Deep Focus

Killer Nun

2012-05-16T20:17:54Z

It sounds like a grand old time, all right. First, there's that title. Killer Nun. Adjective noun, conveying irony and promising subversion. Then there's the cast. How can you not want to see Anita Ekberg star with Joe Dallesandro in a killer-nun movie? And the premise (dope-addled sister at a convent hospital starts abusing patients) does not disappoint--imagine a season of "Nurse Jackie" under showrunners Dario Argento and Abel Ferrara. Yet somehow, director Giulio Berruti blows it: A derivative slasher pic and an only mildly lascivious sex film, Killer Nun is the sort of sleepy-eyed misfire that could give nunsploitation a bad name.

Demetrius and the Gladiators

2012-05-07T12:32:48Z

Add Demetrius and the Gladiators to that shortlist of Hollywood sequels that are actually better than their predecessor. This is a continuation of the story of The Robe--that most turgid of Biblical epics, known to film students the world over (and for this reason only) as the first Cinemascope release. The title of the earlier film refers to a red garment worn by Jesus as he was taken to his crucifixion. The discarded robe catalyzes the conversion to Christianity of Roman soldier Marcellus Gallio (played in the earlier film by Richard Burton), who was last seen being frog-marched to martyrdom on the orders of nutty Roman emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson). The sequel picks up the story of Marcellus's former slave, Demetrius, again played by Victor Mature, as he becomes the robe's caretaker.

The Muppets

2012-05-07T10:44:38Z

I stopped paying attention to new Muppet movies after creator Jim Henson's untimely death in 1990. I just didn't have the heart for it. But I was aware that the Henson legacy continued with The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, and, finally, Muppets from Space. (For Gen X-ers, 1999 was a very bad year: George Lucas told you that The Force was really tiny space critters living in your bloodstream, and Team Muppet expected you to believe that Gonzo was an extraterrestrial.) Muppets from Space was the last hurrah for Frank Oz, Jim Henson's right-hand man for so many years, although the Muppets endured on a newly humble scale, reaching in 2005 what fans generally agree was the nadir of their existence, the made-for-TV The Muppets' Wizard of Oz.

Turn Me On, Dammit

2012-03-30T11:57:52Z

Based on just one of three stories from a novel by the Norwegian writer Olaug Nilssen, Turn Me On, Dammit homes in on the sex life of a teenaged girl named Alma. Actually, it’s not much of a sex life. Mostly she fantasizes, masturbating while talking to a genial phone-sex operator or discreetly rubbing her privates in public as she waits, eyes closed and dreaming dirty, for something — anything! — interesting to happen in Skoddeheimen, the isolated small town she reluctantly calls home.

The Hunger Games

2012-03-27T02:36:46Z

The Hunger Games is one of the most commercially savvy literary franchises in history. Novelist Suzanne Collins hijacked the bonkers concept of the Japanese novel and film Battle Royale, in which a group of schoolchildren are rounded up and set at each other’s throats in a televised reality game, and yoked it to the story of a strong-willed, hardscrabble heroine whose lifelong experience struggling against poverty gives her an edge against more privileged opponents.

Silent House

2012-03-11T01:40:26Z

There are very practical reasons why the edit is a fundamental unit of film grammar. For one thing, good storytelling generally favors it — few tales demand to be told in real time, without cuts and dissolves to compress the narrative. Conventional filmmaking practice makes good use of the edit by incorporating coverage, the various angles on a scene that allow the film editor some latitude to assemble and disassemble the action. And Eisensteinian montage techniques use the edit to express an idea purely through the juxtaposition of two images.

Manhattan

2012-03-01T02:43:29Z

I should admit this: When I'm being honest, I know that of all the films I saw during my formative years as a young boy and adolescent, only two of them influenced me enormously, shaping my fantasies and informing my tastes. The first was Star Wars, and although I certainly won't turn down the occasional snort from that particular flask, I believe I've crawled most of the way out from under that affliction. The second was Manhattan, and I'm not sure I'll ever shake it off. At the age of 15, Manhattan sold me on the advantages of New York City, the charms of 18-year-old Mariel Hemingway, and the benefits of self-awareness.

Annie Hall

2012-03-01T02:24:25Z

I've fantasized for a good twenty years now about Anhedonia, the 140-minute workprint of what eventually became Annie Hall. The original title of the project--which seems in its reflexive analysis of Allen's public persona to have been intended as something akin to an essay film--referred to an inability to experience pleasure. As unseen movies go, it has a lower pedigree than Tod Browning's London After Midnight, Hitchcock's The Mountain Eagle, or Orson Welles's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons; the few who have seen it would agree that the released version was infinitely superior. But it's tantalizing, because Woody Allen in 1976 and 1977 was such a formidable comic.

Night Train Murders

2012-03-01T01:47:05Z

It's feeding time for the monsters again in director Aldo Lado's 1974 quasi-giallo Night Train Murders, which sees the young and lovely Margaret and Lisa (Irene Miracle and Laura D'Angelo, respectively, making their film debuts) cross paths with violent criminals while travelling overnight by rail from Germany through Austria to Italy. The stage is set as Pacino-esque stickup man Blackie and his harmonica-blowing sidekick Curly (Flavio Bucci and Gianfranco De Grassi) mug an alcoholic sidewalk Santa Claus in Munich's Marienplatz. Menace! With that kind of element loose in the cities, why would two girls choose to ride some skeevy midnight train into Italy instead of opting for a sensible air flight? From one mother to another, via telephone: "Planes are never on time these days."

Music Video: M.I.A. “Bad Girls”

2012-02-08T22:00:28Z

I was mixed on Romain Gavras' previous video for M.I.A., "Born Free," but "Bad Girls," shot in Morocco, hits a cross-cultural sweet spot.

Breaking Bad RPG

2012-02-01T13:16:16Z

Four seasons of Breaking Bad rendered as an old-school console game. (Spoiler alert.)

"Robot" (by Jim Henson)

2012-01-27T13:04:07Z

There's a definite proto-muppet (not to mention HAL 9000) quality to the robot in this vintage short introducing business owners to the cutting-edge concept of "data communications."

Why America Is Fucked

2012-01-23T00:55:37Z

I love this just because this graphic-design dude obviously cares SO MUCH about this motel's lousy signage decision. One boat against the current. If you check out the YouTube comments, the Sedalia, MO, design firm involved weighs in, but that's more or less beside the point.

Haywire

2012-01-23T00:27:45Z

Haywire opens with a scene in which Mallory Kane (the retired mixed-martial-arts fighter Gina Carano), an erstwhile member of a private contractor's elite, government-sponsored fighting force, has a tense meeting with Aaron (Channing Tatum), a beefy colleague who's come to retrieve her from the field. Before the inevitable beatdown ensues — she's gone rogue after being double-crossed by her boss, so she's obviously not going anywhere without a fight — it becomes apparent that this isn't your typical action programmer. The tip-off isn't in what you see, but what you hear. Or, rather, what you don't hear. The two leads converse in near-complete silence, as if they're floating in space instead of sitting in an upstate diner. The waitress says a few words, meekly, but the expected sound bed of dishes clanking and walla FX is conspicuously absent.