Mother Love (1989) Review

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(More customer reviews)Maybe I am romanticizing this Mystery (or was it Masterpiece Theatre) presentation, but a lot of other people still talk about it. IN FACT, a dear friend of mine was talking about Mother Love and remembering Diana Rigg's wonderfully chilling performance. I want a copy for me, but I really want to get him a copy. If you ever saw I Claudius and shuddered at Livila's knack for poisoning people's bodies, you will enjoy Mother Love. If you marveled at Nancy Marchand's noteworthy performance in the first season of the Sopranos at Toni's mother, you will enjoy Mother Love. What showers were to Psycho, marzipan is to Mother Love. It is an interesting thriller and psychological profile. The rest of the cast and the whole production is worthy of Rigg's main character. The world deserves to get goosebumps from watching this miniseries from BBC or Thames or whoever made this happen.

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The Fortunes & Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the BBC/Masterpiece version of MOLL FLANDERS (most recent version) and definitely a film to buy if you are fond of English literature adapted for film. This is a long film 3 hours and 40 minutes, and was shown over several nights on our local PBS station. I own the DVD and it is excellent. The costumes, settings, etc. are fabulous and accurate and comparable to other Masterpiece dramas on DVD such as the recently released WIVES AND DAUGHTERS.
Moll Flanders (played by Alex Kingston) was an incredibly resourceful woman. Daniel Defoe (author of ROBINSON CRUSOE, 1719) wrote Moll Flanders and in some respects Moll is a mirror-twin to Robinson. While Robinson battled nature Moll battled civilization. Civilization in late 16th-early 17th Century England was ragged around the edges. We hear much about slavery during this period, but life for the ordinary working-class male and female was just as ugly. Through Moll we learn just how ugly life could be and what it meant to survive, especially for those not "To the Manor Born" and in some cases those who were. Poverty, illness, sexism, seduction, rape, murder--Moll sees it all. In spite of all this, Moll has her moments of gracious living, so you won't be watching a poor tattered Moll during the whole film. Moll is elegantly dressed most of the time, and the settings for the action in this film include everything from the finest drawing rooms in Tudor style manors to a plantation house in the English colony of Virginia.
Moll marries five times, and each marriage is perfectly logical, pragmatic, and a choice she makes to survive. Moll turns to the camera in each instance and asks, "What would you do" much as Defoe asked the reader the same question. Her marriages face incredible odds. Her favorite beau Jemmy, played by Daniel Craig (The Ice House), surfaces over and over. Are these two star-crossed lovers or destined to be together? The end will tell.
I like Moll, and though she's been characterized as a "bad girl" I don't think she was at all. Moll took what she was handed and made the best of it. Moll was street smart before the term was invented. More than one of us is descended from someone who faced these incredible odds of survival. Does Moll beat the odds, you'll have to see the film to find out. A special treat--the wonderful Diana Rigg as Mrs. Golightly.

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FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLAN - DVD Movie

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Midsummer Night's Dream (1968) Review

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(More customer reviews)It's first of all, Midsummer Night's Dream, always a winner. But also, this film is full of some magnificent stars when they were young.. Diana Rigg -- if she were all ya got, that would be enough. However, you get Ian Holm, who was the android in the first Aliens movie and also in Branagh's Henry V, and many other wonderful shows. Then, a young Dame Judi Dench.. a great performance and she's nearly nude to boot!!
And if you're a fan of the british comedy Keeping Up Appearances, you get a treat of watching a young Clive Swift (Richard in KUA).
This is fun, campy, and well deserving to be a keeper. Someone complained about the quality.. yes, this transfer of film to video has a couple of old-age problems, but they are way too few to notice by the discriminating eye.

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Theater Of Blood/MadHouse (Midnite Movies Double Feature) (1973) Review

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(More customer reviews)I remember seeing THEATRE OF BLOOD back in 1992 on Halloween of all days. I saw the second half of it and it pretty much disturbed me and haunted my nightmares. But last night I bought this new DVD (with MADHOUSE on the other side) and watched it. And now I find it to be alternately shocking and side-splittingly funny! As for MADHOUSE, I only saw half of it but so far I am impressed.
THEATRE OF BLOOD is the ultimate wish-fulfillment movie for anybody in the movie industry or theatre that has ever had scathing reviews levied against them. Edward Lionheart is a Shakespearian actor who employs death scenes from the Bard in his vengeance against nine critics who have been really harsh on him to say the least. This movie is DR. PHIBES with a theatrical element in lieu of the Biblical plague thing, but on its own, it's very good. The highlight is the salon electricution, especially seeing Price disguised as Butch! The great music score is a precursor to what Pino Donaggio would do for Brian DePalma! And there's a great punchline!
MADHOUSE has Price as a horror movie actor doing a TV movie and getting stuck in the middle of a killing spree. Plus, there's Count Yorga as a producer and Peter Cushing as a director! A reunion from DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN! The murders are inventive and predate FRIDAY THE 13TH and its ilk. And another great music score punctuates the prodeedings. This is what makes Best Buy so awesome (and makes me happy that it finally came to Dover); they work with MGM to provide double the pleasure in horror movies!

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Theater of BloodVincent Price delivers a thrilling "tour-de-force" (Variety) performance as a small-time actor plotting big-time revenge in inventively Shakespearean ways! Boasting a topnotch supporting cast, this dramatically "delicious concoction" (New York) delivers an "equal mixture of horror, comedy and Shakepeare [that'll] please just about everyone ? critics included" (Boxoffice) and proves that all the world really is a stage for MURDER!MadhouseMasters of macabre Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry give performances to die for in this "diverting little chiller" (Boxoffice)! When horror star Paul Toombes' fiancée is brutally killed, he loses more than this job he loses his mind. But twelve years later, when he returns to TV ? only to discover a fresh batch of corpses ? Paul finally begins to understand that melodrama can be murder on your career!

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