Satan's Slave (1976)

 

SATAN'S SLAVE  (1976)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Norman J. Warren

    Michael Gough, Martin Potter, Candace Glendenning,

    Barbara Kellerman, Michael Craze, Gloria Maley

A young woman named Catherine goes to spend a few days with an uncle at his house in the county. Her holiday starts out badly when, as soon as they reach the estate, her dad drives the car into a tree, and while she runs to get help, the car explodes and her parents are burned to death. Then she has these dreams - she calls them premonitions - that involve devil worship. But are they really dreams? And will she survive, or will she, you know, become Satan's slave? A little skin, a little blood, and a veteran horror star (Michael Gough) playing the uncle, but way too much talk and not enough Satan. (In a movie called "Satan's Slave", you'd better give the devil his due.) Side note: The naked blonde woman being tortured by Satanists in one of Catherine's dreams is Moira Young, one of the film's producers. Apparently, as the time to shoot the scene approached, it turned out the actress hired to play the part was in jail, so Young stepped in as a replacement, and that's her by the tree, being whipped and branded.

Satan's Cheerleaders (1977)

SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS  (1977)  ¢ ¢

    D: Greydon Clark

    John Ireland, Yvonne De Carlo, Jack Kruschen,

    John Carradine, Sydney Chaplin, Jacquilin Cole,

    Ketty Sherman, Alisa Powell, Hillary Horan,

    Sherry Marks, Lane Cordell, Joseph Carlo

Bargain-shelf horror about a carload of high-school cheerleaders who get sidetracked on their way to a football game when they meet up with a coven of Satanists. John Ireland and Yvonne De Carlo take time to wonder where their careers went, while John Carradine, who knew all about pictures like this, simply makes himself at home. The movie's just goofy enough and dumb enough to be fun. I'd recommend watching it late at night and smoking something first. 

The Room Next Door (2024)

 

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Pedro Almodóvar

    Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro

Tilda Swinton, looking skeletal, plays a woman who's dying, knows she's dying, and wants to die. Deciding against any more treatment, she gets a euthanasia pill off the dark web and asks an old friend (Julianne Moore), not to help with the act itself, but to be around, in the next room, when it happens. Almodóvar's color-coded reflection on end-of-life issues is beautifully composed and formal to the point of being a little stiff. Its characters are attractive, smart, accomplished and affluent enough not to have to worry too much about paying the rent and hospital bills, or whether they can afford to fix the brakes or replace the bald tires on the family car. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a fact that most folks don't get to die so neatly or in such elegant surroundings. On the other hand, most people who are dying in movies aren't played by Tilda Swinton, whose character, a veteran war correspondent, has lived life on her own terms, feels it slipping away, and doesn't see the point of hanging around much longer. It's the kind of performance you can't look away from, whether it's the almost imperceptible way her lower lip trembles with an involuntary twinge of pain, or the way her eyes light up when she opens the door and (literally) catches a breath of fresh air. It's Almodóvar's first feature in English, set in New York state, but partly filmed in Spain.

Wilde Salomé (2011)

 

WILDE SALOMÉ  (2011)  ¢ ¢

    D: Al Pacino

Al Pacino directed this documentary about Al Pacino making a movie about Al Pacino directing a stage production of Oscar Wilde's "Salomé" starring Al Pacino. That's an awful lot of Al Pacino. Maybe too much. See for yourself. 

The Thicket (2024)

 

THE THICKET  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Elliott Lester

    Peter Dinklage, Juliette Lewis, Esme Creed Miles,

    Levon Hawke, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Leslie Grace,

    Ned Dennehy, Derek Gilfoy, Arliss Howard

A brutal, snowbound western shot in Alberta, about a makeshift posse on the trail of a kidnapped girl and a notorious outlaw named Cutthroat Bill. If Peter Dinklage isn't the first actor you'd think to cast a a deadshot frontier bounty hunter, wait till you see Juliette Lewis as Cutthroat Bill. 

Tornado! (1996)

 

TORNADO!  (1996)  ¢ ¢

    D: Noel Nosseck

    Bruce Campbell, Shannon Sturges, Ernie Hudson,

    L.Q. Jones, Bo Eason, Carrie Boren, Charles Homet

A TV movie released more or less simultaneously with "Twister", about a daring gang of storm chasers tearing around the Texas Panhandle, hoping to catch up with a big one. The vain, publicity-savvy bad guy's a TV weatherman, not a rival storm chaser, and there's even a nifty little invention that could help track tornadoes better, if the team can just set it down in the middle of one. In "Twister", the device was called "Dorothy". In  this movie, it's called "Patti". I guess that makes all the difference. Not surprisingly, the tornado effects aren't nearly as hair-raising or cool-looking as the ones Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton had to deal with. No flying cows in this one. 

Variety Girl (1947)

 

VARIETY GIRL  (1947)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: George Marshall

    Mary Hatcher, Olga San Juan, DeForest Kelley, 

    Frank Ferguson, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, 

    Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd, Ray Milland, Diana Lynn,

    Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Veronica Lake,

    Dorothy Lamour, Sterling Hayden, Gail Russell,

    Burt Lancaster, William Bendix, Paulette Goddard,

    Barry Fitzgerald, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Preston,

    Pearl Bailey, Mona Freeman, William Demarest,

    Frank Faylen, Cecil Kellaway, Spike Jones

A sort of Hollywood home movie in which a girl turns up in the land of dreams hoping for an audition and lots of stars wander in and out, some of them on screen no more than a few seconds. Pearl Bailey's the highlight. Alan Ladd sings a duet with Dorothy Lamour, and he's not bad. Paulette Goddard takes a bubble bath. Hope and Crosby trade a few good-natured barbs and do a little soft-shoe dance routine. In a demonstration of erratic marksmanship, Burt Lancaster aims a gun at the cigarette in Lizabeth Scott's mouth and shoots her instead. William Bendix shoves a grapefruit in Olga San Juan's face. It's silly and inconsequential, but when the stakes are this low, it doesn't really matter very much.