WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 11/6/2009

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):

The Men Who Stare at Goats:  George Clooney or no George Clooney and loosely based on fact or not, I doubt anyone will claim that a comedy about a classified experimental squad of U.S. marines who are trained to kill using Jedi-mind tricks isn’t coming at us from a left-of-reality place.  Co-starring offbeat icon Jeff (Tideland) Bridges, Ewan (Stay) MacGregor, and Kevin Spacey.  The Men Who Stare at Goats official site.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Gentlemen Broncos: 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.  Gentlemen Broncos official site.

SCREENINGS: NEW YORK CITY (MON, NOV. 9)

Flaherty NYC: Experiments with Animation!:  A program of new experimental animated shorts to be presented at the Anthology Films Archive, with a question and answer session with some of the animators to follow.  Featuring films by Martha Colburn, Jesse Epstein, Kenneth Hung, Jeff Scher, Phil Solomon, Steven Subtonick, and Signe Bauman (The Threatened One). For more information visit The Flaherty Seminar homepage.

NEW ON DVD:

Wings of Desire [Der Himmel über Berlin] (1987): Wim Wender’s beautiful, poetic movie about invisible angels roaming West Berlin who dispassionately hear the fears and desires of humans gets the Criterion Collection treatment. One of the best films of the 1980s.  Buy from Amazon.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Wings of Desire [Der Himmel über Berlin] (1987):  See above.  Buy Blu-ray from Amazon.

NEW FREE (LEGITIMATE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Dracula (1992):  Read our capsule review.  The free viewing expires November 10, so hurry on down!  Watch Dracula (1992) 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.