Monthly Archives: April 2017

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 4/7/2017

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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 at the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Your Name (2016): Two teenage strangers randomly and periodically swap bodies in this anime feature. The words “weird” and “bizarre” were briefly spotted in Rotten Tomato excerpts, along with the phrase “Oscar buzz.” Your Name U.S. distributor site.

SCREENINGS – (IFC Center, New York City, Apr.7-13):

bonanza: The IFC Center has become so prolific in screening their stockpile of weird midnight movies that we don’t mention them every week anymore; you can just assume something cool is playing there on weekends. This week, however, their lineup is just too stacked to pass up. In conjunction with their screening of the documentary David Lynch: The Art Life, they’ve broken out their Lynch archive, with showings of Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive this weekend, along with Eraserhead playing all week long. And if you get sick of a steady diet of Lynch, there’s The Holy Mountain on Friday and Saturday at midnight to break it up. Don’t overdose, and remember you cannot live on popcorn and soda alone for long. Check the IFC Center homepage for a complete schedule.

SCREENINGS – (The New Parkway Theater, Oakland, CA Apr.9, 10, & 13):

El Topo (1970) and Pink Flamingos (1972): The New Parkway is new to us, but they feature an eclectic lineup of new and repertory movies, highlighted this week by two Certified Weird classics: ‘s surrealist spaghetti western El Topo and ‘ classic of filth, Pink Flamingos. Hope the pizza (delivered to your seat as you enjoy the film) is good, too (though we suggest skipping the brownies for Flamingos). The New Parkway calendar.

SCREENINGS – (AFI Silver Theater, Silver Springs, MD, Mon. Apr. 10):

Swiss Army Man (2016): If you’re in the D.C. metro area and you missed our pick for 2016’s second weirdest movie when it was in theaters, here’s your chance to catch it on the big screen, courtesy of AFI’s “second look” series. Swiss Army Man at AFI Silver Theater.

FILM FESTIVALS – San Francisco International Film Festival, (San Francisco, CA, Apr. 5–19 ):

We don’t always mention the second-tier San Francisco International Film Festival, but this year they’re worth noting due to a very special guest programmer and one big, weird U.S. debut. Besides a few international films we’ve seen making the rounds—Iran’s experimental A Dragon Arrives!, João Pedro Rodrigues’s mystical The Ornithologist, the erotic Mexican horror The Untamed, and the Korean doppelganger romance Yourself and Yours—the big items (from our skewed perspective) appear below:

  • “Canyon Cinema 50: Guy Maddin Presents ‘The Great Blondino’ and Other Delights” – Four short avant-garde films from Canyon’s catalog, selected by a great Guy and including Daina Krumins “The Divine Miracle.” Happening Apr. 15.
  • Endless Poetry – SFIFF’s big get is the U.S. debut of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s second installment in the autobiographical project that began with the Certified Weird The Dance of Reality, now concerning his experiences as a young bohemian artist in Santiago. Premiering Apr. 10, bonus screening on the 19th.
  • The Green Fog: A San Francisco Fantasia – Guy Maddin is back, along with The Forbidden Room collaborators Galen and , with a (doubtlessly transformed) collage of San Francisco footage inspired by the storyline of Vertigo, set to a new composition by Jacob Garchik preformed by the Kronos Quartet. No idea if this intriguing collaboration will ever be seen outside this live performance, but it closes the festival on April 16.

San Francisco International Film Festival home page.

IN DEVELOPMENT (rumored):

Donnie Darko sequel: We’re a little bit late in passing on this news, but suggests that he’s interested in making a “bigger and more ambitious” movie (not necessarily a sequel) set in the Donnie Darko universe. Kelly hasn’t directed since 2009’s The Box, but says he has another project lined up before the Darko film. Nothing shows up on IMDB yet. In more recent Kelly news, he also suggests he might rerelease an “expanded” cut of his post-apocalyptic flop Southland Tales. Come back to us, Richard! The Playlist seems to be first with Kelly news.

IN DEVELOPMENT (currently filming):

Image et Parole (est. late 2017): Speaking of late news, we’re even tardier in telling you about ageless provocateur ‘s latest—but this one will definitely happen, at least. All we know for sure is that its set in the Arab world and be “a mix of fact and fiction”; we assume it will follow the abstract, postmodern pattern of his late work (Film Socialisme and Goodbye to Language, both of which divided critics—we came down on the “insufferably indulgent” bandwagon). Our expectations may be low, but Godard’s distinguished career has earned him a fair hearing. The Film Stage has a few details.

NEW ON DVD:

Tank 432 [AKA Belly of the Bulldog] (2015): Post-apocalyptic mercenaries seek refuge in an abandoned tank that becomes a prison. The feature debut of ‘s cameraman Nick Gillespie (Wheatley produced); reviews were not good, but it does describe itself as a “mind-bending plunge into hallucinatory terror.” Buy Tank 432.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Tank 432 [AKA Belly of the Bulldog] (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Tank 432 [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

1974 EXPLOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE: ANDY WARHOL’S DRACULA, IT’S ALIVE, AND LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES

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1974 brought a cult movie smorgasbord, beginning with Andy Warhol’s Dracula (AKA Blood for Dracula, directed by ), which is better known than the previous year’s Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. It again stars (as the bloodsucker) and (as the servant Mario), along with famed Italian director Vitorrio De Sica as a patriarch with four daughters who need marrying off. Kier’s count is sick, depressed, and bored to tears. He needs virgin blood, but post-sexual revolution, that’s not easy to come by. Three of the four candidates turn out to be sloppy seconds, making the Count even sicker. When he finally does find daughter four to be a virgin, the meddlesome Mario saves her in the predictable way, with Dracula diving to the floor to lap up popped cherry sauce.

Still from Blood for Dracula (1974)Knowingly misogynistic, with a splendid score (Claudio Gizzi), an over-the-top finale that puts some of the sillier Hammer vampire dispatches to shame, and a cameo, Blood for Dracula is far from perfect, but endures as a cult oddity.

‘s Phantom of the Paradise is probably the best film based on the Gaston Leroux novel. It’s greatness lies in its refusal to put the original narrative on a pedestal, which, despite what a certain hack composer named Webber claims, is not that good anyway. It quickly secured its cult standing, but is often considered to be under the shadow of 1975’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Both are delightful, but if it’s an either/or situation, go with De Palma. His is the better film.

The Night Porter (directed by Liliana Cavani ) was to 1974 what Fifty Shades Of Grey was to 2015, the difference being the S&M relationship here is between a former SS officer (Dirk Bogarde) and the Jewess he tortured in the concentration camp (). It’s arthouse reputation secured a strong following for years, and it was eventually released on home video via the Criterion Collection. It wasn’t unanimously loved; Roger Ebert was among its critics, in an almost infamous review.

Rampling co-starred  in her second 1974 cult movie with ‘s Zardoz, appearing alongside in a ponytail and diaper. It’s yet another 1974 entry that made our official weird movie list.

Hyped as a soft core porn parody of “Flash Gordon,” Flesh Gordon (co-directed by Michael Benveniste and Howard Ziehm) was another immediate cult hit, although it’s largely forgotten today. More sophomoric parody than porn, it has period charm as a fan film with Continue reading 1974 EXPLOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE: ANDY WARHOL’S DRACULA, IT’S ALIVE, AND LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES →

Canonically Weird (The List)

277. INDECENT DESIRES (1968)

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366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

“[Wishman] seemed genuinely surprised, even skeptical, that anyone could find her work worthy of study, probably because at first glance her films often reveal such trademark low-budget production values as dodgy lighting and interiors resembling rundown motel rooms. Yet behind her economically deprived visuals lie a wealth of imagination: wildly improbable plots, bizarre ‘method’ acting and scripts yielding freely to fantasy.”–“Incredibly Strange Films”

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Sharon Kent, Michael Alaimo, Trom Little, Jackie Richards

PLOT: A nebbishy pack rat finds a ring and a blonde doll in a trash can; soon after, he sees secretary Ann walking to work, then sees the image of the doll overlaid on Ann’s body. Returning to his dingy apartment, he puts on the ring and gropes the doll, and Ann feels invisible hands on her as she stands by the water cooler. The stalker follows Ann home after she leaves work, discovers she has a steady boyfriend, and takes out his jealousy on the doll.

Still from Indecent Desires (1968)

BACKGROUND:

  • Doris Wishman, who had worked in film distribution, began her directing career after her husband died at a young age as a way to keep busy. She originally began working in the brief nudist camp genre, movies that rushed to exploit nudity after a New York judge ruled that stories set within the nudist lifestyle were not per se obscene. After the fad for nudist films, and the “nudie cutie” sub-genre that grew out of them, died out, Wishman moved into the production of “roughies,” a sexploitation genre with less actual nudity but more violence and kink. She was one of the only women directing such films at the time. Indecent Desires comes from the middle of this period, which lasted roughly from 1965’s Bad Girls Go to Hell to 1970’s The Amazing Transplant.
  • Wishman’s 1960s movies were mostly shot without sound. Dialogue was dubbed in later. She often directed longtime cameraman C. Davis Smith to focus the camera on ashtrays,  potted plants, or an actress’ feet instead of the person speaking in order to make the sound syncing easier later. This technique initially confused audiences, but later became recognized as a Wishman trademark.
  • Like most of her work of this period, Wishman used “Louis Silverman” as her directing pseudonym and “Dawn Whitman” as her writing pseudonym.
  • Terri McSorley‘s Staff Pick for a Certified Weird movie.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The image of the blonde trash can doll superimposed over Ann as she walks to work. This sight is the closest thing to a special effect to ever appear in one of Wishman’s movies.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Doll-groping transient; Babs makes out with herself; nude leg lifts

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Doris Wishman made sleazy sexploitation movies marked by their strange camerawork, unsynced sound, grimy settings, amateur acting by curvy models in lingerie, odd plots, burlesque house jazz soundtracks, and a weird, pervasive sense of erotic guilt. Indecent Desires features her usual shenanigans delivered in one of her most inexplicable stories: a tale of a symbiotic relationship between a stalker, a doll, and a beautiful woman that is so context-free it serves as a fill-in-the-blank sexual parable. It’s perhaps her strangest and most disconnected plot, which makes it the perfect item to represent Wishman on the List of the Weirdest Movies of all Time.


Original trailer for Indecent Desires (audio only)

COMMENTS: Whatever her filmmaking talents, or lack of same, Continue reading 277. INDECENT DESIRES (1968) →

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN (1985)

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DIRECTED BY: Will Vinton

FEATURING: James Whitmore (voice)

PLOT: The acclaimed author, with three of his most famous characters in tow, recounts a few of his famous tales while racing in a fantastical airship to meet up with Halley’s Comet.

Still fromThe Adventures of Mark Twain (1985)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: The unique properties of the Claymation stop-motion technique give Mark Twain a distinctive look and feel, and in key moments, the film manages to capture the subject’s complex inner voice better than almost any adaptation of his work. But the attempt to graft an exploration of the many facets of the personality of Samuel Clemens onto what is clearly meant to be a delightful children’s entertainment results in a metaphysical mishmash that’s more messy than it is mindbending. There’s not really anything like The Adventures of Mark Twain, which actually makes it harder to peg for the purposes of this project; the pendulum swings mightily between bafflement at what they were trying to do and amazement at what they did.

COMMENTS: Several years ago, a video started making the rounds across the interwebs. It bore the title, “very creepy, disturbing children’s cartoon, banned from TV,” and featured a strange headless creature with a mask instead of a face who makes a small village of tiny, happy, featureless people for the amusement of three children, and then proceeds to destroy said village in a flourish of calamity and misery.

Of course, the cartoon was not “banned from TV”, and even without attribution, a keen eye would recognize the unique plasticine style as that of animation pioneer Will Vinton. Best-known for his commercial work (most prominently the California Raisins), Vinton gained notoriety for an aggressively detailed approach to stop-motion animation. In contrast to, say, the Aardman house style, which is consistently smooth and a little stodgy, Vinton got deep into the craggy details, carving every deep wrinkle and wild strand of hair in thick, fingerprint-impressed clay. In addition to advertisements, Vinton’s work landed him sequences in TV shows and movies, music videos, and a series of holiday specials, to say nothing of an Oscar and three more nominations for his short film work. Mark Twain was his only feature-length project, and a curious one it turns out to be.

From the get-go, this is a perplexing tale being told. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Becky Thatcher—all Twain creations—spot the famous author planning to fly a giant dirigible to the stars in pursuit of Halley’s Comet. (As the film’s epigram reminds us, Samuel Clemens was born in 1835, contemporaneously to one of the comet’s periodic appearances, and the author frequently referenced his expectation that he would “go out” with the comet upon its return.) They have no notion of being characters from Twain’s mind, and he only obliquely references their roles as characters in his novels. Once they are ensconced as part of the crew, he introduces them to some of his other Continue reading LIST CANDIDATE: THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN (1985) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: PARENTS (1989)

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Bob Balaban

FEATURING: , Mary Beth Hurt, Bryan Madorsky

PLOT: Moving to a new town and going to a new school can be tough on a young boy, but Michael’s problems may be even worse—his parents might be cannibals.

Still from Parents (1988)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Parents is a wonderful little black comedy directed by Bob Balaban, better known for his many appearances in off-beat comedies over the past few decades (including Moonrise Kingdom, Gosford Park, and as a recurring character on “Seinfeld”). With three-million bucks and an eccentric performance from Randy Quaid, Balaban put together a fun little romp of the macabre combining “nifty-’50s” schmaltz with nightmarish overtones. If really pressed, I’d say it could make the “Certified Weird” cut; but frankly, we’re running out of space.

COMMENTS: Some years bring us big movies—-movies a generation remembers as iconic. The year 1988 brought us classics like Die Hard, Coming to America, Rain Man, and Big. It also brought us Parents—a movie that, like “the Little Engine that Could”, eschews fame but provides a solid performance. Tucked away among dozens of big-name pictures that year, Parents succeeds at everything it sets out to: it is dark, it is funny, and it is a helluva sinister showcase for Randy Quaid. It fared poorly in theaters—not surprising considering the genre (horror comedy), competition (already mentioned), and stars (great actors, but not Hollywood gods). But who cares? Though not quite a qualifier for Certified Weird status, Parents is exactly the kind of movie for our readers.

A jaunty mamba plays through the credits: a pleasant montage of 1950’s hyper-Lynchian suburbia: helicopter shots of indentikit houses; a beautiful mint-green Oldsmobile filled with wholesome groceries and a nuclear family; a friendly crossing guard. But alas, young Michael Laemle (Bryan Madorsky) lacks his parents’ enthusiasm about moving from Massachusetts. Michael sullenly mopes about the house in near silence, refusing to eat any of the left-overs brought from their old home. His mother Lily (Mary Beth Hurt) is a chirpy kind of perfect housewife, maintaining a spotless home while cooking elaborate, meaty meals. Michael’s father Nick is enthusiastic about his job (developing aerosol defoliants) and is keen to fit in with the new neighbors. What’s eating at the boy, then?

The greatest charm of Parents is its narrative ambiguity. Balaban crafts a tone that matches its hyper-kitschy nostalgia with equal parts menace. Colors pop off the screen while a lack of immediate context and chilling musical cues do a lot of heavy lifting. Nick Laemle is prone to telling didactic “stories” to his son, typically to a discordant, darkened score. And the big question—are the parents cannibals?—is difficult to answer. Early on we see Michael witness his parents being romantic, with mom’s lipstick smeared on her and her husband. What develops is a conflation of his parents’ physicality with his paranoia about the nightly meat dishes. Since everything is through the eyes of the morosely imaginative Michael, the fiery ending could be construed as tragicomic, or just straight up tragic.

Unexpectedly, Parents excels in its characterization. Lily’s emotional distress about her boy is palpable; Nick’s inability to bond with his son is moving. And, time and again, the big question of the film pops up. Others may disagree, but I’m of the feeling that all the “trouble” in the story is in the mind of young Michael. Though he’s the central observer, scenes exist in the film that he cannot possibly have witnessed. But I digress. At 81 minutes, Parents is commendably brief. Balaban created a masterpiece in miniature in 1988, one that has aged substantially better than many of its more famous contemporaries.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a deeply ambiguous fusion of the family’s reality and Michael’s psychotic fantasy, where cracks in the surface sheen of 1950s home life expose something deeply poisonous and combustible beneath. Initially signalled by their monochrome presentation, soon Michael’s deranged visions start coming in full colour (and daylight), with only the canted angles and deliriously spinning mobility of Ernest Day and Robin Vidgeon’s camerawork – and the odd animated salami – to mark how off-kilter a view of bourgeois Americana this is.”–Anton Bitel, FilmLand Empire