Shameless Self Expression

Set in the late 60s, this is the true story of how African-American FBI informant Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) infiltrated the Black Panther party. O’Neal, a former small-time crook manages to get close to Panther leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) as he gives important party information to FBI handler Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), the underling of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) who plans to put an end to the Panthers, who he sees as a dangerous force.   Well-acted, well-made 2021 film from director Shaka King (who comes from a mostly TV and shorts background) and co-writer Will Berson (a few TV writing credits like an episode of “Scrubs” ) covers fairly familiar territory – thematically at least – if perhaps with a bit more balance than in some other similar films. It’s all very credible and very worthy, even if the subject matter isn’t of the greatest personal fascination to me. Daniel Kaluuya is a damn fine actor, but the level of presence and charisma he shows here are...

Countess Karnstein (Dawn Addams) leaves her beautiful daughter Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt) in the care of General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) while the Countess attends some urgent business. Marcilla quickly becomes fast friends with the General’s daughter Laura (Pippa Steel). Very close friends indeed. It’s not long before Laura is having nightmares and feeling weaker and sicker every day. Tragedy strikes and Marcilla is nowhere to be found. Some time later a ravishing young woman named Carmilla (Ms. Pitt again) moves in with a new family and bewitches young Emma (Madeleine Smith) and her frankly rather horny governess/tutor (Kate O’Mara). Jon Finch plays a young suitor, Ferdy Mayne is a doctor, Douglas Wilmer is seen early as vampire-hunter Baron Joachim von Hartog, and John Forbes-Robertson is ‘The Man in Black’.   The first of Hammer’s ‘Karnstein Trilogy’ of vampire films, this 1970 film from director Roy Ward Baker ( “The One That Got Away” , “Scars of Dracula” ) is based on...

For this 2014 documentary, filmmaker Rosemyn Afman has chosen her father Frans Afman as her subject for her first-time film effort. Mr. Afman was a well-respected, well-connected financier from the Netherlands who was instrumental in the financing of such big Hollywood films as “The Terminator” , “Superman” , “Platoon” , and “Total Recall” as well as helping independent film studios like The Cannon Group and Carolco get into the mix with the big boys. A disciple of Dino De Laurentiis, the duo came up with the now commonplace concept of pre-sales, and Afman almost always managed to make his money back.   To be honest, as a documentary it’s really not all that impressive. The idea of the daughter learning about her father by making a doco about him is nothing new, and the rest is a bit reminiscent of the much better “Seduced and Abandoned” . The material here is frankly DVD extra stuff and visually it’s certainly no marvel either. It’s often interesting and watchable, don’t get ...

Disgraced doctor Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) seeks lodging from a boarding house run by Anna (Veronica Carlson). Frankenstein quickly learns that Anna’s doctor fiancé Karl (Simon Ward) has been stealing drugs from the asylum he works at. Ever the ruthless and self-serving sort, he blackmails the couple into being his assistants in a new experiment. The idea is to transplant the brain of a supposedly mad doctor (George Pravda) now a patient of the asylum, into the shell of asylum head Prof. Richter (Freddie Jones). Meanwhile, the nasty Frankenstein decides to take what he wants from Anna as well. Thorley Walters and Geoffrey Bayldon turn up as a police inspector and police doctor, respectively.   Hammer gets a little darker and more disturbing than usual with this 1969 film from their top director Terence Fisher ( “The Horror of Dracula” , “The Curse of Frankenstein” , “The Hound of the Baskervilles” ). In addition to some rather gruesome violence – including a severed he...