Austin Flick Clique, a classic cinema appreciation club for teens (but open to all ages), wraps its short series on unconventional Shakespeare adaptations with one of the boldest reimaginings ever put to screen: 1957’s Throne of Blood. Akira Kurosawa shifts the tragedy of Macbeth to medieval Japan, wherein screen legend Toshirō Mifune plays the warrior-turned-assassin in a short, crazed bid for the throne. The script takes some liberties (the Weird Sisters, for one, get replaced with a single creepy forest spirit with a loom), but in its moody, stylized depiction of how ambition can corrode a man’s soul, Throne of Blood absolutely hits the bull’s-eye. – Kimberley Jones
