The Last Exorcism Part II

Unlike many moviegoers, 17-year-old farm girl Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell, The Day) has no memory of the events of The Last Exorcism, a found-footage smash of three years prior. The Last Exorcism Part II finds her taking steps to build life anew, beginning in a boarding house for troubled girls, where the deeply devout Nell is exposed to such heretofore corrupting influences as lipstick and rock music and YouTube and cotton candy.

06/19/2013 | Comments 0

The ABCs of Death

Suspense novelist Jeffery Deaver once praised the short-story format, writing that the minimal time investment on the part of the reader allows the writer to get away with endings he or she cannot in the long form. In other words, the writer can be meaner, more devious. He's absolutely right, and the theory applies wholesale to The ABCs of Death, more or less a horror anthology depicting "26 ways to die."

06/19/2013 | Comments 0

Ninja III: The Domination

Don't ask why Ninja III: The Domination begins with a ninja assault on a municipal golf course. Just be grateful it does. You also may wonder why its sex scene employs a can of V8: Don't question it. Just lie back and enjoy it.

06/14/2013 | Comments 0

Lifeforce

Tobe Hooper got a raw deal. The director of horror hits The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist didn't deserve to be sent to movie jail for 1985's Lifeforce. It's a well-crafted, well-intentioned work that was mismarketed and misunderstood, losing a bundle of money and soon sending Hooper into the lands of episodic television and direct-to-video features.

06/14/2013 | Comments 0

Dead Souls

With Dead Souls, we can prove something about the Chiller cable network's original features that Remains could not: Source material is not to blame for their pervasive generic nature — it's the economy, stupid.

06/11/2013 | Comments 0

Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 movie “To Be or Not to Be” will be discussed at the inaugural Film Comedy Conference.

February 9th, 2011

Professionals from around the globe will be speaking about the comedic arts in every culture, from American Indian to Greek. Also on the agenda for discussion are the films of Jacques Tati and Woody Allen, and David O. Russell’s "Flirting with Disaster."

The University of Oklahoma is getting serious about comedy. On Friday and Saturday, the OU College of Arts and Sciences hosts its inaugural Film Comedy Conference.

All of the dozen presenters are contributors to a book being edited by OU professors and conference hosts Andrew Horton and Joanna Rapf, “The Wiley- Blackwell Companion to Film Comedy.”

“Even though comedy sells at theaters and everyone enjoys it, there is a much bigger meaning behind it,” said Horton. “It’s important for people to realize how comedy impacts us in our day-to-day lives.”

“We’re very pleased that these speakers from all over the world could come and share their knowledge and experiences,” said Horton.

All of the presentations will be held in Oklahoma Memorial Union’s Heritage Room, 900 Asp in Norman, and are free and open to the public. For more information, call 325-3020 or visit ou.edu/fvs. —Courtney Silva