Japanophiles (particularly Edo-era Japanophiles) will want to tune into this channel Monday to watch Alain Escalle’s impressive 2011 short feature “The Tale of the Floating World” (preemptive content warning/teaser: this film contains dancing nude zombies). On Tuesday we’ll nod to the 2012 festival circuit with short reviews of the Florida noir Sun Don’t Shine and the dreamy nighttime New Orleans doc Tchoupitoulas. Wednesday gets weirder as we look at Vera Chytilová‘s sexy psychedelic/feminist (and banned) feature Daisies, made in 1966 Czechoslovakia.  On Thursday we examine the decidedly non-psychedelic/non-feminist (42nd Street hit) Shanty Tramp, made in America one year later. That crazy lineup should keep you all entertained for another week.

Are people just getting too normal? For the second week in a row, we’re having trouble coming up with a worthy winner for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest. We’ll start out our survey of this week’s pathetic candidates with “american sexy lovely boy and girl living in together movies.com,” which illustrates a recurring feature we’ve always found somewhat odd: there is a species of searcher out there who always adds “.com” to the end of every query they type (as if to say “I want information about american sexy lovely boy and girl living in together movies, but not if it comes from a ‘.org’ domain.”) We follow that one with this search for “movie bad boy bubby (1993) monkey pron,” which sounds to us like the search of someone who’s really interested in monkey porn but wants to pretend they’re looking for something more socially acceptable. Without much to go on in terms of true weirdness, we picked “sexe video purple very weird girl wtih….” as our Weirdest Search Term of the Week. It left us wanting more: just what is it that the searcher hopes to find videos of very weird purple girls having sex with? He just leaves us hanging…

Here’s the ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue: “The Tale of the Floating World” (next week!); “My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117″; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra] (out of print in Region 1, but we’ll keep looking); Liquid Sky Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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.

SCREENINGS (Cinefamily, Los Angeles, June 8-14):

Celine and Julie Go Boating [Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau ] (1974): This fabled but seldom-seen French surrealist comedy about the fantasy lives of two Parisian women is available for viewing (in a newly restored 35mm print) by lucky Los Angelinos. A restoration followed by a tour sometimes indicates that a DVD release is imminent. Keep your fingers crossed… Celine and Julie Go Boating at Cinefamily.

FILM FESTIVALS: FLYOVER FILM FESTIVAL (June 7-10, Louisville, KY):

A blip on the festival circuit—it’s not called “Flyover” because major movies stop there—but worth noting because special guest “366weirdmovies” will personally be in attendance at several screenings. Anyone who misses their connecting flight and finds him or herself stranded in Louisville, KY this weekend will want to look for him (he’ll be sporting his stylish 366 Weird Movies t-shirt) at the following events:

• Sun Don’t Shine – They’re keeping a tight lid on the plot of this road-trip dark romance described as “cryptic” and “eerily poetic,” but it did fare well at the SWSX festival. Director Amy Seimetz (who had a small role in Wristcutters: A Love Story) says the idea came from a recurring nightmare. Screening June 8.
• Tchoupitoulas – Documentary following three wide-eyed young brothers stuck in New Orleans one night has been described as dreamlike and even (occasionally) surreal. Screening Jun 10.
• The Unknown – Read our capsule review. Louisville native Tod Browning‘s perverse melodrama about an “armless” knife thrower in love with a woman who can’t abide the touch of a man gets a new live soundtrack by dark ambient rockers Seluah. Screening June 9.

Flyover Film Festival official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Mr Bean Possessed by Depe [Mr. Bean Kesurupan Depe] (2012?): Is big-time comedy star Rowan Atkinson (“Mr. Bean”) about to be cut into an Indonesian horror comedy starring alongside a Malaysian pop idol? The Jakarta Post seems to think so. And this blog reported that “world secretly actor” Atkinson was seen in Jakarta, and that during the “filming of the movie, Mr Bean guarded 25 bodyguards”(!) Don’t write the idea off: soon-to-be-legendary Indonesian producer K.K. Dheeraj (The Menstruating Ghost of Puncak) already convinced retired porn star Sasha Grey to phone in a performance to be inserted into a horror comedy. This is just the next step in his plan to dominate popular world cinema. We just have to see some of Dheeraj’s work for ourselves sometime!

NEW ON DVD:

Yellow Submarine (1968): Animated Beatles travel to Pepperland in a yellow submarine to defeat Blue Meanies in this druggy “children’s” film where “nothing is real.” This extras-packed release is an extremely welcome restoration of a movie that has been out of print for many years. Buy Yellow Submarine.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Natural Born Killers (1994)/Any Given Sunday (1999)/JFK (1991): Obviously, the ultraviolent hallucinogenic satire Killers is the main draw for our readers in this Oliver Stone triple features. If you like the other two not-very-weird films, this bargain offering may be a better option than a standalone Killers Blu. Buy Natural Born Killers/Any Given Sunday/JFK [Blu-ray].

Yellow Submarine (1968): See description in DVD above. Buy Yellow Submarine [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

The Naughty Stewardesses (1975): In the mood for a naughty softcore comic farce about sexy Seventies stewardesses? Would you change your mind if I told you it was directed by Al (Dracula vs. Frankenstein) Adamson? We probably would have passed on recommending this to you except that Bill Gibron of DVD Verdict described the plot as “so surreal that Salvador Dali’s estate is suing for copyright infringement.” Watch The Naughty Stewardesses free on YouTube.

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.

Next week, we’ll start out get a rare (but always welcome) reader review of the visionary animated film Chronopolis (1982) (a French movie which, despite being very well-received on release, has sadly been unavailable forever on DVD). If it’s so-bad-they’re-weird all-star musical flops that float your bizarre boat, then we’ll have just what the doctor (er, sergeant?) ordered with a review of 1978’s disco-Beatles mashup misfire Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the “we watched this so you won’t have to” category we’ll offer up our thoughts on Chantal Akerman’s unwatchable 1975 classic Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. And we’ll cap off the week with coverage of the despicably hilarious early exploitationer Child Bride (1938).

It was a terrible, terrible week for weird search terms used to locate the site. There has been a distressing outbreak of normality across the Internet. Nonetheless, we have a few items of note to bring you. First off, we really want to locate the movie this searcher is looking for: “french film from the 60s where a man boards himself up in a room and starts eating french police and everyone starts living the same way.” Although the description is a bit more generic, we also wouldn’t mind checking out a “weird movie with people who are weird.” The search for “grit thai zex,” on the other hand, sounds less appealing (we’d take some great Thai sex, though). In a weak week for weird search terms, though, we can always fall back on the inexhaustible supply of horny Googlers with odd fetishes and poor grammar to find our Weirdest Search Term of the Week. This week’s winner typed out the phrase “concert, the crowd of bus assault video sleep porn” (and, judging by Google’s image results, probably left very disappointed).

Here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing-reader-suggested-review-queue stands: “My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117″; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra] (out of print in Region 1, but we’ll keep looking); Liquid Sky (re-review); 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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 DEVELOPMENT:

Planet Diva: Director John Hartman is asking for funds to expand his thirty minute post-apocalyptic/grindhouse/dominatrix short (which played the Fetish Film Festival last year) into a feature film. Most of the budget will be spent on converting riding mowers into alligator-shaped golf carts, and the director promises “I don’t mind taking the audience through a really dark and weird tunnel.” Planet Diva feature page at Indiegogo.

NEW ON DVD:

The Demoniacs [AKA Curse of the Living Dead] (1974): Two women are raped by pirates, and make a deal with the devil to come back from the dead to extract revenge. In January of this year Redemption released remastered versions of five films by surreal horror specialist Jean Rollin. Several major titles were missing, but this three-DVD June drop (Rape of the Vampire and Requiem for a Vampire are also on tap) makes the majority of Rollin’s oeuvre easily available for the first time. Buy The Demoniacs (1974).

“The Found Footage Festival, Volume 5”: Another compilation of strange and frightening misfires from the golden years of direct-to-VHS video. Includes cats riding motorcycles, Linda Blair’s revenge video, and karaoke yetis singing beloved Christmas tunes. Buy “The Found Footage Festival: Volume 5.”

In the Realms of the Unreal (2004): Documentary on legendary outsider artist Henry Darger, a janitor who secretly wrote and illustrated a 15,000 page (!) fantasy novel called “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion” that was only discovered after his death. Director Jessica Yu animates some of Dager’s beautiful but sometimes disturbing artwork, which mixes obsessive Catholic iconography with naked prepubescent girls—with tiny penises. Buy In The Realms Of The Unreal.

The Rape of the Vampire [Le Viol du Vampire] (1968): A psychoanalyst tries to convince four sisters that they are not undead bloodsuckers, but the Queen of the Vampires disagrees. Jean Rollin’s first feature was conceived of as a surrealist film rather than a horror movie; this farrago of vampires, sex and strangeness proved so lucrative that he built an entire career out of it. Buy The Rape of The Vampire.

Requiem for a Vampire [AKA Caged Virgins] (1973): Two young women fall into the clutches of an elderly vampire; he needs virgins to repopulate the nosferatu race, and being lesbians, they qualify… Requiem became one of Rollin’s best known movies because it was the only one that was dubbed into English and distributed in the U.S. (under the Caged Virgins title). Buy Requiem for a Vampire.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Demoniacs (1974): See description in DVD above. Buy The Demoniacs [Blu-ray]

The Rape of The Vampire [Le Viol du Vampire] (1968): See description in DVD above. Buy The Rape of The Vampire [Blu-ray].

Requiem for a Vampire (1973): See description in DVD above. Buy Requiem for a Vampire [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

The Devil’s Backbone (2001): We view this creepy (but just short of weird)  Guillermo del Toro ghost story set in a Spanish Civil War orphanage as the auteur’s warm-up for the Certified Weird Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). Many respectable people believe Backbone is the superior film, however. Watch The Devil’s Backbone fee on YouTube.

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.