The Lot. It is a filmmaking reality show from Fox (Tuesday night) where contestants vie for a one million dollar development deal. I have watched The Lot from day one.

This review concerns the latest episode where the last five of the directors showed their three-minute movie, and Wes Craven served as guest host. Good choice. The two regular hosts, Garry Marshall and Carrie Fisher, are also good.  The group started with 15 semi-finalists, hopeful directors, making short films in order to win a million dollar deal under Steven Spielberg. And for three Tuesdays, five directors screened movies that will keep them in the competition, as one is voted off each week.

This week the screening of the last five films remained from contestants Zach, Jessica, Jason, Will, and Mateen. But before this was underway, the loser from last week was revealed — Marty Martin. He had the least number of votes and left the show. Marty had style, but no substance, no storyline to speak of in his film shown last week. He had lots of arrogance, but only style to back it up. Dance With The Devil was just not enough to keep him in the competition he hoped to win.The first film screened was a comedy from Will called Glass Eye. It did not make me laugh. It was a silent, black and white and color film. The story was good and it received good reviews from the three judges, however.   

The next film, Blood Born by Jason, was a drama, a moral tale. It was unclear as to the message and made the director seem hypocritical. Why? Because he believed one could  avoid sex and violence and still make a good film. Well, he starts his film off with a drug use scene and a menacing phone call from a drug dealer! Then it ends with a looming hit (via drive-by) on the lead actor as victim. All this drama occurs after the character has been told by the doctor that his donated blood had been curing people of their terminal diseases. Who was this guy? Wes Craven said that there needed to be a choice made in order for this tale to not look like gratuitous drugs and violence. Garry Marshall said it was plainly not uplifting — was this man supposed to be Jesus or the second coming or both?Sunshine Girl by Zach (the one to beat) emerged as the judges’ favorite film. A young girl steals the sun for fun because she's afraid of the dark. But it is unclear why she is afraid of the dark. The beginning is a bit muddy and misleading. But the middle creates a nice tension and release at the end, which made this overall a good film. And he got “good job” from all the judges. There was a little bit of dialogue but this was not well done.  

The female director in this group, Jessica, did a rather forgettable film, The Orchard. It was supposed to be a horror film — not. Just that day I had to severely prune a diseased tree in my yard. And I am always hoping that the tree gods don’t strike me or hope that my hand does not slip while I am making crucial cuts. So there is tension in this work, and potentially horror. But none of this comes through in this dull drama, with no drama, by Jessica. And it was soundly panned by Carrie Fisher who said the only good thing is that it did not go on any longer. Wes Craven, who put horror films such as Scream on the map, said that “horror was about blood, not sap.” He could not find anything good about it, ditto Garry Marshall.