Tag: Movie

Movie of the Week: ‘Shadow of the Vampire’

Jeff Mitchell

AHFW takes a trippy trip to 2000 and a look back at E. Elias Merhige’s highly memorable “Shadow of the Vampire” starring Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich.  Merhige’s flick is part-drama, part-comedy and part-horror, as it retells director F.W. Murnau’s (Malkovich) making of “Nosferatu” (1922).  The wrinkle is that Murnau personally hires actor Max Schreck (Dafoe) to play Count Orlok, but this unknown thespian displays bizarre behavior and – for some reason – never removes his makeup. Mmm, it makes you think that maybe….. Well, don’t speculate, we recommend that…

‘Radioactive’ is a bit hazardous, because it packs too much story

Jeff Mitchell

“Radioactive” – “I want to tell you about Radium, a most peculiar and remarkable element, because it does not behave as it should.” – Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike) Marie Curie – born as Maria Salomea Sklodowska in 1867 Warsaw – did not behave as she should as well.  A physicist and chemist, Marie earned physics and mathematics degrees, and picked up her doctorate at the Sorbonne, where she became the university’s first female professor.  To say that Ms. Curie was ahead of her time is the understatement of the century,…

Movie of the Week: ‘Animal Kingdom’

Jeff Mitchell

AHFW’s Movie of the Week inspired a vastly successful television show, sort of like “MASH” (1970) did.  Robert Altman’s comedy classic, however, and “Animal Kingdom” (2010) have very little in common, except blood is spilled in both films…and television shows. “Animal Kingdom” (2010) – The walls of justice close in on a Melbourne (Australia) bank-robbing family within a cloudy, confusing Shakespearean atmosphere.  Led by matriarch Janine Cody (Jacki Weaver), she and her kin decide to fight back with methods that they understand: revenge and betrayal. At the center of the storm…