366 Weird Movies

Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, psychotronic, and the just plain WEIRD!

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BATMAN RETURNS (1992): A SUPERHERO BURLESQUE

In 1992 some damn silly, so-called Christian organization threw a bullying hissy fit at McDonalds for its Happy Meal deal tie-in with Tim Burton‘s Batman Returns. McDonalds, true to form, prematurely withdrew its merchandising. Rumor has it that McDonalds issued a stern warning to Warner Brothers not to tap Burton for the next Batman film. For whatever reason, Warner Brothers caved into the golden arch and ,consequently, put its franchise into a decade long grave with the unwise hiring of director Joel Schumacher.

Only the fundamentalist mindset can associate Big Macs with a certain brand of morality. Looking at Batman Returns (1992), one wonders what the Christian organization was bitching about. The Bible is all throughout the film and, actually the good book itself has far more sex and violence than Batman, Tim Burton, Warner Brothers and McDonalds combined.

Regardless, Batman Returns remains the greatest cinematic comic book movie to date and one of Tim Burton’s most uniquely accomplished films. Admittedly, I am not a fan of comic book movies, even if I did read comics some when I was kid, but then most kids I knew did. I was in the minority in preferring DC to Marvel, and I guess I am sort of looking forward to the new Green Lantern movie, mainly because the Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic was a favorite when I was a wee lad in the 1960s and 1970s. That was a comic that was delightfully of its time, a bit like Star Trek in espousing an ultra-liberal message with all the subtlety of a pair of brass knuckles. Even though Green Lantern himself was a bit too righteous and bland, I liked that he was obsessed with the color green and was rendered impotent by the color yellow. There was something surreal in that, and I find the insistence of realism in comics to be a huge oxymoron. Perhaps that’s why the dark surrealism of Batman Returns did not bother me like it did mainstream audiences, comic book geeks, and militant pseudo-Christian organizations.
Still from Batman Returns (1992)
Even though I will acknowledge that Christopher Nolan‘s Dark Knight (2008) was well crafted, it would not have worked without Ledger’s performance holding it together. Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, however, pales compared to Michael Keaton’s much more intense, internalized, subtle and complex Wayne. Finally, Nolan’s film feels like it has one subplot too many. Comparatively, Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is a Continued…

Posted in Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema.

Tagged with 1992, Batman, Christmas, Hollywood, Superhero, Tim Burton.

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By Alfred Eaker – September 2, 2010

CAPSULE: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD [JOHEUNNOM NABBEUNNOM ISANGHANNOM] (2008)

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Ji-Woon Kim

FEATURING: Kang-ho Song, Byung-hun Lee, Jung Woo-sung

PLOT: Set in 1930′s Manchuria (during the Japanese occupation of China) and loosely based

Song Kang-ho as "The Weird" in The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2009)

on Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the film concerns the mad-cap, gunslinging antics of three men in search of a mythical treasure.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Sure it’s got a fun premise and goofy atmosphere, but the weirdest thing about the film is the “Weird” of the title, who’s primarily a wacky take on Eli Wallach’s “Ugly” character from Leone’s film, with spiky hair and the best jokes in the script. It’s an excellent, peculiar movie, but never reaches List-worthy levels of bizarre.

COMMENTS: Yoon Tae-goo—AKA “The Weird” (Song Kang-ho)—is a resilient petty thief who chances upon a treasure map while robbing a group of Japanese soldiers. Park Chang-yi—AKA “The Bad” (Lee Byun-hun)—is a malicious assassin sent to reclaim the map, who resigns himself to hunting down Tae-goo. Park Do-won—AKA “The Good” (Jung Woo-sung)—is a taciturn bounty hunter chasing after both men’s rewards, who eventually teams up with Tae-goo in the search for the treasure. Sprinkle in some curious Manchurian bandits and a dedicated group of Japanese soldiers, and soon you’ve got an all-out chase replete with wackiness, gunfights, and thrills!

There’s a lot going on in this film, but the sheer enthusiasm that brings it together makes it all completely work. The story is fun and interesting, the action is loud and inventive, the characters are appealing, and the visuals are detailed and colorful. There’s a range of costumes, weapons, and gadgets, giving the movie a slightly anachronistic/steampunk feel. The premise is both an homage to and appropriation of Leone’s original, but infused with its own imaginative mythos and offbeat sense of humor, distinguishing it from a simple remake. The addition of complex Manchurian history involving a multinational conflict gives the story a unique perspective.

The three leads are superb, but Song Kang-ho really owns the film. As “The Weird” he’s hilarious, likable, and unexpectedly capable. Plus, he’s got a secret past! The writers did well to make him the central character, devoting the most time to his story and giving him the best lines. Song is adept at wacky comedy but never slides into flat characterization, making him both engaging and intriguing to watch. Lee Byun-hun as “The Bad” spends most of his time being incredibly badass and looking sharp. Jung Woo-sung as “The Good” is a bit bland, and it doesn’t help that there isn’t much attention paid to his character. He has impressive firearms and his mustache looks silly.

There is very little about this movie to criticize (except perhaps the under-utilization of The Good’s character). With its oft-frenetic pace, out-there stunts, and silly, exuberant atmosphere, it had the audience laughing out loud and gasping at crazy moments in equal measure. The final chase scene at the end is guaranteed to have everyone riveted, while the film itself leaves viewers instinctively smiling from ear-to-ear. I believe the technical critical term is “a rip-roarin’ good time.”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s a live-action comic book. More good than bad, and with a liberal sprinkling of weird, it’s got a rock ‘em, sock ‘em energy that knocks the dust off a dying breed of storytelling.” –Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post (contemporaneous)

NOTE: This review is published in slightly different form at Film Forager.

Posted in Capsules.

Tagged with Comedy, Kang-ho Song, Kim Ji-Woon, Korean, Recommended, Spaghetti Western, Western.

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By Alex Kittle – September 1, 2010

CAPSULE: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010)

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Edgar Wright

FEATURING: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Jason Schwartzman

PLOT: Slacker bassist Scott Pilgrim must defeat seven evil exes in order to win the girl of his

Still from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

dreams.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: An alternate reality comedy that at times feels like something Monty Python would have come up with if they’d been raised on video games and graphic novels instead of “The Goon Show” and Oscar Wilde, Scott Pilgrim has substantial cult movie potential. The movie dispenses with logic scene by fractured scene, but probably its weirdest joke is casting Michael Cera as an action hero. It’s shiny surface sheen is fascinating, but at heart it’s a conventional coming-of-age tale for the PlayStation set; despite it’s comic leaps of illogic, it’s weird-ish, at best.

COMMENTS: With its role-playing game quest to defeat seven escalating opponents (right up to the final “boss” battle) and it’s onscreen scoring system (defeated enemies turn into piles of coins as a digital score rises from their corpses), Scott Pilgrim becomes the first film in history to use the video game as a metaphor for growing up. The movie milks maximum mileage from this conceit: when Scott goes to the bathroom, we watch a pop-up pee meter go from full to empty so we can stay informed on the condition of his bladder. The viewer is stuffed inside a video game console, treated to constant text updates on the characters’ status. But even beyond that basic technique, director Edgar Wright piles on the artificiality and stylization whenever an idea crosses his mind: multicolored valentines bloom from young lovers locked lips at first kiss, 1960s Batman-style “KAPOWS!” accompany fight scenes, and when a character’s profanity is bleeped out on the soundtrack a black bar also appears over her mouth. The bent humor sports a pop-absurdist tone; this is the only movies where a villain sets up a duel to the death by email, then brings his own Bollywood backup singers to the fight. Sometimes Wright’s choices become overly referential and fall flat, as when one expository scene is announced by the “Seinfeld” theme song, but you have to admire his willingness to try absolutely anything, and there are more hits than misses in the mix. The film moves almost too fast at times, with dream scenes emerging back into reality with no warning (there’s little difference between the two states anyway), and jarring leaps forward in time. But Wright embraces the short-attention span aesthetic and makes one of the cornerstones of the film; it’s neither a satirical jab at youth culture nor an unconscious adoption of its rhythms, but a stylistic choice that works in the context of the zeitgeist he’s trying to evoke. The fast-cut style is also necessary to fit in all the film’s teeming ideas: Scott Pilgrim is delightfully overstuffed, a real bargain for your matinee dollar. There are six big, comic fight scenes, multiple romantic subplots and back stories, a Battle of the Bands, and so many quirky supporting characters you almost need a scorecard to keep up. Besides everyboy Pilgrim, there’s cool love interest Ramona Flowers (whose shifting dye jobs call to mind Kate Winslett’s Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), jailbait romantic rival Knives Chow, wisecracking gay roommate Wallace Wells, Scott’s band-mates in the awkwardly named “Sex Bob-omb,” evil exes who’ve become Hollywood action stars or Vegan bass players… and even with that list I’ve still omitted somebody‘s favorite of the dozens of significant characters. The film is anarchic and ramshackle in spirit, but it’s actually tightly controlled and easy to follow and connect with. With it’s ADD edits, it’s geeky embrace of everything pop culture and willful ignorance of any other type of culture, and its amiable twenty-somethings who act like John Hughes’ teenagers of an earlier era, Scott Pilgrim suggests either that the onset of adulthood is slipping ever closer to 30, or that the film is aimed at a demographic aged much younger than its protagonists. I prefer to believe the latter; and, like the aforementioned Mr. Hughes’ film, the movie’s innocence about love and the easy answers about life’s big lessons creates a nostalgic crossover appeal for adults, even if they don’t get every NES video game system reference.

Edgar Wright’s previous two films were cultish genre spoofs: the zombie film parody Shaun of the Dead and the cop burlesque Hot Fuzz. Scott Pilgrim sees Wright stretching his talents with a far more baroque, but equally hilarious, approach. With Scott Pilgrim Wright’s no longer exaggerating the conventions of an existing genres to ridiculous lengths; he’s inventing an entirely new genre.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The style is Sega surrealism, the narrative strategy 30% Bunuel and 70% Bally.”–Andy Klein, Brand X Daily (contemporaneous)

Posted in Capsules.

Tagged with 2010, Action, Edgar Wright, Quir, Recommended, Rock and Roll, Romantic Comedy, Video Game.

2 comments

By 366weirdmovies – August 31, 2010

CAPSULE: THE PROMISE [LA PROMESA] (2004)

DIRECTED BY: Héctor Carré

FEATURING: Carmen Maura, Santaigo Barón, Ana Fernández, Juan Margallo, Evaristo Calvo

PLOT : A devout nanny’s religious convictions are tested when a clairvoyant child implores
Still from La Promessa [The Promise] (2004)
her to murder his father.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The events in La Promisa unfold in a weird way, making the story bizarre. The nature of these events, however, is no different from those in any occult film; the film is as conventionally produced as any horror movie. While the story is definitely out there, the overall viewing experience is not quite weird enough to be certified as such.

COMMENTS: Solid performances and Santiago de Compostela locations compliment this creepy, offbeat occult tale. Gregoria (Maura) is a modest housewife leading a life of quite desperation. Her marriage is suffocating, her husband (Margallo) is an ogre and her spirit is repressed. When her husband’s abuse takes its toll, Gregoria seeks refuge in the ecclesiastical. Finding solace in religious fervor, she plunges into the deep end of delusional thinking. Or does she? Taken to episodes of brief catatonia, Gregoriia becomes accident prone and paranoid. Every shadow hides a demon and every accident is a sign of manifest evil. Her chosen solution is to pray incessantly.

When a bizarre tragedy leads her to a chance encounter with a dying soothsayer, the doomed man implores Gregoria to fulfill a prophecy at a mysterious church in a remote mountain village. Supernatural voices drive Gregoria to murder her husband, after which she flees to the strange hamlet. There, on a fog enshrouded mountain estate, she takes a job as caretaker to a telepathic boy named Daniel (Barón).

Haunted by voices and fearing that she is losing her mind, Gregoria is drawn into a divine good versus evil enigma. Her snowballing predicament becomes centered around a secret passage, a well that presents a nasty fall hazard, the ghost of her husband, and her young ward’s murderous psychic manipulations. But the answer and her fate are inexplicably intertwined. The key to it all lies grounded in the sinister old church that she is destined to visit. The clairvoyant Daniel will use any means necessary to entice her there to fulfill The Promise.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an offbeat, mostly effective story of madness that combines a psychological study, a supernatural yarn and a tale of domestic violence to surprisingly rounded effect.”–Jonathan Holland, Variety (contemporaneous)

Posted in Capsules.

Tagged with 2004, Catholicism, Héctor Carré, Horror, Paranormal, Pilgrimage, Schizophrenia, Spanish, Thriller.

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By Pamela De Graff – August 30, 2010

64. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999)

“I don’t think my characters are a joke. I take them seriously. And no matter how outlandish or weird their situation, their situation is real and a little tragic. I think that’s what gives people something to hang onto as they watch the film. We had to find a way to make everything play on a very naturalistic level, so it didn’t just turn into wackiness.”–Charlie Kaufman on Being John Malkovich (Salon interview)

“I’m sure Being John Malkovich would be regarded as a work of genius on whatever planet it was written.”–possibly apocryphal comment from a movie studio rejection letter

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Spike Jonze

FEATURING: John Cusack, Catherine Keener, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich

PLOT: Craig Schwartz is an unemployed puppeteer who performs a marionette version of “Abelard and Heloise” on street corners for passersby. His wife Lotte convinces him to get a job, and he winds up working as a file clerk on floor seven and a half of a Manhattan office building, where he falls for sultry and scheming coworker Maxine. When he discovers a portal hidden behind a file cabinet that leads into the mind of John Malkovich, Maxine devises a plan to sell tickets to “be” the title actor, but things become extremely complicated when a confused love quadrangle develops between Craig, his wife, Maxine, and Malkovich…

Still from Being John Malkovich (1999)

BACKGROUND:

The feature film debut for both director Spike Jonze and sreenwriter Charlie Kaufman (who would work together again on Adaptation).
In Being John Malkovich John Cusak re-enacts the story of Abelard and Heloise with puppets; the title Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is taken from Alexander Pope’s poem on the same subject, “Eloisa to Abelard.”
John Malkovich reportedly liked the script, but didn’t want to star in it and requested the filmmakers cast another actor as the celebrity who has a portal into his head; eventually he relented and agreed to appear in the film.
The film was nominated for three Oscars: Keener for Best Supporting Actress, Jonze for Best Director and Kaufman for Best Original Screenplay. As is usually the case with uncomfortably weird films, it won nothing.
The film was originally produced by PolyGram, who were unhappy with the dailies they were getting from Jonze and threatened to shut production down; however, before they could make good on the threat the company was bought out by Universal, and Jonze was able to complete the movie in the ensuing confusion.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The recursive (and hilariously illogical) result of John Malkovich daring to enter the portal that leads inside John Malkovich’s head.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make a movie

Original trailer for Being John Malkovich

about a secret portal that allows anyone who crawls through it to see the world through actor John Malkovich’s eyes for fifteen minutes before being spat out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike and not end up with a weird result. The inhabitants of Being John Malkovich, like the denizens of a dream, don’t recognize the secret portals leading into others minds, the half-floor work spaces designed for little people, and the chimps with elaborate back stories as being at all unusual, and their matter-of-fact attitudes only throw the absurdity into stark relief.

COMMENTS: Synecdoche, New York may be Charlie Kaufman‘s weirdest script, Eternal Continued…

Posted in Certifed Weird (The List).

Tagged with 1999, Absurdist, Academy Award Nominee, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, Celebrity, Charlie Kaufman, Comedy, Fantasy, Identity, Postmodern, Recommended, Romance, Spike Jonze.

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By 366weirdmovies – August 29, 2010

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

Reviews that are definitely coming next week: La Promesa [The Promise] (2004), a Spanish Gothic thriller about a devout woman who sees religious visions and a telepathic boy; the Korean version of a spaghetti western: The Good, the Bad and the Weird (2008); Tim Burton’s superhero burlesque Batman Returns (1992); the just-barely-still-in-theaters anarchic video game comedy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010); and from the reader-suggested review queue, the deranged pre-Code exploitation flick Maniac [AKA Sex Maniac] (1934). Several contributors are working on other projects, as well, so we’ll see what else may turn up.

A strange week in weird search terms used to locate the site. Nothing jumped out at us as a definitive winner, but there are a couple of interesting notes. First, we are happy to report that (as of this writing) we now hold the coveted #1 spot on Google for the search “pour lust movies.com.” We were also sort of complimented, in a backhand way, by the fact that someone chose to come to us to research “weird movies no one likes.” But the week’s weirdest search term, by a narrow margin, is “wierd contac lense in the villege gothic store of new york.”

Here’s how the ever-growing reader review queue stands: Trash Humpers (still waiting for the DVD); Being John Malkovich (in about an hour); Maniac (1934) (next week); The Science of Sleep; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; The Apple; Arizona Dream; Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; Necromentia; Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; 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; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; The Seventh Seal; Primer; Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Private Parts (1972); Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ; The Bride of Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Uzumaki [Spiral]; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small; Bunny & the Bull; “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney” (assuming I can find it); Cinema 16: European Short Films; Freaked; Session 9; Schizopolis; Strings; Dellamorte Dellamore [AKA Cemetery Man]; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; The Addiction; Liquid Sky; The Quiet; Shock Treatment; Tuvalu; “Zombie Jesus” (if we can locate it); 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; May; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; Little Otik; Final Programme; Careful; Sweet Movie; The Triplets of Belleville; “Foutaises” (short); Johnny Suede; “Jam” (TV, UK, 2000), The Tale of the Floating World, Un Chien Andalou, Bloodsucking Freaks; Fellini Satyricon; Three Crowns of the Sailor; 8 1/2; Death Race 2000; Dororo; Lost Highway; Valerie and Her Week of Wonders; Dogville; and Julien Donkey-boy; Amelie; The Ten; The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao; 1; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Tokyo Gore Police; At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul; The Trial [Le procès) (1962); Marquis; Hell Comes to Frogtown; Hellzapoppin’; Seom [The Isle]; Allegro Non Troppo; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; Lust in the Dust; Celine and Julie Go Boating; “Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life;” The Magic Christian; Black Cat, White Cat; The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T; Abnormal: The Sinema of Nick Zedd; Robot Monster; Nightdreams; 3 Women; Rubin & Ed; Teeth; Vera; Weirdsville; Prospero’s Books; Inferno; Garden State; Persona; and The Real McCoy; Rat Pfink a Boo Boo; Themroc; Candy (1968); Run Lola Run; Pink Flamingos; Buffalo ’66; Northfork; Weekend; The Room; Glen or Glenda?; Night of the Hunter; The Fox Family; Midnight Skater; Angelus; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Twister (1989); Yokai Monsters, Vol. 1: Spook Warfare [AKA Big Monster War]; Haxan; This Filthy Earth; Conspirators of Pleasure; Piano Tuner of Earthquakes; Clean, Shaven; Bubba Ho-Tep; Sheitan; Innocence; “Chingsao the Clown”; Léolo; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Blue Velvet; ID (2005); Master of the Flying Guillotine; Yesterday Was a Lie; The Ninth Configuration; Forbidden Zone; The Cell; The Illustrated Man; The Man Who Fell to Earth; Fando y Lis; Rampo Noir; Head; Christmas on Mars; “Broken Glass”; Videodrome; Air Doll; The Ossuary and Other Tales; Arrebato; Symbol; Wicked City (1992 live action); Barbarella; Picnic at Hanging Rock; The Cars that Ate Paris; The Boxer’s Omen [aka Mo]; Solyaris (1972); Portait of Jennie; and Salo, the 120 Days of Sodom.

Posted in Miscellania.

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By admin – August 29, 2010

SATURDAY SHORT: 8-BIT TRIP

Using Lego bricks for stop motion animation is all the rage nowadays, but we’ve never seen anyone use the technique with as much artistry as Swedish techno band rymdreglage does in this experimental music video. Enjoy Lego wizardry at it finest!

Posted in Saturday Short.

Tagged with 2009, Lego, Music Video, rymdreglage, Stop motion animation, Tomas Redigh.

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By 366weirdmovies – August 28, 2010

CAPSULE: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

DIRECTED BY: Samuel Bayer

FEATURING: Clancy Brown, Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara

PLOT: A group of high school students share dreams of a burned, claw-handed man named

Still from A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Fred Krueger. As the students begin to die in dramatic ways, the survivors discover that they share a past of secret abuse at the hands of Krueger. The final survivors take it upon themselves drag Krueger from his dream world and dispatch him once and for all.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It really isn’t particularly weird. There are no wild grandstanding dream sequences; they’re all very similar in a “Silent Hill Lite” style. Given that the central character is a dead man who haunts people in their dreams and can exact real life revenge on their sleeping bodies, Krueger is lacking in imagination.

COMMENTS: First of all, I should point out that I am not a fan of the Elm St. franchise. I watched the original many years ago, and watched it again recently in light of the 2010 version, and I enjoyed it. To my surprise many aspects of the film stood the test of time quite well. Yes, some of the special effects had aged, but they had a wild, Tex Avery glee in their own madness that was contagious. The fact that they were practical effects added an immediacy that was quite exciting. The teens looked and behaved more or less like teens, making allowances for the nature of the film. It unfolded at a good pace and we had a heroine who stepped up to the plate when called upon.

I didn’t have any objections to someone making a newer version; I was interested to see it. I think this movie is what publicists term a “re-imagining” rather than a remake. The basic idea of the original has been kept. There is a group of teens, they’re having terrible nightmares, they begin to die horribly, and the killer is Fred Krueger. That’s as far as the similarities go however, the new film is darker both in mood and aesthetics. At times it was hard to see where the action was taking place and what was happening. Everything is dark. The school is as dark as the boiler room. The action takes place at night or during some town-wide energy saving drive where everyone seems to be using 20 watt bulbs.

Squinting in the dark has aged the teens a lot; they are a pretty mature bunch of high school Continued…

Posted in Capsules.

Tagged with 2010, Dreams, Hollywood, Horror, Jackie Earle Haley, Remake, Samuel Bayer, Sexual abuse, Teenagers.

1 comment

By Kat Doherty – August 27, 2010

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 8/27/2010

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 (LIMITED RELEASE):

Louis (2010): It’s disappointing to read the negative reviews from the preview audiences for such an appealing-sounding project: a modern silent film about young Louis Armstrong growing up in Storyville, with Jackie Earl Haley as a Chaplinesque villain and live musical accompaniment by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and classical pianist Cecile Licad. Playing successive nights in Chicago (Aug 25th); Detroit (26th); Bethesda, Md. (28th); New York (30th); and Philadelphia (31st). Louis official site.

SCREENINGS (MOUNT VERNON, NY):

The Milk of Sorrow [La Teta Asustada] (2009): Magical realist tale with an interesting premise: women who are abused during pregnancy transmit their sorrow to their children through breast milk. Most critics found the pace poetic, others complain it’s too slow, but all agree it features an interesting alternative use for potatoes. Peru’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2010. The Milk of Sorrow official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Godkiller: Walk Among Us (2010): From the product description: “a twisted, sci-fi/horror adventure about a 16 year old boy’s odyssey through a post-nuke wasteland (populated by fallen gods, organ-stealing hookers, and sex-addicted technowizards) as he searches for a new heart to save his dying sister.” Animated, from an indie comic, and it’s gotten fairly good notices in the genre press. Lance Henriksen and Bill Mosely supply voices. Buy Godkiller: Walk Among Us.

“Kick Ass Heroes” [Four Film Super Collection: Fantastic Argoman (1967)/Green Inferno (1988)/Robo Vampire (1988)/Red Eagle (1970)]: We haven’t seen any of these, but at least one of these losers could fall into the so-bad-it’s-weird-category: Robo Vampire, which features a poorly costumed robot and Taoist hopping vampires and was directed by the infamous Godfrey Ho. Green Inferno is better known as Cannibal Holocaust II. We have to confess to admiring the boxcover’s shameless marketing moxie; it’s designed to fool the extremely feeble minded into thinking that they’re purchasing the overrated Hollywood blockbuster. They might accidentally get exposed to something interesting instead. Buy “Kick Ass Heroes”.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Death Note Collection (2006): Read our capsule review of part I of Death Note. This release contains both installments of the interesting and mildly weird story of a college student who finds a book which allows him to kill anyone whose name he writes in it, and the eccentric techno-detective who hunts him down. Contains a disc of extras. Buy Death Note Collection (Death Note/Death Note II: The Last Name) [Blu-ray].

Shogun Assassin (1980): Not very weird, but definitely cult-y: this bloody Japanese samurai story was re-edited by Americans from two previous “Lone Wolf” movies to produce what many fans believe is actually a superior film. The tale involves a masterless samurai assassin with a son and a baby cart full of weapons who is hunted by ninjas, and it’s wall-to-wall fight scenes. Buy Shogun Assassin [Blu-ray].

Time Bandits (1981): Read the Certified Weird entry. Cause for celebration: Terry Gilliam‘s early masterpiece joins the high-def ranks! The only downside is that there’s only one extra, a new fifteen minute interview with Gilliam. It’s still great news for Blu-ray owners. Buy Time Bandits [Blu-ray].

Withnail and I (1987): Capping off a fantastic week in cult Blu-ray cinema is this beloved (though non-weird) British black comedy about a pair of unemployed actors “enjoying” a boozy weekend retreat at an uncle’s cabin. Buy Withnail and I [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.

Posted in Miscellania.

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By admin – August 27, 2010

ED WOOD (1994), TIM BURTON’S GLORIOUS SWANSONG.

In 1980 , two years after Ed Wood‘s alcohol related death at 54, film critic Michael Medved and his brother published “The Golden Turkey Awards” and gave Wood the award of being “The Worst Director of All Time” and naming his film Plan 9 From Outer Space “The Worst Film of All Time.” The forever constipated Mr. Medved must had the biggest bowel movement of his life when he discovered that he and his brother unintentionally put the wheels in motion for the cult celebrity status of Wood who, to Medved, was little more than an object of derision.

Quite simply, Ed Wood was an outsider artist, whose medium was film. He managed to create two highly personalized “masterpieces” of naive surrealism; Glen or Glenda (1953) and Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) with “star” Bela Lugosi, who was clearly at the end of his tether.

In between these two films Wood made Bride of the Monster (1955) , also starring Lugosi (the only one of the three Wood films in which Lugosi actually ‘starred’), but that film was more of a concession to the genre and lacked the pronounced Woodian weirdness found in either Glen or Glenda or Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Fourteen years after Wood’s cult status rocketed out of the pages of Medved’s book, Tim Burton produced his valentine to Eddie. Clearly, Ed Wood was as personal a film for Burton as Glen and Plan 9 had been for Wood. Burton faced immense difficulty in mounting the project and was given what, for him, was a small budget. Artistically, the endeavor paid off and even did so financially, in time, although it took Touchstone years to realize the film’s cult potential for the DVD market.
Still from Ed Wood (1994)
In 1994 Tim Burton was the perfect artist to bring Ed’s story to the screen. Burton, recognizing a fellow auteur and genuine oddball, treated Wood, not with derision, but with the respect he deserved. Before Ed Wood, Burton, although trained at Disney, was still an outsider with Hollywood backing, which makes him (in that regard) a kindred spirit to Stanley Kubrick. Burton’s first big budget feature effort Continued…