WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 4/16/09

Every Friday, we take 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.

FILM FESTIVALS:

The San Francisco International Film Festival opens April 23 and runs through May 7.  Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) will be honored and do an in-person Q&A session on May 1.  Intriguing revivals include Fellini’s (non-weird) Nights of Cabiria (1957) on May 3rd, Sergio Leone’s (non-weird) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) on May 3rd, and the silent stop motion dinosaur adventure film The Lost World (1925), with a new score composed and performed by Dengue Fever on May 5th.  New films of potential weird appeal include:

• Everything Strange and New, a minimalist story of suburban angst with a twist (Apr. 26, 28 & May 2)
• Grace, the tale of a baby who is born undead (May 1 &4)
• Handle with Care, a compilation of seven short visually experimental pieces (Apr. 26, May 1)
• Korean director Pil-sung Yim’s dark take on the Hansel & Gretel fairy tale (Apr,. 24, 27 & 30)
• The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, an absurdist comedy about janitors undergoing male pregnancy (May 2 & 6)
• Parting Shots, another collection of experimental shorts (Apr. 25 & 28)
• Rembrandt’s J’accuse, an essay/documentary on the Rembrandt painting by weird director and artist Peter Greenaway (Apr. 26, 27 & 28)
• The Tiger’s Tail, a doppelgänger fable set in modern Ireland (Apr 24 & 26)
• Wild Field, a Russian film about a doctor relocated to rural Kazakhstan, described as coming out of the “tradition of dark, existential Russian tragicomedy” (Apr. 25 & 28).

NEW ON DVD:

The Spirit (2008):  Frank Miller’s followup to the cult hit Sin City (2005), with Samuel L. Jackson, is another visually inventive comic book adaptation, but this one was critically panned as incoherent (not necessarily an indictment, if you’re into weird).  Buy from Amazon

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Thirteenth Floor (1999):  A scientist must enter a computer-simulation of 1930s Los Angeles to discover the truth about a murder in this recursive virtual reality thriller that was overshadowed by The Matrix on release .  Buy from Amazon

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.