Saturday, September 12, 2020
Friday, September 11, 2020
Priest (2011)
A priest disobeys church law to track down the vampires who kidnapped his niece.
If you look past the rather cliched, unoriginal plot, you may enjoy this horror-science fiction-Western action thriller for its brilliant style and some breathtaking visuals.
Maltin**1/2: "Director and star of LEGION reunite for an equally absurd but more exciting fantasy-thriller...Violent action-adventure borrows imagery and plot elements from THE SEARCHERS and other classic Westerns, and is all the more enjoyable as a guilty pleasure for not slipping into self-conscious campiness."
The Man in Black (1949)
After the death of her yogi father during a freak "yoga accident", a young woman returns home to her widowed and suddenly very wealthy step-mother who is conspiring with her own daughter to drive the girl insane and deprive her of her rightful inheritance.
Entertaining thriller with a slight touch of Goth enlivens its simple plot with some nice twists.
Maltin**1/2: "Clever little thriller with some surprises and a rare noncomic role for James."
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Shadows on the Stairs (1941)
Occupants of a London boarding house become suspects as a string of murders are discovered.
Mediocre crime mystery drama; mildly enjoyable for fans of the genre.
Tuesday, September 8, 2020
Monday, September 7, 2020
First Lines: John le Carré - Our Kind of Traitor
At seven o'clock of a Caribbean morning, on the island of Antigua, one Peregrine Makepiece, otherwise known as Perry, an all-round amateur athlete of distinction and until recently tutor in English literature at a distinguished Oxford college, played three sets of tennis against a muscular, stiff-backed, bald, brown-eyed Russian man of dignified bearing in his middle fifties called Dima.
