Throne Of Blood

Whether you call it the Scottish play or whether you just call it Macbeth (because you don't worry about silliness like believing saying words is bad luck), this notorious Shakespeare work has been turned into a movie many different times. Outside of the Joel Coen version last year, nobody ever did it as well and certainly not any better than Japanese master Akira Kurosawa did in Throne Of Blood. Big, bold Toshiro Mifune is the samurai warrior who doesn't handle it very well when he gets to be big man on campus while his Lady (Isuzu Yamada) schemes, manipulates and then just can't get that spot out. From the incredible set design to the contrasting acting styles to the inevitable tragedy of the foretold ending, Throne Of Blood is the kind of production that sucks you in while also never letting you relax. So speak in ghostly metaphors while prophesizing someone's future as the Ellises' Analysis chats at you for the 466th time. An order (or many orders) of Sparkplug Coffee is a fine accompaniment with sake. Okay, maybe it isn't, but Sparkplug throws a 20% discount at you if you use our promo code ("top100project"). Also, we'd love to hear from you with tweets (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis) or emails ([email protected]) and skip over to "Scoring At The Movies" to hear Ryan yap about sports flicks.