The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH  (1964)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Roger Corman
    Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher,
    David Weston, Patrick Magee, Nigel Green
Price plays Prince Prospero, a devil-worshipping sadist who devises a series of cruel games to amuse and torment his guests, while outside his castle, a plague called the Red Death rages all around. Probably the best of the Price/Corman/Poe collaborations, beautifully designed and shot. It's the closest thing to an art film Corman ever did, part Bergman and part Fellini, made in England to take advantage of the tax laws there and sets left over from "Becket". The cinematographer was Nicolas Roeg.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)

MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE'S MOST WANTED  
                                                                       (2012)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon
Cute animated animals join a circus in Monte Carlo, hoping to get back to America and their home, the Central Park Zoo. Flashy colors, catchy tunes and some lively voice work, including Frances McDormand as the villain, a murderous animal control officer whose mascara runs wild when she sings Edith Piaf. Kids love these movies (even if they don't know Edith Piaf), and that's not so bad. There are much worse things out there they could be looking at, I'm sure.

The Ring (1927)

THE RING  (1927)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Alfred Hitchcock
    Carl Brisson, Ian Hunter, Lillian Hall-Davis,
    Forrester Harvey, Harry Terry, Gordon Harker
One of Hitchcock's best silents, a boxing drama about two fighters, rivals in the ring and in love with the same girl. The director was still in his 20s when he made this, still figuring out what a camera could do. He's experimenting like crazy, and the results are fascinating to watch. Carl Brisson, playing a character named "One-Round" Jack Sander, had been a boxer in real life, and went on to a musical career. One of the few Hitchcock movies in which the director himself does not appear.

Red 2 (2013)

RED 2  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Dean Parisot
    Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren,
    Mary Louise Parker, Anthony Hopkins, 
    Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Thewlis
The Return of the Killer Elite, with the same old band of assassins getting together to either murder each other or save the world, whichever comes first. The first "Red" movie was an enjoyable throwaway, and this is more of the same, an action comedy in which the number of evildoers killed is exceeded only by the number of bullets required to kill them. The cast might be on cruise control, but these folks can get away with that. Malkovich has an especially good time as the gang's loosest loose cannon, and there isn't a stuffed pig in sight. 

One Way Passage (1932)

ONE WAY PASSAGE  (1932)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Tay Garnett
    William Powell, Kay Francis, Aline McMahon,
    Frank McHugh, Warren Hymer, Herbert Mundin
Two people meet and fall for each other on an ocean liner sailing from Hong Kong to San Francisco. The catch: She's dying and he's on his way to San Quentin to be hanged. A sparkling comic romance with an understandably dark edge, nicely played by the two leads. Frank McHugh overdoes it as a garrulous pickpocket, but Aline McMahon is so good playing a grifter posing as a countess, you wish she had her own movie to grift around in.

A.K.A. Doc Pomus (2012)

A.K.A. DOC POMUS  (2012)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: William Hechtner, Peter Miller
An engaging, heartfelt documentary about how Jerome Felder, a fat, crippled Jewish kid from Brooklyn, changed his name to Doc Pomus, crashed the New York music scene as a blues singer, and went on to write hundreds of songs, turning out hits for everybody from Elvis to Ray Charles to Andy Williams to Mink DeVille. This guy might be the greatest songwriter you've never heard of, though the odds that you've never heard any of his music are remote. To other musicians and songwriters, he's a legend. Lou Reed, B.B. King, Dr. John, Dion, Shawn Colvin and Marshall Chapman are among those who turn out to pay tribute here, and their affection and respect for the man is obvious. When Bob Dylan comes around and asks you to write some lyrics for his songs, that's saying something, and not many songwriters can make that claim. One who could was Doc Pomus.

Alice In Acidland (1969)

ALICE IN ACIDLAND  (1969)  1/2 ¢
    D: John Donne
    Sheri Jackson, Julia Blackburn,
    Janice Kelly, Roger Gentry
Maybe I was wrong to hope for anything at all from a picture called "Alice In Acidland" released in 1969, but, jeez, does this movie suck. It's a grindhouse exposé about a nice girl who falls in with the wrong crowd and starts dropping acid and smoking pot. Naturally, bad things happen after that. There's no spoken dialogue, just a lot of doom-heavy narration dubbed over some awkwardly staged softcore scenes. Most of it's in black and white and looks like something from well before the era of love beads and bell-bottoms. The color sequence that kicks in toward the end looks like the work of another filmmaker. Not a better filmmaker necessarily, just a different one.