Theater of Blood (1973)

 

THEATER OF BLOOD  (1973)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Douglas Hickox

    Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Robert Morley,

    Harry Andrews, Coral Browne, Michael Hordern,

    Jack Hawkins, Diana Dors, Milo O'Shea

Vincent Price plays a ham actor who survives a flamboyant suicide attempt and comes back to take revenge on his critics by killing them off in horrible Shakespearean ways. Price is so shamelessly over-the-top, you'd think he'd be the whole show, but Diana Rigg as his daughter and chief accomplice has a good time, too. Robert Morley's demise, based on "Titus Andronicus", is particularly nasty.

Diana Rigg

(1938-2020)

The Bookshop (2017)

 

THE BOOKSHOP  (2017)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Isabel Coixet

    Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson,

    Honor Kneafsey, James Lance, Frances Barber

In this screen adaptation of Penelope Fitzgerald's novel, Emily Mortimer plays Florence Green, a widow who realizes a lifelong dream by opening a bookshop in a town on the coast of England. Bill Nighy plays a reclusive bibliophile who becomes her unlikely ally against the town's resident harpy and self-appointed arbiter of everything, played with imperious venom by Patricia Clarkson. Everything about this - the writing, the acting, the direction and the music - is pitched a couple beats over the top, and watching it is like reading one of those 19th-century novels where you know exactly who to sympathize with and who to hate. If the execution didn't balance out perfectly, it wouldn't work at all. Mortimer and Nighy are beautifully matched as two people whose passion for each other is obvious but are destined to not quite connect, while Clarkson is so cold and condescending, even her lipstick looks mean. Anybody who loves books, or movies about books, or movies based on books, would do well to stop by "The Bookshop". Chances are, you'll find a copy of "Lolita" there, too.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)

 

THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mike Newell

    Lily James, Tom Courtenay, Michiel Huisman,

    Katherine Parkinson, Jessica Brown Findlay,

    Matthew Goode, Glen Powell, Nicolo Pasetti

Before I read the novel this movie's based on, I didn't even know that during the Second World War, the Germans had invaded the Channel Islands between Britain and France, causing some 70 thousand British citizens to spend the war under Nazi occupation. The story revolves around books and letters and tells how a handful of neighbors on one of those islands survived by banding together over Charles Lamb, a roast pig, bottles of homemade gin and potato peel pie. The novel's done entirely in letters, which would be hard to pull off on film, but the movie finds its own way to do the job, with the kind of acting and location work that make you wish you could go there and meet these people. It'd fit nicely on a double bill with "The Bookshop", the Emily Mortimer movie released the same year.

Day of the Warrior (1996)

 

DAY OF THE WARRIOR  (1996)  ¢

    D: Andy Sidaris

    Julie Strain, Shae Marks, Julie K. Smith,

    Tammy Parks, Kevin Light, Marcus Bagwell,

    Darren Wise, Gerald Okamura, Raye Hollit

The plot of this movie has something to do with a well-oiled, massively muscled brute called the Warrior, who's not only cornered the market in pornography, diamonds and stolen art, he's also cracked the computer system of the Legion to Ensure Total Harmony and Law (L.E.T.H.A.L.), whose epically built female agents are the only thing that can stop him. What it's really about is this: boobs. Big boobs. Enormous, gigantic, colossal boobs. Straight-to-video exploitation auteur Andy Sidaris is certainly not one to let such boobs go to waste, so every now and then in this inane enterprise, one of the top-heavy agents sheds what she's wearing to make out with some muscle-bound bodybuilder guy. That's not nearly as much fun as it should be, but if it sounds like something you'd like to spend 96 minutes of your life looking at, go for it. See which actress you think makes the biggest impression. 

Shine a Light (2008)

SHINE A LIGHT  (2008)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Martin Scorsese

Mick, Keith, Ron and Charlie - and friends - captured in concert in 2006 by Martin Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson. There are archive clips, too, and the friends include Buddy Guy, Christina Aguilera and Jack White. Whatever you think of the Rolling Stones, the band's a phenomenon for sheer longevity. And if there's anybody else out there Mick Jagger's age with the balls to even try to do what he's still doing, it ain't anybody I know. Considering what it costs to get into one of their shows these days, this movie's about as close to a Rolling Stones concert as most of us are ever going to get. 

Carry On Up the Khyber (1968)

CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER  (1968)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Gerald Thomas
    Sidney James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey,
    Roy Castle, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw,
    Peter Butterworth, Angela Douglas, Peter Gilmore
The Carry On Gang's dispatched to India to take up the defense of the empire in the name of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. This leads to the usual punning silliness, right up to the last 20 minutes, when the rebels attack the governor's palace and the Brits fall back on their stubborn refusal to abandon decorum, even in the face of imminent, violent death. That part is bloody brilliant. Sticklers for cultural correctness might cringe at the casting of Anglos in brownface as Indians, but in these movies, nothing is sacred and nobody's safe. The plot hinges on what, if anything, the troops in the Third Foot and Mouth Regiment might be wearing under their kilts. That's "Carry On". 

Draft Day (2014)

DRAFT DAY  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Ivan Reitman
    Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Denis Leary,
    Frank Langella, Chadwick Boseman, Ellen Burstyn,
    Sam Elliott, Tom Welling, Terry Crews
Another entry in the ever-expanding subgenre of Kevin Costner sports movies. This one's set in the massively popular, relentlessly marketed, rabidly overhyped world of professional football. Kevin's the beleaguered general manager of the Cleveland Browns, under pressure from everybody (and orders from his boss) to make "a big splash" on draft day. So he trades away the future for the #1 pick, and then starts to realize that the most coveted "sure thing" available, a hotshot quarterback from Wisconsin, might not be such a sure thing, after all. Reitman makes effective use of split screens and a ticking clock to crank up the tension, and Costner's edgy self-assurance compensates somewhat for a script that has more than its share of sports-movie clichés and a couple of needlessly melodramatic subplots. Sam Elliott plays the Wisconsin football coach in a scene that Badger fans will probably guess was not filmed anywhere in Madison. 

Chadwick Boseman

(1976-2020)