Isolation is a harbor for the worst kind of company.
Monthly Archives: December 2019
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 12/6/2019
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Daniel Isn’t Real (2019): Read Giles Edwards’ review. We also have an audio interview with director Adam Egypt Mortimer about this psychological horror about a grown man and his evil imaginary friend. Daniel Isn’t Real official site.
In Fabric (2018): Peter Strickland‘s latest is a surreal horror about a haunted dress. We’ve been waiting for this one to debut in theaters for quite a while; the fact that it was picked up by A24 only stokes our enthusiasm. In Fabric official site.
Knives and Skin (2019): Read Giles Edwards’ festival note. A Twin Peaks-ey tale about “emotional idiots” (Giles’ words) in the aftermath of a student’s disappearance. Knives and Skin official site.
The Wolf Hour (2019): An agoraphobic writer (Naomi Watts) suffers in her apartment while the Son of Sam terrorizes the city outside. Mixed reviews, but Jeannette Catsoulis did call it a “punishingly theatrical experiment that teeters on the verge of surreality.” The Wolf Hour official site.
IN DEVELOPMENT (pre-publication):
“Antkind”: Not a movie (at least, not yet) but a novel: Charlie Kaufman‘s fiction debut (yes, he’d never written a novel) will be published in May 2020 by Random House. It’s about a failed film critic (not based on anyone here, to our knowledge) who discovers a lost masterpiece that might make his career—the problem being, he’s the only living person who’s seen it and, except for a single surviving still, the print has been destroyed. Kaufman’s editor described it as a “mind-bending opus.” We’re sure it will be viewed as a masterpiece on whatever planet it was written. Visit Penguin/Random House for more info on “Antkind.”
IN DEVELOPMENT (pre-production):
Twilight Park (202?): We can’t really tell you too much about this upcoming project from stop-motion animator Eric Leiser, except that the concept art looks fascinating and surreal. The footage below is to be incorporated into the finished production; that might get you excited. Twilight Park official Facebook page.
Little Band of Sailors from Eric Leiser on Vimeo.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
She (1984): Goofy post-Conan post-apocalyptic b-movie starring Sandahl Bergman as leader of a band of wasteland Amazons. Features a giant in a tutu and other vintage 80s nuttiness. A “special edition” DVD or Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Buy She
Slaughterhouse Five (1972): Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time… Adaptations of Kurt Vonnegut novels have seldom fared well either with critics or audiences, but this may be the exception. A typically packed Blu-ray from Arrow Video. Buy Slaughterhouse-Five
CERTIFIED WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). We’ll only list irregularly scheduled one-time screenings of this audience-participation classic below. You can use this page to find a regular weekly screening near you.
- Bloomington, IN
- Boston, MA
- Coolidge Corner – Suspiria (1977) (12/7, midnight)
- Museum of Fine Arts – Barton Fink (1991) (12/8, 11)
- Houston, TX
- The River Oaks – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) (12/6-7, midnights)
- Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
- Uptown Theatre – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) (12/6-7, midnights)
- New York City, NY
- IFC Center
- Eraserhead (1977) (12/6-7, midnights)
- Night of the Hunter (1955) (12/6-7, midnights)
- Museum of Modern Art – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) (12/6)
- The Roxy – Wild at Heart (1990) (12/7)
- IFC Center
- Oakland, CA
- The New Parkway
- Spirited Away (2001) (12/7-9, 11)
- Twelve Monkeys (1995) (12/8)
- The New Parkway
- Toronto, ON
- The Royal – Solaris [Solyaris] (1972) (12/7)
- Washington, DC
- Smoke & Barrel – Singapore Sling (1990), with “Ulysses 31” (short) (12/9)
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: In the unlikely case you missed the news, we just got the 366 Weird Movies 2019 Yearbook out onto the shelves. Proofing and formatting that tome—along with fitting in late 2019 releases at the last minute—has taken up most of our time and energy this month, which has left us with little in the tank. For that reason, we’re only promising one review for you next week: a report on Matthew Barney’s Redoubt, now touring select locations. We may slip something else in, of course, but no promises. We should be returning to a normal schedule of two or three reviews per week, but in the meantime we encourage you to buy a copy of that Yearbook to stave off any weird movie review withdrawal symptoms.
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
CAPSULE: KNIFE + HEART (2018)
Un couteau dans le coeur
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Yann Gonzalez
FEATURING: Vanessa Paradis, Nicolas Maury, Kate Moran, Jonathan Genet
PLOT: A troubled director tries to figure out who’s killing off the actors in her gay porn troupe.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Although there are a few odd touches, Knife + Heart essentially rehashes familiar old giallo territory, but with a new queer slant.
COMMENTS: Knife + Heart (the French title translates to the more euphonious A Knife in the Heart) is basically a modern, queer giallo that plays out in the unique setting of the 1970s French gay porn industry. Gruesomely, it features a killer who strikes with a knife sheathed in a dildo. The protagonist is Anne, an alcoholic lesbian still hopelessly in love with Lois, her film editor, long after the latter has rejected her for her wine-sodden unpredictability. When the cast and crew of her latest pornographic opus start turning up dead, Anne develops a new obsession. She makes a tasteless porno adaptation of the real life crimes, including an interrogation scene that echoes her actual interview with the police, but this time with typewriter boffing. (After considering a couple of titles, she settles on Homocidal.) An accidentally discovered clue leads her to a remote French village where a mysterious bird is said to live, and then indirectly to the actual killer.
Knife + Heart stays true to the giallo form, with fetishistic shots of phallic knives in black-gloved hands and an obvious tribute to Suspiria’s colorful rainstorm driving scene. Ultimately, the solution to the mystery isn’t particularly convincing,—which is also true to the genre. Although there are a few mildly surreal bits—including a surprise bird claw you won’t forget—the main novelty here is the transposition of the erotic locus from the hetero- to the homo-sexual world. The sex is graphic, but not actually hardcore (although it comes close enough to rate this as an 18+ production).
Although Knife + Heart is a stylish and more-than-competent homage, I wondered about the purpose of the whole experiment. It’s an entertaining throwback, but besides queer inclusiveness, it doesn’t add much to the genre. The film has a superficial artiness—check out that post-credits Roman orgy!—that primes you for something deeper than a mere thriller; yet, disappointingly, it never really dives beneath its pretty surface.
This is Yann Gonzalez’s second feature film after 2013’s even more explicitly erotic (and even more surreal) You and the Night [Les Rencontres d’après minuit]. Both films screened at Cannes to generally positive receptions. Americans can catch them on physical media or streaming services (both are on Kanopy). Both are also scored by Yann’s brother Anthony, a popular electronic musician with the band M83.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
THE 2019 YEARBOOK IS HERE!
Every year we promise to get the previous year’s Yearbook out sooner, and every year it ends up debuting sometime in the middle of the following year.
This year, we actually did it. Here it is, fresh and weird and ready to strangen up your Xmas:
Besides being out on time, there are a few format changes to this edition of the Yearbook that will hopefully increase the already inestimable pleasure you take from each annual:
- An advance peek at the top 10 weird movies of 2019, before the year is even over!
- 80 reviews of 2019 releases and re-releases, plus coverage of innumerable (that means we didn’t bother to count them, right?) film festival favorites (and less-than-favorites).
- Reworked and improved reviews and features.
- Exclusive interview with Tilman Singer and production designer Dario Mendez (Luz) (not available online).
- A brand new availability grid showing where the streamable films are streaming (not available online).
As always, the book is available either in trade paperback
All profits derived from your kind purchase will go towards paying our hosting costs. As always, any leftover monies will be wasted on G. Smalley’s relentless and desperate pursuit of hedonistic excess: an ocean of hazelnut-infused bourbon, a parade of cheap floozies, and impulsive weird movie purchases that leave him feeling physically spent, but empty and soulless. Good times!
CAPSULE: BUNUEL IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE TURTLES (2018)
DIRECTED BY: Salvador Simó Busom
FEATURING: Voices of Jorge Usón, Fernando Ramos
PLOT: Animated film chronicling the making of Luis Buñuel’s third movie, the Surrealist documentary Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan (“Land Without Bread”) (1933), about a poverty-stricken region of Spain.
COMMENTS: It’s surprising that there are (to my knowledge) no biopics devoted exclusively to the explosive artist Luis Buñuel. He makes a brief appearance in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011) and plays third wheel to Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca in the regrettable Little Ashes (2008), but Labyrinth of the Turtles is the only movie to make the father of cinematic Surrealism the central character. That fact would make this film notable even if it wasn’t good; fortunately, it’s as entertaining as it is informative.
Labyrinth of the Turtles is based on a graphic novel, and the animation is stiff and delivered at a low frame rate. Given that this is an adult film about ideas rather than a kid’s cartoon about chase scenes, this isn’t a problem. Actual scenes from Land Without Bread are cleverly embedded within the animation. The choice to film in hand-drawn animation allows for inclusion of some dream sequences that would be expensive to render in live-action: elephants with stilt legs stomping through the streets of Paris, and Buñuel groping the Virgin Mary, who then shows him a vision of a giraffe with a cabinet in its torso.
It begins with Buñuel as persona non grata in the French filmmaking community, blackballed by bishops after the blasphemy of his second film, L’Age d’Or. He only raises enough money for his planned documentary when his friend Ramón Acín wins the lottery. Although an avant-garde writer and sculptor by vocation, it falls upon Ramón to be both the voice of financial reason and the comic foil, fretting about Buñuel’s extravagant purchase of an automobile and his erratic methods.
Labyrinth of the Turtles presumes that the viewer has a passing familiarity with its subject, and although novices should be able to follow along, it will be more rewarding to Buñuel enthusiasts. For example, Turtles references Buñuel’s habit (hee-hee) of dressing as a nun to shock the bourgeois. It also cites the director’s rocky rivalry with painter and former collaborator Dalí: the movie’s biggest set piece, the anxious nightmare where Luis sees Dalían pachyderms marching through the streets of Paris, suggests that his comrade’s greater recognition deeply rankled and motivated Buñuel. The movie doesn’t shy away from the director’s cruelty towards animals, either: he arranges for the killings of a rooster, a goat, and (most disturbingly) a donkey, as part of his obsession with the ever-present specter of death. He can also be tender towards the children of Las Hurdes, however, and seems to genuinely respect and suffer along with the poor of the region (going so far as to plan not to eat in front of them). All in all, The Labyrinth of Turtles is a significant, imaginative document of an important but neglected bit of cinema’s history, delivered in a paradoxical spirit its master would approve of.
This Spanish production was picked up by animation specialist GKids as a prestige picture and briefly released to theaters in 2019.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: