A heart-shaped scientist discovers that inhaling beetroot extract leads to immortality, but the ungrateful populace considers living forever a mixed blessing.
POD 366, EP. 184: FROM THE SHORES OF “LAKE AMERICA,” IT’S TIFF 2006!
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Discussed in this episode:
Don Hertzfeldt on Dropout: The complete works of fiercely independent Academy-Award-nominated animator Don Hertzfeldt (of the Canonically Weird It’s Such a Beautiful Day), which had previously been scattered about, are now available on the independent comedy subscription streaming service Dropout. Dropout is really excited about the acquisition. The Don Hertzfeldt Collection on Dropout.
Tekkonkinreet (2006): Read the Canonically Weird entry! As expected, the restoration and re-release of Tekonkinkreet results in a 4K UHD release (Blu-ray included) of the weird outsider anime set in pan-Asian “Treasure Town.” All extra features appear to be recycled, but the image should be stunning. Buy Tekonkinkreet.
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF): The Venice Film Festival (Biennale) is running contemporaneously and, although it is older and more historically prestigious, it is far smaller and less important commercially (many films now play both festivals). The Toronto festival is huge—over 400 offerings this year—and a crucial market for upcoming films looking for distributors. Most TIFF films are reliably mainstream, but there will inevitably be some weird ones. Here are the ones we’ll be tracking in the coming months:
- Anchors Aweigh -absurdist alt-comedy joint about an artist who decides to live on a sailboat after a breakup; described as “anxiety fester[ing] across a series of increasingly surreal vignettes.”
- Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo – Takashi Miike‘s take on the now venerable pseudo-franchise will doubtlessly play up the brutality—and, hopefully, the grindhouse surrealism for which the director is famous. Neon has already scooped it up, so it will be seen, but no Stateside release date as of yet (it plays in Japan in late October).
- Bucking Fastard – a surprise new Werner Herzog movie (not his animated The Twilight World, which is still upcoming), but what looks like a magical realist piece about two sisters (Kate and Mara Rooney) who do everything (including speak) in concert. Despite the strange premise (and an uncanny clip) Indiewire says they are “hearing that this is perhaps Herzog’s most commercial title.“
- There will, quite naturally, be a screening of the uncut version of The Devils. The unprepared better strap themselves in. Look for it in the US in late October.
- The Face of Horror – Another lovely surprise: an Anna Biller technicolor, Hammer-style horror film. Last we heard Biller was having trouble raising funds for her “Bluebeard” adaptation, so she must have quietly pivoted to this campy Gothic project instead. Hopefully it will be strange and not merely a reverent homage, but there is nothing to go on besides a still.
- Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney – An experimental documentary from the fantastic Matthew Rankin about Canada’s 18the Prime Minister that, according to programmers, “distills historical record through savvy psychedelic abstraction and satirical irreverence.” Nothing else is known, but we are excited for this highly Canadian offering.
Toronto International Film Festival homepage.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
No guest officially scheduled for next week’s Pod 366 (though we are trying), but the following week we will talk to Dave Jackson of the sick slasher Cat Sick Blues (which is available free with ads on Tubi, if you want a head start.) In written content, Michael Diamades is wedded to The Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (2012), Shane Wilson gives birth to a The Thingy: Confessions of a Teenage Placenta (2013) review, Giles Edwards takes a gamble on the microbudget My Vegas Eyes (2026), and Gregory J. Smalley goes to a late summer Camp (2026) (off brand, not Miasma).
Onward and weirdward!
CAPSULE: HOT SPOT (2026)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Agnieszka Smoczynska
FEATURING: Andrzej Konopka, Reika Kirishima, Noomi Rapace
PLOT: A detective living in a city run by a totalitarian AI, surrounded by wastelands, investigates a murder at a refugee camp and a series of cyberattacks that are accelerating the rate at which citizen’s heads are exploding.
COMMENTS: Agnieszka Smoczynska‘s Hot Spot has been getting slaughtered at Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, but I’m happy to report that, while it’s no The Lure, it’s a perfectly enjoyable, if strenuously unserious, midnight movie, an experience sort of like getting heat stroke at drive-in triple feature of Mad Max, Ghost in the Shell, and David Lynch‘s version of Dune. Do not attempt to take it seriously as science fiction; just enjoy the unexpected insanity and oddball directorial decisions, and you should find it a perfectly acceptable meat-and-potatoes weird movie.
Hot Spot‘s world-building is impressive, if frequently frustrating in its refusal to follow up on details. It’s set in a wealthy city surrounded by an endless wasteland, whose residents depend on near-omnipotent AI “the Head” for their abundance. The Head requires its residents to eat a “jellybean” daily and hook themselves into its neural network in order to enjoy the benefits it brings, like telepathy and virtual reality surfing, and it strongly discourages voluntary disconnection (since disconnected citizens can engage in wasteful activities like free thought or masturbation). Aiding the city’s prosperity are a species of caterpillar-like creatures of various sizes, which feed on blood and recycle the dead into water and electricity. Oh, and every now and then citizen’s heads will spontaneously explode for unclear reasons (when not caused by cyberattacks on the Head’s infrastructure, it may to have something to do with mental hygiene, or possibly too much masturbation). The populace views random spontaneous decapitation as a small price to pay in exchange for the necessities of existence, though. It seems everyone is allowed to join the city as long as they submit to the Head and eat the jellybean, which may explain the large refugee camp outside the city gate. The plot begins when our hero, outrageously mulletted, Polish-accented detective Djonny, who married to a Japanese woman who can disconnect from the Head by singing, is assigned to investigate a murder at the refugee camp. There, he encounters a group of (mostly female) nomads who keep half their faces shrouded in hajib-like headdresses, refuse to connect to the Head, and have some kind of undefined, scarcely explored mystical powers. Djonny suspects one of the refugees, Rana (a second-billed but only marginally important Noomi Rapace), as the killer, and also suspects her of being a “cyber witch.” The real culprit will eventually be revealed (and will not be much of a surprise), but in the meantime Rana seems to put some sort of curse on Djonny, which, for reasons which are again entirely unexplained, results in him occasionally turning into a tiger.
There’s also an elf-eared assistant who hangs around in the background doing nothing, and a lot of gratuitous trippy stuff. For arbitrary reasons, the movie sports an 80s aesthetic, even beyond the star’s featured curly mullet, track suit, and smoked sunglasses. The soundtrack proudly features “The Final Countdown” and a cover of “Take My Breath Away,” and the rest of Marcin Macuk and Zuzanna Wrońska’s score oozes retro synth-pop. Overall, Hot Spot‘s post-apocalyptic vibe makes it seem like it was created according to Panos Cosmatos‘ “poisoned nostalgia” technique: a teenage boy’s flawed imagining of a story conveyed by a lurid 1981 VHS box cover.
Many complain that Hot Spot leaves genuinely promising sci-fi concepts by the wayside in favor of meaningless psychedelic trip sequences and showy nonsense. It’s a fair rap, and an easy case to make. But it seems like a serious examination of a dystopian AI-driven cyberfuture is not what Hot Spot aims at. This is still likely the most entertaining and unpredictable movie about a telepathic post-apocalyptic detective in a blond mullet slowly turning into a big cat after an encounter with a cyber witch that you will see all year, and that’s enough to justify a watch. It breezed through theaters like a sirocco, but should hit VOD/streaming soon.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
CAPSULE: SAFE WORD (2022)
Aishiteru!
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
The sixth installment in the Pete’s Perverted Pix series
Safe Word is available for purchase or rental on-demand.
DIRECTED BY: Kōji Shiraishi
FEATURING: Kawase Chisako, Torinomi Nagisa
PLOT: Idol singer Misa is gets recruited by an adult club and becomes a professional dominatrix under the tutelage of a mistress.
COMMENTS: Ladies and gentlemen, and everyone on the spectrum, your humble hedonist has returned from a veritable safari of sex exploring weird movies on the BDSM circuit. Today’s movie, together with “TFTtTfDSHP” and Antiporno, are among the three nakedest and kinkiest films I’ve ever seen. In my quest for the weirdest of erotic fetish cinema, I have hiked through the valley of boobies, twin peaks marching like sand dunes to the horizon. I have seen every body part smacked, licked, tied, or splattered with paint. I have explored enough daddy issues and mommy issues to make Sigmund Freud choke on his cocaine. I’ve witnessed acts not even documented in the Urban Dictionary. In particular, I’ve snorkeled through oceans of estrogen, because the points of view with these movies have been overwhelmingly female. Girls dominate this genre! So far, the kinkiest male-focused erotic film I’ve seen has been directed by Kenneth Anger. Boys, you need to catch up! I’ll say it again, the first director to make a serious film about a male/male S&M relationship will have a name that lives in film infamy. The Yaois alone will carve your likeness into the sides of granite cliffs.
Today’s film, Safe Word (named for the actual BDSM practice of having an emergency signal in case the bottom can’t take it anymore) is almost too on-the-nose for the current project. I picked it after the previous entry based on my interest in diving deeper into Japanese “pinku” and “Roman Porno” cinema subcultures: Antiporno was a send-up of the genre, so let’s see a serious entry. Safe Word is indeed as pink as a cartoon panther alright, with kinks o’plenty paraded and bountiful flesh ahoy. It just isn’t all that weird, though quirky bits and scenes do provide enough strangeness to at least make for an unusual entry. The plot is basic and unadorned with psychedelic fluff. Misa (Kawase Chisako), a singer/celebrity with a tepid career, gets recruited by a mysterious adult club. She’s offered the role of house dominatrix, to be employed on the business end of a whip for high-priced clientele. At first she’s repulsed, until she finds out she can take her aggression out on smiling and willing masochists. Then she dives into the deep end of kink. (It’s clear she was at least curious about this BDSM business to start with.) The story sort of follows the template of Buñuel’s Belle De Jour (1967), with mild commentary on contemporary social and sexual mores, but Japanese hentai style.
Not that Misa gets to crack the whip on clients from day one, oh no… she has to be trained. Wink wink, cue the oft-written BDSM scenario known as “boot camp” where a harsh master/mistress collars a new slave and puts them through an obstacle course of pulse-pounding, edgy fetish activities for a month until the bottom “graduates” to topping. In this case, Misa’s mentor is the scene-dominating Kanon (Torinomi Nagisa), a statuesque femme fatale who instantly snaps a psychological chain around Misa’s neck from their first meeting and leads her though a series of painful, humiliating, or just orgasm-inducing experiences. Later Misa takes on her own clients, whom are satisfied with a standard beating/tie-up/nipple clips routine, for the most part. But what of her former (ongoing?) idol career? What about her public reputation? What can she say to her friends when she’s being paraded around town by Kanon with a remote-controlled vibrator down her pants? And is Misa in a relationship with Kanon, or is she merely the latest in a succession of Kanon’s human playthings? Mild tensions are set up, but there’s really not a heavy plot here so much as a showcase of perversions.
As for those quirks I promised: Safe Word takes itself as a mild comedy. The main running gag is that it’s a mockumentary, which means (despite the cinematography being professional) the cameraman is randomly acknowledged in-scene, sometimes by characters mildly alarmed that their big sadomasochist session is about to be recorded, or sometimes by characters who take the opportunity for a selfie pose. Sporadically Misa live-blogs on social media about her thoughts on her career, stardom, and sexuality. Small details stand out, such as the decor inside the adult club where most of the action takes place: a baroque, elaborately painted parlor whose walls are crisscrossed with knotted rope, as if the walls themselves were bound. That’s honestly the weirdest it gets, if you don’t count the near-constant acts of hedonistic excess playing throughout.
Safe Word is a well-crafted film which serves as a serious treatment of alternative sexuality every bit as deep and respectful as Secretary (2002), while becoming a near-nirvana for hentai/Asian erotica fans. Note the difference: every culture has practiced bondage, but only the Japanese raise it to its own recognized art form, shibari. Who can help but admire such dedication? Safe Word is not for the vanilla viewer, and barely vouched for as a watch for weirdophiles, but for loud and proud deviants everywhere it’s highly recommended, a leather-and-rubber-clad valentine to the modern civilized sadomasochist.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS (2007)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Bruce McDonald
FEATURING: Elliot Page (as Ellen Page), Zie Souwand, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Slim Twig, Ari Cohen, Erin McMurtry, Julian Richings
PLOT: A look inside the troubled mind of a teenage girl who is dealing with a hostile school atmosphere, emotionally hostile parents, a fixation on the cool new boy, a random drugged-out loser who may be the best friend she has, and the disappearance of her little brother.
COMMENTS: Split-screen photography has been a filmmaking tool almost since the beginning of the cinema. The technique took a giant leap, though, with the debut of filmmaker Christopher Chapman’s “A Place to Stand,” the groundbreaking short that he created as part of Canada’s Expo 67. Far from merely dividing the image in twain, Chapman developed a technique of isolating images and enabling them to move through the frame in concert with other images, like a moving mosaic. It was called “multi-dynamic image technique,” and it gained a foothold in popular culture a year later when Norman Jewison deployed it in The Thomas Crown Affair.
Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, because Bruce McDonald’s The Tracey Fragments may boast the most splits any screen has ever seen. The story of a girl whose mind is shattered by disaffection and tragedy (a simile Tracey employs in her first monologue) is suitably embodied by a narrative and a screen image that is similarly fractured. Humans are notorious for holding multiple viewpoints and emotional states at the same time, and the mosaic method allows the film to display all of them at once. Unexpressed rage and undelivered ripostes share space with silent pain and vast landscapes, while grids of pictures give way to clouds of dozens of images, sometimes with a sharp triangle piercing the frame. One particularly memorable image features Tracey in a desperate run for freedom, perfectly overlaid with shots of a horse in full gallop while the score by Broken Social Scene lays down an appropriately desperate groove. Rarely has the complexity of the mind, especially that of a teenager, been captured with such fidelity.
The Tracey Fragments is a technical marvel. The film supposedly took a month to film and nine more to assemble, and the work shows as McDonald, editors Jeremiah Munce and Gareth C. Scales, and sound designer Steve Munro create an impressively clear story out of a deliberately jumbled set of pieces. It’s frankly remarkable that it works as well as it does, given that Tracey’s story is pretty one-note. While her life does seem legitimately grim, the nonlinear approach represents her situation as an unchanging condition: disaffected teen girl, touched by tragedy, cast among the losers in high school, disdainful of her aggressively distant parents, and yearning for a bland boy who promises escape but evidently is a cruel, cavalier lover. (If we can believe what we see; our point of view is entirely Tracey’s.) It’s authentic, but it’s not dramatic.
This was Page’s first release following the starmaking breakthrough of Juno (although Tracey was shot first), and it solidifies the actor’s inclination toward challenging material. Page doesn’t always look as scruffy and homely as the character’s situation would suggest, and Tracey’s monologues sometimes feel inappropriately formal and clear-minded for a girl in such distress. The whole film rests on Page’s shoulders, though, and he carries it with confidence. Notably, some scenes have taken on a stranger veneer with the passage of time. One of Tracey’s tormentors verbally taunts her for her lack of perceived hot-girl femininity, calling her “It” and demanding, “Is It a boy or a girl?” Scenes with Tracey and her therapist are particularly odd, with the trans actor playing opposite Richings in drag in an ex post facto head-scratcher.
Split-screen is hardly an obscure technique. If you’ve seen any heist movie, you’ve probably been treated to a collage of lasers, hands, and beads of sweat. What distinguishes The Tracey Fragments is the way it gives the split-screen a psychological dimension. Instead of delivering information, it delivers character and mood. It’s not an entirely successful effort, as that mood has little chance to develop and grow. It does serve as a valuable reminder that all the cool things we can do with image and sound have the potential to do much more, if we give them a shot.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by H. E. Martin. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
The Tracey Fragments
- DVD
- Multiple Formats, Color, Dolby
- English (Original Language), English (Unknown)
New starting from: 8.99 $
Go to Amazon