Mathieu Labaye’s tribute to his father, who suffered from multiple sclerosis when he was 29 years old, was confined to a wheelchair at 40, and died of pneumonia at the age of 55. Labaye has an indisputable talent for creating music and visual art that radiates a surplus of energy. Warning: like our last Saturday Short, “Orgesticulanismus” also contains some brief artistic nudity.
A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
It’s a very weak week for weirdness. Nothing very unusual debuting in theaters, and the video pickings are slim, so we dug a bit deeper for some strange viewing suggestions.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Abelcain (2011): We caught this title listed as “in development” when researching Santa Sangre: a new Alejandro Jodorowsky film! For years, even before Santa Sangre, Jodorowsky has been looking for financing for a new project (often referred to as Sons of El Topo). Parallel Media (Autopsy) is involved in the production, which means there is funding, at least. Plot synopsis: “Upon the death of their mother, Abel and Cain embark on a journey to bury her holy body next to their father’s grave on a forbidden paradise island. But the island’s treasures attract numerous kidnappers with different plans.” Just because it’s in development doesn’t mean the film will ever be completed, but there is reason to hope. Abelcain announcement at Parallel Media.
Heartsnatcher (2012): Per Quiet Earth (an excellent website focusing on post-apocalyptic movies that supplied us with a number of weird leads this week), Hungarian surrealist Pater Sparrow will be adapting the Boris Vian novel about an isolated island society with bizarre customs. Read the scoop at Quiet Earth.
NEW ON DVD:
Evangelion: 1.11 You Are Not Alone (2007): “Neon Genesis Evangelion” is a large anime franchise centering around teenagers piloting giant robots to fight off mysterious beings called Angels bent on destroying the world. As far as we can make out, the original 26 episode television show spawned a feature film, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Then came the feature The End of Evangelion, which created an alternate ending to the TV series and is reportedly a film of interest to weird folk. This movie, however, is part of a new “rebuild” series to consist of four films; to make things more confusing, this release is an update of the first film in that series (titled Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone) with new scenes and visual enhancements. An upgrade to the rebuild? As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’m gathering that this is the second “upgrade” of the first film (the first being version 1.01). Surely, fans who are interested in this will know what’s going on with all the different versions and where this release fits in. Buy Evangelion: 1.11 You Are Not Alone.
Stingray Sam (2009): From Cory McAbee (The American Astronaut) comes this futuristic musical comedy about a lounge singer from Mars who teams up with the Quasar Kid to rescue a little kidnapped girl. We just ran across this, but festival reviews were almost universally positive. Variety characterizes it as “‘The Searchers’” meets “‘Eraserhead’” and says it “leaves one begging for more.” Still screening at festivals, but it’s also available for download or DVD purchase from McAbee’s site. Stingray Sam official site .
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Evangelion: 1.11 You Are Not Alone (2007): See entry in DVD above. Buy Evangelion: 1.11 You Are Not Alone [Blu-ray]
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
“Even a Man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright”.
The best thing about the 1941 film is the tone-setting poem above, which was repeated at least one too many times in the original, yet it is absent from the 2010 remake except in the title. The Wolf Man seemed ripe for a remake since, of the original “horror classics,” it really wasn’t that good to begin with (the same goes for Creature from the Black Lagoon).
The 1941 film has several strikes against it, the first and foremost of which is writer Curt Siodmak, who, frankly, was a hack. The second is director George Waggner, who wasn’t really a hack but merely a competent, unimaginative commission director with no personal vision. Finally, there is “star” Lon Chaney, Jr. The younger Chaney gets picked on a lot these days and always has. He deserves it. He was an idiotic, drunken bully who had an obsessive hang-up about outdoing his father. Since Lon Sr. probably ranks with Chaplin in the silent acting department, Lon Jr., the pale, watered-down copy, did not have chance. It’s amazing that Jr. even thought he would be able to compete. That said, Lon Jr. did have a few good character roles in his career. Damn few out of literally hundreds of films. He was quite good as the arthritic sheriff in Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon, as Big Sam in Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones, as Spurge in Raoul Walsh’s Lion is in the Streets and Bruno in Jack Hill’s cult classic Spider Baby. Like Bela Lugosi, he was only good when he was actually being “directed.” Unlike Lugosi, however, Jr.’s signature horror role is not one of his best. That honor goes to his immortal Lenny in Lewis Milestone’s Of Mice and Men.
Even considering his success with Lenny, Larry Talbot is out of Lon’s range. Never once does Talbot’s amorous nature register. Evelyn Anker’s repeated flirtations with the hulking, rubbery Chaney only evoke numbing disbelief. If Jr. the romantic lead is ludicrous (that side seen at its mustached worst in the execrable Inner Sanctum series), then seeing Lon’s Talbot crying on the bed inspires cringe-inducing embarrassment. Chaney’s performance as Talbot was marginally [Read the rest of this entry...]
AKA Holy Blood (literal translation)
“My mother is dead. I had a terrible relationship with her. She had many problems with my father, and she never caressed me. So I didn’t have a mother who touched me.”–Alejandro Jodorowsky in La Constellation Jodorowsky
DIRECTED BY: Alejandro Jodorowsky
FEATURING: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Adan Jodorowsky, Sabrina Dennison, Guy Stockwell
PLOT: Fenix, a young carnival boy is understandably traumatized when he sees his knife-thrower father cut off his mother’s arms in a domestic melee. Years later, he lives an animalistic existence in a mental asylum, until one day he escapes when his armless mother calls to him from outside his cell window. The two perform a stage act where the son serves as the arms of his mother; she dominates his every move offstage, makes him serve as her arms, and orders him to kill, repeatedly.
BACKGROUND:
INDELIBLE IMAGE: The most representative images are any of the moments where Fenix stands behind his mother and acts as her hands, especially when he is wearing his long red plastic nails. The most affecting sight, however, may be a dying elephant with blood trickling out of his trunk.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: You could argue that Santa Sangre isn’t that weird, but that
would only be in comparison to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s previous films. Although he does deliver Feliniesque carnivals, an elephant funeral, a cult that worships an armless girl, a hermaphrodite wrestler, and graveside hallucinations featuring zombie brides, the obscure auteur actually scales back his mystical obtuseness a tad in this psychedelic slasher movie. The result is his most popular and accessible film—if anything by Jodorowsky can be considered accessible.
COMMENTS: In a way, Santa Sangre is Jodorowsky lite. Compared to his hippie-era [Read the rest of this entry...]
DIRECTED BY: Robert Altman
FEATURING: Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, Michael Murhpy, Shelley Duvall, Rene Auberjonois, Stachy Keach, Margaret Hamilton, Jennifer Salt, William Baldwin
PLOT: An oddball genius constructs a one man flying device in the basement of the
Houston Astrodome, assisted by a sexy but murderous guardian angel.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Robert Altman’s showman’s understanding and appreciation of the circus influenced the presentation of this surreal satire with its unconventional plot, eccentric characters, and eye-catching production design. Watching this colorful odyssey is like exploring a side road on the cinematic highway to Oz.
COMMENTS: Five out of five stars all the way for this gorgeous, pensive work of art. In this strange black comedy, Brewster McCloud (Cort -”Harold” from Harold and Maude) is a likable misfit who lives in the fallout shelter of the old Houston Astrodome. He endeavors to build a mechanical flying suit which will enable his escape from an incomprehensible world to some unknown imaginative utopia. An eccentric angel adeptly played by the quirky Sally Kellerman strangles anyone who opposes Brewster.
Brewster McCloud has a humorously heavy ornithological thesis with a narrative lecture provided by an off kilter science professor. The instructor’s recitation of facts about the social and mating habits of birds provides a funny comparative commentary on human nature. Avian themes glue the plot points together and furnish continuity between a sequence of strange events as Brewster struggles to achieve his goal.
There are three subplots: a coming of age story centered around McCloud, a social commentary stemming from the exposition of similarities and differences between humans and birds, and a murder investigation. While the police attempt to determine why the strangulation victims are found plastered with bird droppings, Brewster tries to beat the clock and perfect his flying machine before the authorities close in. He must stay [Read the rest of this entry...]
DIRECTED BY: Eric Mandelbaum
FEATURING: Thora Birch, Keith Carradine, Brendan Sexton III, Leo Fitzpatrick, Dean Winters
PLOT: An unambitious young man balances uneasy alliances with the authorities and his
psychopathic girlfriend when she involves him in a meretricious murder case.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Non linear story telling, oddball characters and incomprehensible motivations combine to weave a tapestry of weirdness in this contemporary film noir mystery.
COMMENTS: Some movies don’t have to be garishly bizarre to be weird. Winter of Frozen Dreams employs a soft, almost poetic production style to tell a tawdry tale of twisted topics set down as causally as if the story were an episode of the Donna Reed Show. The nonlinear plot is partially presented through the flashbacks and subjective impressions of a cast of oddball, unsavory characters whose disorganized, irrational lives inexplicably intersect in a convoluted morass of lies, depravity, deceit and murder.
Set in 1977 Madison, Wisconsin, Winter of Frozen Dreams relates the events of the notorious Hoffman murder case. On Christmas day, Gerald Davies walked into the police department and announced that he had helped his girlfriend dispose of a bloodied, battered corpse at the Blackhawk Ski jump park near Middleton. Police accompanied him to retrieve the body of Harry Berge and a series of perplexing events began to unfold that led to the arrest of Barbara Hoffman. The case drew a great deal of attention because it was the first televised murder trial in the state.
Of even greater interest to the public was the fact that the accused was a beautiful girl with an IQ over 140 who led a triple life. In addition to being a straight ‘A’ biochemistry student at the University of Wisconsin, Barbara Hoffman was a psychopathic whore and [Read the rest of this entry...]
Next week look for reviews of the curious based-in-fact 2009 mystery Winter of Frozen Dreams, Alejandro Jodoworsky’s psychedelic slasher film Santa Sangre, and Robert Altman’s cult comedy Brewster McCloud, about a boy who dreams of building a pair of wings and taking a flight inside the Houston Astrodome.
As far as weird search terms used to locate the site last week, the perverts were out in force, searching for stuff like “weird sex in humans videos,” “taboo insect porn strange,” “sexy orgiastic party,” and even “sally jesse rafael obsese.” (By the way, we have nothing against perverts: they’re a valued part of our audience!) Our favorite of the bunch was “weird sex movies of the 20th and 21st century,” because of its weird qualifiers: why craft your search term to specifically exclude 19th century weird sex movies?
Here’s the reader-suggested review queue as it stands today: Santa Sangre (next week); The Abominable Dr. Phibes; What? (Diary of Forbidden Dreams); Meatball Machine; Xtro; Basket Case; Suicide Club; O Lucky Man!; Trash Humpers (when/if released); Gozu; Tales of Ordinary Madness; The Wayward Cloud; Kwaidan; Six-String Samurai; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Altered States; Memento; Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; Gothic (jumping in line to come out next week!); The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; Being John Malkovich; The Apple; Southland Tales; Arizona Dream; Spider (2002); Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; Necromania (1971, Ed Wood); Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Mary and Max; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Danger: Diabolik; Faust; Sublime; Battle Royale; Pink Floyd: The Wall; Escanaba In Da Moonlight; Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; Zardoz; The Films of Suzan Pitt; Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]; Paprika; The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets; The Nines; 964 Pinocchio; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; Frownland; The Seventh Seal; Taxidermia; Primer; and Maniac (1934).
A man’s food addiction becomes his undoing. Decades later, Hunger’s message is as relevant as ever. This cartoon by Peter Foldès was nominated for an Oscar in the “Best Animated Short” category. A mild warning: the film does contain brief, artistic nudity.
A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (WIDE RELEASE):
Alice in Wonderland: Tim Burton reimagines Lewis Carrol’s classic, in sequel form. Is it personal this time? Burton and Carrol seemed the perfect marriage, and we were excited about this one until we saw the trailers, which make it look like the director has turned the nonsense narrative into just another fantasy quest to kill the evil queen. Don’t worry, we’re still going to cover it. Alice in Wonderland official site.
NEW ON DVD:
Alice (2009): Yet another reimagining of “Alice in Wonderland,” released just in time to capitalize on the Burton movie mania. This version features a butt-kicking adult Alice spirited away to a dystopian Wonderland because the Red Queen wants her magic ring. A 240 minute miniseries that originally aired on SyFy channel. The same director also made a postmodern Wizard of Oz variation, Tin Man, in the miniseries format. Buy Alice
Bitch Slap (2009): Three tough women behave badly while fighting over a fortune in diamonds in this “postmodern parody” of busty bad babe flicks like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The trailer indicates there are numerous fantasy sequences, and the press release promises a parallel series of Memento-like flashbacks that reveal the backstory. Critics say they’d like to perform the title act on the producers. Buy Bitch Slap
Castle in the Sky (two-disc special edition) (1986): To coincide with the release of Ponyo, Disney is releasing several older Hayao Miyazaki features in new dubbed versions. This one involves a boy and a girl searching for a floating castle while being opposed by pirates. Warning: we’re not 100% sure, but from the descriptions it sounds like the second disc in each set contains exactly the same content: featurettes about Miyazaki and Ghibli studios that aren’t specific to the movie being featured. Buy Castle in the Sky: Special Edition – 2 Disc DVD
Cold Souls (2009): Read our review. This comedy about the illicit trade in human souls was one of the weirder movies of 2009, but our staff split on whether it was weird/good enough to make the List. Buy Cold Souls.
Gentlemen Broncos (2009): From Jared Hess (writer/director of Napoleon Dynamite) comes this gross-out satire about a nerdy amateur fantasy writer whose story is stolen by an established author and turned into an awful movie by a small-town director. Critics hated it (“Gentlemen Broncos doesn’t just visit Planet Quirk, it crash lands upon it.”–Peter Howell). Still, scenes from the film-within-the film, with it’s gay cyclops and flying robotic deer, look at least mildly weird, and it seems anything that almost everyone in the mainstream hates must have something going for it. On the other hand, Armond White liked it, which may justifiably scare you off. Buy Gentlemen Broncos
Kiki’s Delivery Service (two-disc special edition) (1989): Popular Miyazaki anime about a young witch starting a courier service in the human world. Re-released to coincide with Ponyo. Buy Kiki’s Delivery Service: Special Edition – 2-Disc DVD
My Neighbor Tortoro (two-disc special edition) (1988): Yet another two-disc Disney special edition of an early Hayao Miyazaki anime, this one involving a girl befriending a forest spirit in Japan in the 1950s. This dubbed version features the voices of the Fanning sisters. Buy My Neighbor Totoro (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Ponyo (Disney dubbed version, 2009): Read our review. A bit weird, but we’re convinced Miyazaki can deliver weirder. Stylistically, it’s very much aimed at little girls with ages in the single digits. Contains a bonus disc of special features. Buy Ponyo (Two-Disc Edition)
Where the Wild Things Are (2009): Read our review. Spike Jonze’s adaptation/realization of the classic children’s book is a treat for adults. We’d love to see the director’s cut (hint). Buy Where the Wild Things Are
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Alice (2009): See description in DVD above. Buy Alice [Blu-ray]
Gentlemen Broncos (2009): See description in DVD above. Buy Gentlemen Broncos [Blu-ray]
The Neverending Story (1984): This childhood fantasy about a boy who enters a fairytale story and has to save a kingdom from Nothingness is a major nostalgia piece for many. It may not be very weird, but it may have influenced some of us towards imaginative cinema in our youths. Buy The Neverending Story [Blu-ray]
Ponyo (Disney dubbed version, 2009): See description in DVD above. Rather than putting all the extras onto a single Blu-ray, they’re selling it as a two-disc set and including a DVD as well. I guess the idea is that Blu-ray folks won’t feel cheated by getting one less disc than DVD people? Buy Ponyo (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Where the Wild Things Are (2009): See description in DVD above. The Blu-ray contains some additional features not on the DVD, including a 23 minute short adaptation of another Maurice Sendak children’s story, “Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must Be More to Life.” Buy Where the Wild Things Are [Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
The Eternal [AKA Trance] (1998): Michael Almereyda’s followup to the vampire movie Nadja features druids, mummies and witches in an arty B-movie brew. No idea how long Lionsgate will keep this up for free, so check it out soon if you’re interested. Watch The Eternal free on YouTube.
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
Time to dust off this collection of B-Westerns from Sinister Cinema’s Sinister Six-Gun Collection. The packaging is ultra-cool, starting off with those priceless trailers:
Trailer # 1: “Ride at Full Gallop into a Thundering Texas Romance to the rescue of a girl haunted by killers! Johnny Mack Brown as the fist-flashing GENTLEMAN FROM TEXAS” blazes across the screen as Johnny shoots and punches his way across bar tables. Add in beer bottles over the head, a pretty dame named Claudia Drake and the TrailsMen singing “Texas Jubilee” on banjos. It’s a “Violent Drama of Valorous Love and Texan Vengeance” from Monogram Pictures.
Trailer # 2 screams “It’s the Real McCoy” (as in Tim McCoy) “heading this way to tame the town that defied the law!” More fisticuffs, six-guns blazing, horses, good guys in white hats, and fallen bad guys in black hats (who never bleed) are all promised. “The Outlaw Deputy Tim McCoy made bad men check their guns while he checked up on romance! Cow-Town became a mad-house of Thundering Action when the nerviest outlaw East of the Rockies turns OUTLAW DEPUTY!“ A Puritan Picture.
Trailer #3: ” Come Along Boys and Girls on a Thrilling Trip to MYSTERY MOUNTAIN where KEN MAYNARD the screen’s most popular Cowboy Actor and his famous horse TARZAN will ENTHRALL you! will THRILL you! will STARTLE you! in their 1st SUPER SERIAL! ACTION! ROMANCE! All the THRILLS of THE OLD WEST! Don’t miss seeing Ken Maynard and his horse Tarzan in MASCOT’S MIGHTY EPIC SERIAL MYSTERY MOUNTAIN! WATCH FOR IT!” This one has all the elements of the previous two, but throws in locomotives and a star horse.
Time for the feature now, a SUPREME PICTURES CORPORATION starring JOHNNY MACK BROWN in COURAGEOUS AVENGER. After heisting a bullion shipment some despicable thugs are hiding in the desert, kidnapping local drifters for slave labor for their mine! Soon, hero agent Johnny enters, decked in ten-gallon white, white suit, white tie, beaming an All-American Football hero smile and dimpled square jaw (naturally, a few yeas later, that square jaw was a bit hard to see under an extra chin, which was still one less than the two extra ones that fellow cow-hero and middle-aged Ken Maynard acquired). Johnny finds himself commissioned to round up bad guys who killed their latest gold heist victim with three silver bullets. Shucks, Johnny was just getting ready to go on vacation too. Duty calls especially when Johnny finds the victim was his girl’s brother and “we were chums too!” Johnny embarks on the mystery and a quest for justice, western-style.
To complicate matters, the ring of bad guys is lead by none other than his girl’s evil step-dad. It doesn’t take long for the obligatory desert fight between Johnny and the bad guy, rollicking between the rocks in ass-hugging tight jeans. After some ass-kicking, Johnny infiltrates the ring, frees the slaves (a dose of grand guignol in that scene) , stops the next heist, and after a couple of thrilling stunts, rounds up the baddies and literally rides off in the sunset with girl Helen Ericson (who is mere decor).
Courageous Avenger is a 16 mm print and so is as good as it can be (especially since it was probably shot for about $50.00). There’s no soundtrack music to liven things (fairly common for 30’s B-Westerns), the sound itself seems to come and go, nor is it any great shakes, even for a period B-Western. But, it is a helluva lot of fun in grand Sinister Cinema packaging and you can’t really go wrong with Brown (although he looked even better with Beth Marion at his side).
The B-Westerns never received much respect in their day, and certainly don’t now, but pass the big bucket of buttered popcorn and give me this over Avatar any day. More to come. Dedicated to Dad.
