THE QUICK AND THE DEAD ***

 More of a parody than a homage, Sam Raimi's western "The Quick and the Dead" is something of a one-off, an ultra stylish exercise in what might best be described a 'pure cinema' with style of the pop-art variety dominating virtually every frame and if the, admittedly gorgeous imagery isn't enough, there's always that cast, (Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pat Hingle, Keith David, Kevin Conway, Lance Henriksen, Gary Sinise, Roberts Blossom et al).

The thin plot has Stone riding into town with the sole intention of avenging her father's killing only to find herself in the middle of a gunfight competition, a kind of last man, (or in this case, woman), standing and the incentive for all this gun-play and almost surrealistic killing is a large pot of money for the eventual winner.

Of course, Raimi's name on the credits should be a clue as to what kind of film you are going to get. Dante Spinotti provides the sometimes mind-boggling images and Pietro Scalia's editing is as quickfire as the gun play but it's Hackman who owns the film, giving it that added touch of class it would otherwise have lacked. Naturally it draws attention to itself from one frame to the next but it's also ridiculously entertaining. Perhaps too popular to be called a 'cult movie' it's some sort of classic nevertheless.

INNER SANCTUM **

 Don't worry if you haven't heard of "Inner Sanctum"; I certainly hadn't until now but this 1948 B-Movie is surprisingly good, if not in terms of cinematic skill then at least in terms of storytelling. It's actually a story within a story as the mysterious and apparently psychic Dr. Valonius, (Fritz Leiber), regales a woman on a train with a tale of a murderer hiding out in a small-town boarding house.

Clocking in at just 62 minutes it's the kind of story you might find in something like "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" and it has a surprisingly good script and some very decent performances from the likes of Lee Patrick, Billy House and Roscoe Ates. There's even a lot of genuinely funny and intentional humor running through the picture as well as some real suspense. If it isn't quite in the class of "Detour" it's still a Grade A Guilty Pleasure

DUNE PART TWO **

When Denis Villeneuve decided to remake David Lynch's film "Dune", or rather adapt Frank Herbert's novel for the screen, he claimed there was too much material for just one film and that a "Dune Part Two" would follow. Well now it seems even a lengthy Part Two can't contain it all and it ends, like any other serial, with audiences hungry for what-happens-next. Or are they since Villeneuve's "Dune Part Two" is no "Star Wars" but an often ponderous meditation on the mystical, more Tarkovsky than George Lucas and whether audiences will really want to come back for more remains to be seen.

Whereas Villeneuve's first "Dune" film was an exciting sci-fi adventure yarn, coupled with just the right amount of character development to draw audiences in, this second film seems to have dispensed with character development altogether, save for making its hero, Paul Atreides, (a glum Timothee Chalamet), arrogant and not very likeable. Instead it opts to go heavily into the quasi-religious mysticism hinted at in the first film, a plot device that only succeeds in weighing the film down and it isn't until close on the halfway mark it actually kicks off thanks in no small measure to Austin Butler's first appearance in a sequence filmed in black and white in a massive CGI arena.

Butler is one of the villains of the piece and like the Devil he has all the best tunes. It isn't a big part but he steals every scene he's in. It's hardly great acting but it's definitely a star turn. For acting one must look to the great Stellan Skarsgard as the film's chief villain and perhaps to Charlotte Rampling but neither have sufficient screen time to make much of an impact. Visually, of course, it's a treat; a movie to be seen in cinemas on the largest screen possible. The action scenes are splendid and they do manage to keep boredom at bay but a third part? Surely not, Denis; "Dune Part Two" conjures up enough mystical gobbledygook to last a lifetime. Enough is enough.