‘Richard III’

Made with gusto, daring and visual brilliance, this stripped-down, jazzed-up “Richard” pulsates with bloody life, a triumph of both modernization and popularization. Director Richard Loncraine and star Ian McKellen (pictured, who also collaborated on the screenplay) keeps the spirit of Shakespeare’s words (though the play is much-abridged here) but switched the setting from the 15th century to England of the 1930s (TMC Thursday at 7:15 p.m.).