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Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 6/27/2014

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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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Radio Free Albemuth (2010): A record-store clerk receives a communication from a mysterious entity he calls VALIS that prompts him to try to overthrow the U.S. government. This is an adaptation of the Philip K. (“A Scanner Darkly”) Dick novel of the same name (Dick really believed that he had been contacted by aliens). Radio Free Albemuth official site.

Snowpiercer (2013): The remnants of humanity survive on a perpetual motion train after an environmental disaster freezes the globe. We Americans finally get to see the movie the rest of the world has been talking about for a year (at least, some of us do, given the limited release). Snowpiercer official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Enemy (2013): Read our review! Unfortunately there’s no commentary on the DVD, meaning no insight into the movie’s mysterious ending (although maybe that’s for the best). Buy Enemy.

Faust (2011): Alexandr (Russian Ark) Sokurov’s minimalist, hallucinatory retelling of Goethe’s phantasmagorical classic about Mephistopheles tempting the titular doctor. Though it’s definitely in an arthouse vein, Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York called it a “triumph of the weird.” Buy Faust.

A Hard Day’s Night (1964): America was surprised when the first feature film by Mop Top Pop sensations was a plotless mockumentary filled with absurd humor. Director would later bring us the surreal post-apocalyptic comedy The Bed Sitting Room (1969). Criterion natural includes documentary extras on the film and Beatlemania in general, although note that you’ll need to spring for the Blu-ray/DVD combo package to get the whole lot. Buy A Hard Day’s Night [Criterion Collection].

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Enemy (2013): See description in DVD above. Buy Enemy [Blu-ray].

A Hard Day’s Night (1964): See description in DVD above. This is a DVD/Blu-ray combo, but note: this set includes a disc of extra features, including Lester’s surrealist comedy short “The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film” (starring Peter Sellers), that are not available on the single disc DVD. Buy A Hard Day’s Night [Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD].

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.

List Candidates, Reader Recommendations

READER RECOMMENDATION: PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)

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Reader recommendation by “Brad”

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Adam Sandler, , , Luis Guzman

PLOT: Business owner Barry Egan (Sandler) deals with anger issues, seven abusive sisters, a sex phone con artist, and the appearance of a strange harmonium all while falling in love with a mysterious, yet sympathetic woman (Watson).

Still from Punch-drunk Love (2002)
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: With its lead’s compulsive abrupt violent behavior, an uneasy sense of loneliness, abstract color schemes by Jeremy Blake, and a wonderfully weird soundtrack by Jon Brion, this film is highly off-kilter for a romantic comedy.

COMMENTS: Paul Thomas Anderson followed up his dramatic masterpiece Magnolia with this small-scale arthouse comedy/drama/character study. Adam Sandler was chosen for the role of troubled lead Barry Egan. Unlike the typical crude humor Sandler is known for, here he uses a restrained, subtle performance to capture Egan’s tantrums, loneliness, and troubled life. Egan is a unhappy business owner balancing work and his seven abusive sisters who taunt him about being gay and continuously call him at work. Barry comes across a harmonium that was sat on the side of the road by a mysterious van following an out of nowhere car crash (foreshadowing a later car crash with Sandler and Watson). Later, we explore Barry’s loneliness and his paranoia when he calls a sex phone operator who later begins to con Barry out of money, threatening and later sending out a group of brothers hired as hitmen to rough Egan up. This blackmail operation is ran by the “Mattress Man” (Philip Seymour Hofffman, in a hilarious role). Egan ends up meeting a mysterious, beautiful young woman, Lena (Watson) through his sister, the same woman earlier in the film he briefly talked to about leaving her car. He begins to fall in love over the course of the film attending a date at a restaurant that ends with them kicked out due to his uncontrollable temper. He then follows her to Hawaii, using frequent flyer miles earned from buying pudding. The hitmen are later defeated after a car crash wounds Lena, who is hospitalized. Barry confront the Mattress Man in a hilarious final showdown. The film ends with Barry running back to Lena, confessing all his problems and promising to never leave  again. Too weird to be a mainstream rom-com, too unpredictable and arthouse to please everyone, Paul Thomas Anderson retains his courage for experimenting with film and pulls an actual performance from Sandler. This is a MUST EXPERIENCE for any film fan looking to step outside the usual boundaries set by mainstream romantic comedy/dramas.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a weirdly sweet little love story… Anderson also throws in dark complications, including a sinister phone-sex scam, Barry’s strangely surreal sisters, his pudding-purchasing obsession and some very odd pillow talk.”–Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times (contemporaneous)

Punch-Drunk Love (The Criterion Collection) [4K UHD]

Punch-Drunk Love (The Criterion Collection) [4K UHD]
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Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 6/20/2014

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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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Coherence: Described as “part cerebral sci-fi and part relationship drama,” this reality-bending debut is garnering comparisons to s Primer for its mix of hard science and low budget. Opening this week in New York and Los Angeles with summer screenings in major cities to follow. Coherence official site.

SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater, Tuesday, June 24):

Jump [Salto] (1965): A man jumps off of a train and lands in a strange, nearly abandoned town. A rare work of Communist-era Polish surrealism. Jump at LACMA screening.

NEW ON DVD:

A Measure of the Sin (2013): An orphaned girl moves to a strange house with a tyrannical patriarch and a bear that only she can see. A very under-the-radar independent arthouse horror film that sounds strange and picked up a few good notices in the horror press. Buy A Measure of the Sin.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975): The remaining residents of an Australian girls’ school are haunted by the unexplained disappearance of three of their classmates from a school outing. Chief among the extras on this Criterion Collection 2 DVD set is director Peter Weir’s earliest feature-length narrative not shot for television, the 50-minute Homesdale, a weird-sounding black comedy about an eccentric who forces his houseguests to play strange, dangerous games. This is a dual DVD/Blu-ray set (one of the last ones Criterion will be issuing, as they’ve decided to release the two formats separately going forward). Buy Picnic at Hanging Rock [Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD].

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975): See description in DVD above. Buy Picnic at Hanging Rock [Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

The Book Of Revelation (2013): A literal, amateur animated version of the Book of Revelation. Purple-faced prophets with robotic voices are one of the least weird things about this reverently (if not revelatory) hallucinatory oddity. Props to lester 1/2jr for discovering this.

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.

Reader Recommendations

TWO READER RECOMMENDATIONS: AFTER HOURS (1985) & STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997)

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Reader recommendations by “Brad.”

After Hours

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Griffin Dunne, , Linda Fiorentino, Tommy Chong, Cheech Marin, Verna Bloom

PLOT: Word processor Paul Hackett (Dunne) starts out on a seemingly normal night out on the town, until he meets a mysterious young woman (Arquette) who lures him into a series of bizarre, comic situations in a dark Soho neighborhood.

Still from After Hours (1985)
BACKGROUND:

  •  was originally set to direct, but when Scorsese failed to get funding for The Last Temptation of Christ he decided to direct After Hours, which Burton gladly stepped aside for Scorsese to do. Now that’s respect.
  • The film was an assignment at Columbia University by screenwriter Joseph Minion.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Paul plastered as a sculpture in the basement of the Club Berlin.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD AND WHY IT DESERVES TO MAKE THE LIST: The bizarre Kafkaesque tragic comedy of the everyman Paul Hackett’s desperate situations. Now matter how Paul approaches a situation the universe has a cruel reaction waiting for him. Suicide, a bondage-obsessed Soho artist, an unrelenting mob, and two local thieves played by “Cheech and Chong”. All set in a dark sleepy Soho neighborhood that’s a menacing character all its own. This is definitely an underappreciated Scorsese film and a weird gem that deserves a lot more attention.

Starship Troopers

DIRECTED BY: Paul Verhoeven

FEATURING: Casper Van Dien, , Jake Busey, , Neil Patrick Harris

PLOT: Johnny Rico (Van Dien) is a soldier in the Mobile Infantry, a branch set to fight the insectoid “Arachnids”.

Still from Starship Troopers (1997)
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Verhoeven’s satire concerning facism and militarism set in a futuristic war against giant insectoids, and Starship Troopers‘ action movie cliches, help to create a truly bizarre hilarious atmosphere for a sci-fi movie.

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 6/13/2014

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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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

The Human Race (2012): Random American citizens are whisked away to a netherworld to participate in a brutal death race; two of them are deaf, and the main character has only one leg. The Facebook page lists it as opening June 13th, but doesn’t say where. The Human Race official Facebook page.

Witching and Bitching (2103): s latest sounds like From Dusk Till Dawn with witches; bank robbers fleeing a heist run into a coven in the woods. The Village Voice says it’s “the rare wannabe cult hit that smears the screen in grade-A craziness.” Playing at IFC Center in Manhattan this week; no word on future dates or venues. Witching and Bitching official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Bushido Man: Seven Deadly Battles [AKA Bushido Man] (2013): A martial arts student goes on a quest to defeat the legendary masters of seven different weapons, and provides a detailed report on the meal his opponent ate before each battle. It’s the first samurai flick for foodies. Buy Bushido Man: Seven Deadly Battles.

Hide and Seek (2013): A man’s search for his missing brother leads him to a strange apartment complex with mysterious symbols scrawled everywhere. Fearnet’s Scott Weinberg promises that this Korean mystery/horror “gets pretty weird.” Buy Hide and Seek.

Visitors (2013): Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi) again teams up with composer Philip Glass for a wordless, minimalist documentary parade of images, this time themed around man’s relationship to technology. Guaranteed to be a not-for-everyone experience! Buy Visitors.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Bushido Man: Seven Deadly Battles (2013): See description in DVD above. Buy Bushido Man: Seven Deadly Battles [Blu-ray].

Visitors (2013): See description in DVD above. A Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. Buy Visitors [Blu-ray/DVD combo].

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.