Murder Rock: Dancing Death

 

MURDER ROCK: DANCING DEATH  (1984)  ¢ ¢

    D: Lucio Fulci

    Olga Karlatos, Ray Lovelock, Claudio Cassinelli,

    Cosimo Cinieri, Belinda Busato, Maria Vittoria Tolazzi,

    Carla Buzzanca, Angela Lemerman, Silvia Collatina

A killer stalks the students at a New York dance school, dispatching them with chloroform and a hatpin. Whodunit? Who cares?

Murder At Yellowstone City (2022)

MURDER AT YELLOWSTONE CITY  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Richard Gray 

    Gabriel Byrne, Isaiah Mustafa, Thomas Jane, 

    Anna Camp, Aimee Garcia, Scottie Thompson,

    Isabella Ruby, Richard Dreyfuss, John Ales

When a gold prospector strikes it rich and turns up murdered, the local sheriff wastes no time finding a convenient suspect, a black man who just rode into town. He promises a trial followed by a quick hanging, but the woman who runs the livery stable turns up evidence that shows he's put the wrong guy in jail. There are more murders, with people getting their throats cut, followed by a climactic gunfight in which many more people are shot and killed. There are some interesting wrinkles in this: John Ales and Richard Dreyfuss as a couple of old guys who would be flying a pride flag over the saloon if they weren't in 1881 Montana, and a loose community of women who in most ways are smarter than the men. Most of the characters have secrets, and most are dealing with crippling loss. Tense performances by Scottie Thompson as the murder victim's grieving widow and Gabriel Byrne as a no-nonsense lawman who's more committed to the appearance of justice than the real thing. 

Murderdrome (2013)

 

MURDERDROME  (2013)  ¢ ¢

    D: Daniel Armstrong

    Daisy Masterman, Rachel Blackwood, Jake Brown,

    Demonique Deluxe, Gerry Mahoney, Max Marchione,

    Pepper Minx, Mary Poppenskulls, Dayna Seville

Tough-talking roller-derby babes take on a witch queen from hell. Choppings, stabbings, burnings and beheadings follow, backed by a death-metal soundtrack. Bare-bones horror, made in Australia for next to no money and shot at night, so the cast and crew could go to their day jobs. Plotting and character development are minimal, but it's got attitude, and the effects look better than you might expect. The girls never take off their skates.

One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)

 

ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING  

(1942)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

    Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman, Hugh Williams,

    Bernard Miles, Hugh Burden, Emrys Jones,

    Googie Withers, Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman,

    Hay Petrie, Robert Helpmann, Peter Ustinov

Six crewmen on an RAF bomber bail out over the Netherlands after an attack on Stuttgart. Courageous Dutch villagers hide them from the Nazis and help them escape. World War Two heroics done entirely without music, which you notice after a while by its absence. Two early scenes in the plane stand out: a fourth-wall-bashing bit in which the camera pans around and the flyers take turns introducing themselves, and the part moments later when they exchange stories about the girls they've met in Stuttgart, even as they're on their way to bomb them. The editor was David Lean. A young (and remarkably thin) Peter Ustinov appears briefly as a parish priest. One sign that this might be a Powell and Pressburger film: The plane, after the men have jumped, sputters back to life and continues to fly on its own.

Free (2022)

 

FREE  (2022)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Autumn de Wilde 

    Florence Welch, Bill Nighy

A music video for the Florence & the Machine song "Free", shot on location in Kyiv and dedicated to the people of Ukraine. Florence (as "Herself") delivers the tune and dances with spastic abandon, while Bill Nighy (as "Her Anxiety") makes a phone call.

Justine: The Misfortunes of Virtue (1977)

JUSTINE: THE MISFORTUNES OF VIRTUE 

    D: Chris Boger                                           (1977)  ¢ ¢

    Koo Stark, Martin Potter, Lydia Lisle,

    Katherine Kath, Hope Jackman, Louis Ife 

Cast out of the convent, an innocent young girl tries to safeguard her virtue in a world that never stops trying to take it away. Some of de Sade's philosophy comes through in this, but it's overplayed, episodic and depraved without being all that interesting. Koo Stark had a brief fling in the spotlight when she hooked up romantically with Britain's Prince Andrew, but her participation in movies like this one did not play well at Buckingham Palace. Roger Deakins did the camerawork. 

His Double Life (1933)

HIS DOUBLE LIFE  (1933)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Arthur Hopkins

    Roland Young, Lillian Gish, Montagu Love,

    Charles Richman, Lucy Beaumont, Lumsden Hare

A famous but reclusive artist tries to dodge the spotlight when a case of mistaken identity makes everybody think he's dead. Roland Young plays the artist with Topper-like befuddlement. Lillian Gish, whose specialty during the silent era was heavy-duty drama, tries out her screwball skills and shows she's good at comedy, too. 

Kinds of Kindness (2024)

 

KINDS OF KINDNESS  (2024)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Yorgos Lanthimos

    Emma Stone, Jesse Plemmons, Willem Dafoe,

    Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Hunter Schafer

Yorgos Lanthimos follows up "Poor Things" with a trilogy of oddities in which the same actors play different roles in three loosely connected stories. In the first, Jesse Plemmons plays a corporate toady with Willem Dafoe as his godlike boss. In the second, Plemmons plays a cop who suspects his wife (Emma Stone) may not really be his wife. In the third, Plemmons and Stone are members of a cult, bombing around in a sporty Dodge Challenger and trying to find a woman with a specific set of attributes, who they hope will be able to raise the dead. It's all more strange than compelling, and the stories feel a little incomplete, but you don't want to look away. You'll probably miss something if you do, and with Lanthimos at the controls, you never know what that will be. Bonus highlight, if you stay all the way to the end: Stone's loopy, parking-lot dance routine. 

Maciste In Hell (1925)

MACISTE IN HELL  (1925)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Guido Brignone 

    Bartolomeo Pagano, Umberto Guarracino,

    Elena Sangro, Lucia Zanussi, Pauline Polaire,

    Franz Sala, Domenico Serra, Mario Saio

A legendary strongman gets tricked by a devil and ends up in hell, where there's a new rule: If he kisses a female demon within three days, he has to stay forever. And with all those provocative demons lounging around in their pre-Code costumes, it's going to be tough. Fortunately, there's another rule: If you're mentioned in a little kid's prayers back on earth, you win a get-out-of-hell free card. It's an old-style vision of hell - the Italians always knew how to do that - but the technique looks primitive - more 1910 than 1925. Whoever landed the pitchfork concession made a bundle on this.