Shameless Self Expression

The mostly untrue story of music parody specialist Weird Al Yankovic (Daniel Radcliffe), his rise to fame, his struggles to gain the approval of his father (Toby Huss), and his supposedly torrid love affair with Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood).   I think my fandom of comedian and musical parodist Weird Al Yankovic is probably reflective of some of you out there: I was a big fan until I stopped recognising the music he was parodying. For me that was around the time of the Running With Scissors album where I really only recognised three of the parodies and didn’t much like any of them. For you, it might’ve been an earlier or later album. I still listen to the earlier albums regularly and I think Al seems like a heck of a nice guy, but I stopped listening to new music (outside of some legacy artists) by and large around 1999 so his parodies were often a bit lost on me by that point. I was excited when I heard that someone was doing a biopic on Al, and although I naturally assumed th...

In 17 th Century Russia, a princess (Barbara Steele) is accused and convicted of vampirism and witchcraft. She is subsequently befitted with a spiked iron mask and burned at the stake. Cut to the 19 th Century professor Andrea Checchi and doctor John Richardson happen upon the chapel where the coffin holding the deceased princess is located. They accidentally revive her whilst one of them is tussling with a bat. Now the revived witch sets her sights on her descendant, Katya (also Steele).   One of the most important and influential Italian horror films ever made, this 1960 witchcraft story is also the best-remembered film in the career of Mario Bava ( “Danger Diabolik” , “Seven Dolls for an August Moon” ). Personally, I slightly prefer his “Kill, Baby…Kill” and “Black Sabbath” , but this film is nonetheless an undeniable classic. Bava was his own cinematographer, and he’s created a foggy, Gothic B&W work of art here. It’s probably Tim Burton’s idea of a wet dream, and wh...