Home surveillance footage captures a family meltdown when the daughter starts sinking through the wood flooring of their kitchen.
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Monthly Archives: March 2016
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 3/18/2016
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
It was a strangely barren week, with nothing of serious surreal interest coming out in theaters or on DVD/Blu-ray. Hopefully this is just the calm before the big weird storm… but here’s what we did find going on this week.
SCREENINGS – (Cinefamily, Los Angeles, Fri. Mar. 18-20):
Repo Man (1984): Read the Certified Weird entry! Alex Cox‘s unclassifiable punk/sci-fi/comedy about L.A. car repossessors is one of the lynchpins of Cinefamily’s “Underground USA: Independent Cinema of the 80s” series. Cox himself will be in attendance at tonight’s 10:30 PM showing. Also playing in this series: 1980’s ultraweird 6th dimension fantasy Forbidden Zone (with director Richard Elfman on hand) on Saturday at 10PM. Then, for Sunday afternoon’s “hangover matinee” they’ll be showing no less weird a film than Mulholland Drive! Once again, we wish we lived in Los Angeles… though we wouldn’t get much done on the weekends. “Underground USA: Independent Cinema of the 80s” series at Cinefamily.
YOU LINK US! YOU REALLY LINK US!:
TV Tropes: TV Tropes becomes the largest site to recognize our existence with a dedicated entry (although they did write the name out as “Three Hundred Sixty Six Weird Movies,” for some reason, but hey, who’s complaining?) Now we just need to get Wikipedia on the ball. “Three Hundred Sixty Six Weird Movies” entry at TV Tropes.
FREE MOVIES ON SNAGFILMS:
Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated: Read Eric Young’s review. George Romero’s public domain zombie classic remade by a team of artists and animators, switching back and forth between styles every few minutes. Watch Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated free on SnagFilms.
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.
THE SHORT FILMS OF OLIVER HERRMAN
Oliver Herrmann was quickly proving to be an artist of provocative potential after creating the innovative short films “Dichterlieb” (2000), “One Night, One Life” (2002), and “Le Sacre du Printemps” (released 2004). Tragically, Herrmann’s life and career were cut short when he died of a diabetic stroke at the age of 40 in 2003. A few months after his death, his partner, soprano Christine Schäfer, a specialist in 20th/21st century music, gave birth to their second child.
All three have been released on home video with “Dichterlieb” and “One Night, One Life” available together and “Le Scare du Printemps” on a second DVD. The primary interest in the “One Night, One Life” collection is Herrman’s film of Arnold Shoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” conducted by modern music specialist Pierre Boulez and starring Schäfer. A bit of history may be needed for Schoenberg’s atonal ((Although atonal, “Pierrot Lunaire” does not employ the twelve tone method.)), expressionist melodrama. Set to Albert Giraud’s text, the poems, usually spoken by a soprano, are delivered in “Sprechgesang” (spoken singing). Upon its 1912 premiere, “Pierrot Lunaire” predictably offended the traditionalists. Much publicity was made about it, mostly bad, but at least this was a period when new music and new composers actually grabbed headlines. As late as the 1970s, conservative NY Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg claimed that “Pierrot Lunaire”‘s’ failure to enter the standard repertoire was an indictment of contemporary music. Yet, the 21st century has (somewhat) rendered Schonberg’s assessment as premature. If not quite part of the daily repertoire diet, “Lunaire” is extensively recorded and performed. One might envision it someday becoming as commonplace as Beethoven. However, together, Herrmann, Boulez, and Schäfer produce a commendable effort to rectify its potentially harmful respectability. The proof is in the pudding as far as music forum reviews go, with the hopelessly puritan music fans expressing outrage towards Herrmann’s blasphemous filming of music that was labeled blasphemous in 1912. One would think, with the combination of Schoenberg, Boulez, Herrmann, and Schäfer, blasphemy would and should be expected. Schoenberg is a composer who was and remains spiritually antithetical to the tenets of fundamentalism, and yet, long dead in his grave, he holds no sway with that lot. Fortunately, the principals speak blasphemy fluently and refuse to appease those who prefer art-music to be neutered, polished, and pedestaled. Schoenberg’s sense of danger is not only intact, but expanded upon.
The haunting lyrics are besotted with imagery of sick moons, flowing blood, brandished swords, gruesome communion, blue murder, bloodied crosses, ancient gloom, one-legged storks, coffins, and giant black butterflies ready for the kill. It’s hardly “La Boheme,” Continue reading THE SHORT FILMS OF OLIVER HERRMAN
233. DEATH BY HANGING (1968)
Koshikei
“You mustn’t think our film is just labored theorizing. The officials’ attempts to convince R that he is R are amusing and bizarre. I think it’s a spot-on depiction of all us Japanese in all our amusing bizarreness.”–Nagisa Ôshima
DIRECTED BY: Nagisa Ôshima
FEATURING: Yung-Do Yun, Fumio Watanabe, Kei Satô, Akiko Koyama
PLOT: After the failed execution of a Japanese-Korean double murderer, various state functionaries are at a loss as how to proceed when the criminal’s body refuses to die. Going to increasingly outlandish lengths to remind the convict of why he is there and condemned, the prison’s officials inadvertently explore the nature of crime, nationality, and culpability. Eventually a young woman is introduced to the group, and the captors decide to get drunk.
BACKGROUND:
- The criminal in Death By Hanging is based on Ri Chin’u, who also murdered two Japanese school girls. In addition to his crimes, Ri Chin’u gained a degree of fame for his extensive writings while in prison.
- Much of the dialogue between R and his “sister” is taken from actual correspondences between Ri Chin’u and a Korean journalist.
- Death by Hanging came during Ôshima‘s most experimental period, made back-to-back with the Certified Weird satire Japanese Summer: Double Suicide. Like most of Ôshima‘s mid-to-late 1960s work, Hanging was initially ignored in America, not even screening for the first time until 1974 and not officially reaching home video until 2016.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: The movie is stuffed to the gills with claustrophobic shots of slapstick fused with philosophy, none more so than the penultimate scene: an unlikely combination of prison officials getting hammered around a “table” while the convict “R” and his (probably imaginary) sister consider the nature of guilt. The drinkers take turns discussing how they came to this kind of work while R, reclining with the young woman beneath a Japanese flag, comes to the conclusion that though he committed his crimes, he is not responsible for them.
THREE WEIRD THINGS: Stubborn corpse; rape re-enactment; hallucination participation
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Death By Hanging starts with a very traditional documentary approach, including narration reeling off statistics and some expository shots of a nondescript execution facility in a prison compound. Quickly, however, the aura of formality disintegrates as the hapless officials endeavor in vain to make sense of the film’s central conceit: a young convict refusing to die. Their efforts to restore his memory and edge him toward accountability grow desperate and extreme until a point is reached where everyone involved in the process begins to believe in the unreal.
Original trailer for Death by Hanging
COMMENTS: While most leftist directors merely point a shotgun at Continue reading 233. DEATH BY HANGING (1968)
CONTEST: MAKE ME A MEME, WIN A “SEX, MURDER, ART” BLU-RAY SET
(If you’re interested in the details of the “Sex, Murder, Art” prize, just go to the end of this post, or click here to be taken to the description on Cult Epics’ website. Note that, unless you work at a combination bordello/funeral parlor, this link is probably not safe for work!)
366 Weird Movies has no advertising budget, and sucks at self-promotion. We rely on word of mouth to get visitors (and dare we say, fans?) And what’s the best way to get free exposure on the Internet?
An “Internet meme,” of course. (You’ve seen these things, right?)
In fact, the Certified Weird standard bearer Willy Wonka already has his own meme:
It seems like characters from other Certified Weird movies should be able to crawl their way across the Web. So we’re making that the basis of our giveaway contest: develop your own meme, which will then take the Internet by storm, resulting (somehow) in great riches for all of us (or, at least, a Blu-ray set for you). Here are the three 366-branded “image macros” we believe would make good viral candidates:
Notice that the “image macro meme” always has a form and a concept. In the “Willy Wonka” example, the format is: a question at the top of the image, followed by an answer implying hypocrisy or lack of depth on the bottom. (Other “memes” you may have seen have other formal concepts, such as “Conspiracy Keanu“‘s “what if…” structure). The contest winner won’t merely stamp a picture with a funny statement, they will develop their own concept around the chosen image that will allow others to create their own variations on the “meme.” Also, note that you don’t have to use both the top and bottom text areas. They can also be about anything; you don’t have to make the meme center around 366 or weird movies. Creativity (especially weird creativity) will win the contest.
Here’s an example of what a contest entry might look like (remember, develop your own concept!):
Use memegenerator.com to make these. Click on the image you’d like to use above, or follow these links:
Radiator Lady
Toilet Bunny Boy
Master Goat Testicle
Enter your own text. I recommend ticking the box that says “upload to imgur,” then taking the link from there and pasting it in the comments here as your submission. (We’re not going to walk you through how to do all this; that’s part of the contest). The winner will be chosen at the sole discretion of the Staff. Thinking outside the box and/or demonstrating an ability to actually propagate the meme in the wild will score you extra points. Bribery has also been known to work. Contestants should limit themselves to one entry per image macro (although you could show us multiple examples of the macro in practice, if you like). Remember to post a link to the result in the comments section.
Oh yes, and about the prize. “Sex, Murder, Art” is a four-disc Blu-ray (plus two soundtrack CD) set comprising the main work of transgressive provocateur Jörg Buttgereit, to be released this April. The films include Nekromantik, Nekromantik 2, Der Todesking, and the newly-released 1993 serial killer atrocity Schramm. The collection comes with tons of extra features and a 40-page booklet. More details at Cult Epics’ NSFW website.
Contest closes at Midnight, April 11. Winner must be 18 years of age and provide a mailing address within the U.S. or Canada for delivery of the prize. Employees of 366 Weird Movies and its affiliates are not eligible for this contest, but since 366 Weird Movies has no employees or affiliates, the impact of this disclaimer is minimal.