Monthly Archives: December 2012

Top 10 Lists

TOP 10 WEIRD MOVIES OF 2012

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Last year, I began my “Top 10 Weirdest Movies of 2011” column by bemoaning the fact that, The Tree of Life aside, 2011 didn’t live up to the high standard of weirdness set in 2010. We won’t make that complaint again: 2012 was a good (if not a banner) year for cinematic surrealism.  Although Hollywood was predictably silent on the weird movie front, tiny France stepped up to the plate with a duo of strange ones, the indie scene brought us a plethora of odd experiments, and a wellspring of weirdness bubbled up from deep underground to take the title of Weirdest Movie of the Year. In random order—the weirdest of orders—here’s our survey of the strangest of the strange from the past year.

2. Holy Motors: “Mr. Oscar” () drives around Paris in a limo taking on nine “assignments” which require him to take on the parts of, among other roles, an accordion player, a hitman, and a fashion model-abducting leprechaun. Lavant is excellent in multiple roles (he reprises the great “Merde” from Tokyo!), and the cool cast also includes French weird movie vets Edith Scob and alongside Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue. It also has chimps. It’s surreal in that postmodern, meta-movie way that makes “Cahiers du Cinema” critics (like its director, ) all weak-kneed, but it’s perplexingly brilliant enough to power through its own pretensions. Review forthcoming on Wednesday.

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5. Chicken with Plums [Poulet aux Prunes]: A beautiful movie about death, this live-action graphic novel adaptation from the makers of Persepolis is visually sumptuous, and all over the place stylistically. It’s a movie made up mostly of deathbed hallucinations that includes visits with Socrates, the Angel of Death, and a giant version of Sophia Loren; that’s enough to get it on the weird map.

7. The Devil’s Carnival: The team behind Repo! The Genetic Opera brings us another horror-musical, this one based on the idea that Hell is a circus where sinners are eternally punished by being forced to watch off-Broadway dancers perform ironic cabaret numbers based on Aesop’s fables. The sets and costumes are amazing; the musical compositions less so. The best thing that I can say about this is that it makes me want to go back and re-evaluate Repo!; I actually think director might be onto something with this concept. A sequel, part of an intended series, is promised.

6. The Sound of Noise: Musical terrorists compose an avant-garde symphony by using the city of Malmö, Sweden as a giant percussion instrument, while a tone-deaf cop tries to stop them. “If David Lynch directed the Swedish cast of STOMP in an action-comedy, I think it might go a little something like this…” (We realize this was released in Sweden way back in 2010, but it didn’t hit the Western Hemisphere until this year).

3. Beyond the Black Rainbow: Panos Cosmatos’ debut, about a mysterious silent woman trying to escape from a nameless white institution, is considered a throwback/tribute to the golden age of midnight movies (circa 1982). informs us that Rainbow “has weirdness in spades. At times it is overly self-satisfied in its ambiguity, but overall it’s a strong psychological thriller that revels in the bizarre.”

1. Doggiewoggiez! Poochiewoochiez! Our Weirdest Movie of 2012 won’t be showing up on very many year end top 10 lists. In fact, this collection of cute, stupid and absurd footage of dogs, collated together into thematic montages loosely based on the plot of The Holy Mountain (!), stretches the definition of what a “movie” can be. But we’re not awarding this Fair Use poster boy effort the laurel of Weirdest Movie of the Year just to be, um, weird. It may be legitimately the most WTF fun you’ll have watching TV all year. As we wrote in our initial assessment, “There’s no deep meaning to the cross-breeding of Mexican surrealists with preposterous puppy clips, other than that Everything is Terrible! (correctly) thinks Continue reading TOP 10 WEIRD MOVIES OF 2012 →

Miscellanea

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

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It’s the end of the year, and you know what that means—we’ll be filling out our article quotas with year end top 10 lists. Next week you can expect to see two separate film rankings, one for weird movies and one recognizing the somewhat valid efforts of mainstream filmmakers. While we’re at it we’ll sneak in one last (?) 2012 review, for ‘ star-studded and much anticipated French fantasia Holy Motors.

As we scan the server logs looking for weird search terms for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest, we often come across queries that aren’t deranged in and of themselves, but can appear strange in context. Such is the case with this week’s search for “movies where black guys get killed,” which on its face is just a little bit depressing—until you see that someone else out there on the Internet this week was looking for “movies with white girls who get killed,” which seems to balance out the cosmic karma in some sick way. Of course, people also search for weird movie lists, like the fella looking for a “list of movies where a teen boy becomes a humaniod do to a strange sphere.” (You wanna do a strange sphere, you gotta become a humanoid). In a little category we like to call “weird marketplace” we note two items this week: “shirley garcia weirdos for sale” and “selling used panties in xenia ohio.” But this time around, our Weirdest Search Term of the Week was a no-brainer: “videofilm what enter action price for prostitute): real man prostitute suck the boobs for the woman like after born to logical end (video where is the hero!)” This search term has got everything: broken English, emoticons, and sexual perversion. It’s a fittingly odd verbal cap for 2012.

Here’s how the long-neglected, ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue stands: Holy Motors (next week!); The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; Liquid Sky (re-review); Society; Final Programme; “Foutaises”; Bloodsucking Freaks; Lost Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 12/28/2012

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Our weekly 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):

Tabu (2012): A Portuguese tale about an old dying woman with a secret past, which is told in a dialogue-free (but not silent) flashback that makes up the bulk of the film. It’s getting excellent reviews (and being called “bizarre”) by the usual arthouse aficionados, but Miguel Gomes’ movie arrives at an awkward time of year to get any sort of awards consideration. Tabu official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Killer Joe (2011): This black comedy/film noir from revolves around a father and son who take out a contract on their wife/mother, and leave their daughter/sister with the hit man as collateral until they can pay. Not necessarily super-weird but it is pitch-black and offbeat, and one of our readers did suggest we review it. Buy Killer Joe.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Killer Joe (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy Killer Joe [Blu-ray].

The Room (2003): This drama, considered by many to be the worst ever, is about—well, no one’s ever been able to explain to us exactly what it’s about. Maybe it’s about a room? Whatever it concerns, it’s in our reader-suggested review queue. Actor/director/distributor Tommy Wiseau self-released this Blu-ray, and it contains, for the first time ever in history, the option to have subtitles in multiple languages occupy the screen at the same time. Buy The Room [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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

CHAPLIN’S MODERN TIMES (1936) CRITERION COLLECTION

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People often say that we have lost Christ, we have lost Mary. Living in the 21st century, I am, perhaps, more concerned that we have lost Chaplin‘s Tramp.

Easter is not Mel Gibson’s blood-soaked sadism posed as religious dogma. Rather, it’s Fred Astaire and Judy Garland strolling down an Easter Parade. Christmas is not Cecil B. DeMille pious kitsch. Christmas is personified by the Little Tramp trying to find existential depth within an increasingly plasticized, dumbed-down modern Western world. Indeed, there may be a bit of poetic irony in Charles Chaplin’s exiting this mortal coil on Christmas day itself, in 1977.

Chaplin was not a religious man. Yet, his Tramp is the most religious and iconic figure in all of cinema. Chaplin seemed to be partly aware of this. The late film historian Leslie Halliwell reported that when Cecil B. DeMille was casting for The King of Kings (1927), Chaplin approached DeMille, offering to play the role of Christ: “I am Jewish, I am an atheist, and I am a comedian. I would be prefect for the part because I could play it totally objective.” DeMille had Chaplin thrown out of his office. Although Chaplin was probably right in that assessment, we can be grateful that DeMille rejected the casting. King of Kings may be one of the worst examples of  1920’s Hollywood. Of course, Chaplin exaggerated his beliefs in the interest of self-promotion. He was not Jewish and his atheism is debatable. The clown was, predominantly, anti-clerical.

With the first talkie, The Jazz Singer (1927), silent cinema was history. Someone forgot to tell Chaplin. He was still making silent films nearly a decade later. Many commentators have noted Modern Times (1936) is anything but modern. This film was a last, in many respects, for Chaplin: his last silent film and the final indisputable appearance of the Tramp. (There is a debate over whether Chaplin’s Barber from 1940’s The Great Dictator was really the Tramp, or not).

Still from Modern TimesModern Times, originally titled “The Masses,” is not completely silent. The Factory task master talks through a Orwellian screen.The Billows feeding machine speaks through a “pre-recorded device.” Chaplin sings a gibberish song near the finale.  However, these do not add up to a “talkie.” Rather, it adds up to a silent with clever, carefully chosen, cartoonish sound effects.

As a social commentary, Modern Times is derivative, borrowing from , among others. As a romantic comedy, it’s also derivative, recycling numerous gags and plot elements from Chaplin’s Mutual shorts. It has, rightly, been pointed out that Modern Times is like a feature-length compendium of those shorts. However, the screen presences of Chaplin and  are imbued with such authentic personalities that it somehow seems fresh.

In Run to the Mountain, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote of Modern Times: Continue reading CHAPLIN’S MODERN TIMES (1936) CRITERION COLLECTION →