Controversy aside, our March Mad Movie Madness List Candidate tournament continues apace, with the 8 remaining movies vying for a chance to be named one of the Freaky Four in contention for the grand prize: a spot on the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies Ever Made.
Went to sleep last night and 16-seed Southland Tales was on the ropes. Woke up this morning, and it had stormed back to defeat heavy favorite A Field in England. This tournament is weird.
At any rate, we’re headed into round 3 of our List Candidate tournament; the prize for the winner is a spot on the final list of the 366 Best Weird Movies of All Time. We’re now into the Sweet Sick-steen, with the contestants competing for advancement into the Ill-ete Eight. (Aren’t we cute?) Go ahead and vote for your favorites below.
This round ends Thursday, Mar. 26 at 11:59 U.S. Eastern Standard Time.
The first round is in the books, and it’s time to move on to the next chapter in the first annual (?) March Mad Movie Madness tournament. The concept is pretty self-evident, but if you have any questions maybe a look at the first round will help. The big surprise result was Southland Tales upsetting #1 seed Under the Skin. Don’t know where all the Southland fans came from, but we’ll see if they can keep it up to the finish line. I had predicted that the final would be Under the Skin vs. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (which was also upset, by The Machinist), which goes to show how well I understand the tastes of our readers. Your selections were, for lack of a better word, weird. Keep it up!
This round ends Monday, Mar. 23 at 11:59 U.S. Eastern Standard Time.
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 on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Jauja (2014): A Danish soldier (Viggo Mortensen) hunts for his eloped daughter in the wilds of Patagonia in this minimalist experimental feature. Reviews have been general good, but this is one of those arthouse features that comes with a “slow” warning. Jauja official site.
SCREENINGS – (Ann Arbor, MI, Wed., Mar. 25, 9:30 PM):
SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, Fri., Mar. 20-21):
The Color of Pomegranates (1968): : Sergei Parajanov‘s stunning impressionistic biography of Armenian poet Sayat Nova, in a newly restored print. Screens tonight (Friday 20th) at 7:30 PM PST, and again tomorrow at 5 PM. The Color of Pomegranates at Cinefamily.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972): The Spanish conquistador Aguirre loses his mind and sets off on a suicidal journey down the Amazon searching for the fabled city of El Dorado. Arguably Klaus Kinski‘s greatest performance and Werner Herzog‘s masterpiece, it’s also been a long-standing fixture in our reader-suggested review queue. Buy Aguirre, The Wrath of God [Blu-ray].
In honor of the American collegiate athletic tradition of March Madness, we’re throwing our own Tournament of Madness to allow readers to decide which of the most popular List Candidates will be the next to be placed on the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies Ever Made.
We seeded 64 movies on the basis of pageviews over the last year, and laboriously entered them into a tournament bracket. Because there is no free service out there currently allowing the public to set up a customizable voting bracket, we had to use a somewhat cumbersome format whereby one service hosts the bracket, while another service handles the voting. We’re certain you’ll figure it out, but if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section.
Simply vote for your favorite between each of the 32 head-to-head contests. You do not have to vote in every match; you can choose to participate in any matchup you like. You can vote once per day. First round voting will last until Thursday, March 19, at midnight, after which point the winners will advance to the next round. At the end of the tournament, in 3 weeks, we will announce the winner and prepare to add it to the List.
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