Veteran stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski and colleague David Leitch respectively directed and produced this mean-spirited thriller in which a retired assassin literally takes a sledgehammer and cracks open the basement floor to extract his case of guns, ammo, and gold pieces to avenge the death of a puppy bequeathed to him by his just-dead wife…
In this rare feature-length production, Nikkatsu’s Office Love: Behind Closed Doors is also a drama with Roman Porno interludes and indulgences, and with the exception of one especially brutal assault between an engaged couple (Kusami Junpei and Jogenji Kurumi), most of what unfurls is an erotic drama (dubbed “eroduction”) concerning a personal assistant…
As Jasper Sharp writes in the DVD’s liner notes, as long as some sexual action occurred roughly (and sometimes, quite literally, roughly) every 10 mins., filmmakers were pretty much left on their own to make their little weird Roman Porno films for studio Nikkatsu, but the question that perhaps even studio brass contemplated near the end of the series’ line was whether a RP film could succeed as a full-length feature-length film…
A definite companion piece to the BBC’s When Albums Ruled the World (2013), The Joy of the Single covers similar ground in putting the love for an obsolete media format – RCA’s 7” 45 RPM platter – which in 1949 established a whole slew of conventions that still remain part of the way music is written, promoted, and enjoyed by the masses…
Long before When Jews Were Funny (2013), Alan Zweig directed this examination of extreme record collecting, focusing on several figures (mostly men) whose lives are surrounded by thousands of the round music platters…
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