Here’s what we’ve got on tap next week: a review of Brad Pitt’s ridiculously massive coif from Johnny Suede (1991), a report on the decidedly unfestive banquet in 1966’s Czech New Wave nightmare A Report on the Party and the Guests, and a sleazy vintage exploitation movie to be named later. We’ll also take time out to defend the much-maligned aesthetic philosophy of “weirdness for weirdness’ sake” from the realist yahoos.
It was a quiet week for weird search terms, but as always we did locate a few doozies to share with you. First, in an update from last week’s weird search term rundown, the person searching for “plasticity her panties” apparently came up empty and came back with a more specific search for “television show plasticity her panties.” Ah, we see now… wait a minute… In more recent developments in bizarre Googling, we could nominate “australian horror film where a girl goes through a wall and she gets her vagina destroyed by a worm” as our Weirdest Search Term of the Week, except that we would not be at all surprised to find that such a movie really exists. From the “searchers who believe search engines are psychic” file we offer “weird film that pete cant remember the name of,” and from the “finally, a question we can actually answer” file come “are people allowed to make weird movies” (yes!) In a week with little bizarre competition, however, the phrase “how can i get locked up in girl car trunk” manages to sneak in as our official Weirdest Search Term of the Week. We have no idea what question the searcher is looking for an answer to; the most obvious interpretation would seem to be “how can I get locked up in a girl’s car trunk?”—but other equally weird readings are possible (e.g., “how can I get locked up in a car trunk full of girls?” or “how can I get locked up in a car trunk of the female gender?”)
Here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue stands: Johnny Suede (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 (re-review); 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; May; Little Otik; Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE→
A 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):
Battle Royale 3D (2000): Read our capsule review. American distributor Anchor Bay already rereleased the 2D Japanese kid-death tournament thriller earlier this year to cash in on its similarity to the blockbuster The Hunger Games; they’re milking the cow further with this 3D conversion (which already screened in the US in 2010). No official site so we’re not sure exactly where it’s playing and when, except that we know it’s at the IFC Center in Manhattan.
FILM FESTIVALS: CANNES (Part 2) (Cannes, France May 16 – 27)
The Paperboy (2012): A reporter investigates a death row case; somehow, this causes Nicole Kidman and John Cusack to have psychic sex (?) We’re cautiously adding this one to our watchlist after Stephen Garrett of the New York Observer called it an “off the rails… nut-bar melodrama” in an article encouragingly called Cannes Gets Weird. Of course, Garret offers Walter Salles’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as evidence of Cannes “getting weird,” which is actually evidence of why critics who aren’t licensed by the Weirdcademy shouldn’t go around declaring stuff weird. Here’s the rest of our 2012 Cannes watchlist.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Frankenpimp’s Revenge: The Romeo and Juliet Massacre (est. 2014): Tony Watt returns to his Frankenpimp roots with this second entry in a planned trilogy; this script brings in both Romeo and Juliet and Dracula. The original Frankenpimp was an unwatchable three hours long; Watts’ next two movies each ran for two and a half hours. We’re praying this one will be edited down to under two hours, but we’re not sure there is a “cutting room floor” in a Tony Watt production. Frankenpimp’s Revenge: The Romeo and Juliet Massacre at IMDB.
NEW ON DVD:
Certified Copy (2010): A woman (Juliette Binoche) takes an author (William Shimell) out for a tour of Tuscany; both characters change personalities and become entirely different people by the film’s end. Mysterious but uninvolving arthouse hit. Buy Certified Copy (Criterion Collection).
Cowboy Bebop (2001)/American Pop (1981) Double Feature: Read our Cowboy Bebop review. What an odd pairing: a relatively recent sci-fi anime feature and a three-decades old pop-music historical drama that just happens to be rotoscoped. The only thing the two movies have in common is that they’re animated and end in “op,” but if you happen to like both, the disc is a good deal. Buy Cowboy Bebop / American Pop Double Feature.
Gums (1976): An XXX parody of Jaws wherein mermaid Terri Hall performs fatal fellatio on seafarers. The weird part is the movie “stars” insane performance artist and “stand-up tragedian” Brother Theodore as “Captain Carl Clitoris.” This is one of the strangest items we’ve ever seen offered on Amazon . We’re not sure if this is the uncut hardcore sex version—though ever since we bought Aphrodisiac! from them, we’re positive Amazon isn’t above selling hardcore porn—so buyer beware. Buy Gums.
Mutant Girls Squad (2010): On her 16th birthday a schoolgirl discovers she’s a mutant when she spontaneously spouts a knife from her hand; she gathers more of her kind to take over Japan. More post-Tetsuo machine-mutant madness from the usual splatterpunk suspects. Buy Mutant Girls Squad.
A Serbian Film (2010) (“Uncut”): Read our review. This notorious shock flick was previously unavailable in Region 1 (via legitimate channels) in uncut form; at this writing Amazon is showing it as “out of stock” (did fans buy up all the copies thinking it might be pulled, or was it pulled?) You can check availability through the “buy” link. Buy A Serbian Film (Uncut).
Surreal Sicko (2012?): We had to mention this movie with a vague plot description about a rapist who tries to blame his crimes on a schizophrenic just because of the title (‘s a real sicko—get it?) No director was credited in the product listing but research reveals that this is the work of unknown but somehow annoying microbudget auteur Bill Zebub. Because it’s from Zebub, we’re suspicious that this might be another retitled rerelease of one of his older movies: Skits-o-Phrenia (similar title strategy) or The Crucifier (shares at least two common cast members) seem like likely possibilities. Buy Surreal Sicko.
“Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr.” (Eclipse Series 33): Wow, is Criterion’s “Eclipse” series nailing the weird lately: first there was “Pearls of the Czech New Wave” (which we’re still sifting through), and hot on those bizarre heels comes this even stranger set from the underground auteur behind the Certified Weird Greaser’s Palace. The set includes five counterculture provocations: Babo 73, Chafed Elbows, No More Excuses, the relatively famous Putney Swope, and the (never before seen?) Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight. We’re taking bets on how many of these will be certified weird (the over/under is 1.5). Buy “Eclipse Series 33: Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr.”
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Castle in the Sky (1986): A boy and girl search for a floating castle in Hayao Miyazaki‘s third animated feature. This Disney upgrade to Blu-ray comes with a complementary DVD copy of the movie. Buy Castle in the Sky (Blu-ray/DVD Combo).
Mutant Girls Squad (2010): See description in DVD above. This is a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and at the time of this writing the combo was only one penny more than the DVD itself (prices, of course, are subject to change). Buy Mutant Girls Squad [DVD/Blu-ray Combo].
Whisper of the Heart (1995): A teenage girl finds that the stories she’s writing about a dapper cat named “the baron” are coming true; a Japanese rendition of John Denver’s “Country Roads” plays a part in the plot. A Studio Ghibli effort written and produced (but not directed) by Hayao Miyazaki; like Castle in the Sky, it comes in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack. Buy Whisper of the Heart (Blu-ray/DVD Combo).
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Moon (2009): Read our capsule review. Not so weird, but the 2001-style lunar loneliness may get under your skin as you watch space miner Sam Rockwell go insane on the moon. Watch Moon 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.
James Mannan is an actor, director, producer, and the ownerofLiberty or Death productions. He has directed several short horror films along with the feature To Haunt You, produced W the Movie, and previously provided us with a top 10 weird movies list.
Although I watch a lot of films, for various reasons I’m not huge on reviewing them. However, seeing as I’ve been a “Dark Shadows” fan for over 40 years and a Tim Burton fan since Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), I thought perhaps his new epic deserved a paragraph or two from me. I saw it this past weekend on the Hamilton IMAX screen in what seemed liked a rather depopulated theater, but I’m not sure what their usual Sunday crowd is like–perhaps everyone else was taking their mom to dinner for Mother’s Day. At any rate. . .
I had followed the dribbling out of info and photos over the past year or so and had seen the infamous trailer that makes the film look like “Vampires Suck Part Deux”. As a disciple of the original series, none of this sat any better with me than I think it did for most fans. Once more we have Tim Burton going his own way without much regard for audience’s expectations or their affection for the originals (think especially Planet of the Apes or even more so his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the latter of which I still haven’t managed to make it all the way through.) I can understand not working toward expectations, but is it always necessary to tread on sacred ground with jackboots? This being said I will consider Dark Shadows from two different perspectives: as a remake of the original series, and as another entry in the auteur’s canon.
Many fans of the original series are going to hate this film. Hands down. Jonathan Frid’s beloved, beautiful, complex, tortured Barnabas Collins has been morphed into a typically Burtonesque, overly made-up, funny pages version of the character, ripe for rendering into dolls and action figures. Johnny Depp‘s pancake makeup is so thick and obvious he constantly makes the viewer think of someone made up as Dracula for Halloween (indeed, one wonders if this isn’t partly the idea–this is Tim and Johnny’s Continue reading GUEST REVIEW: DARK SHADOWS (2012)→
We were so fearful of Dark Shadows, Tim Burton‘s latest Gothic comedy, that we farmed out the review assignment to poor sucker—I mean, trusted industry professional—James Mannan for comment. Meanwhile, our staff is staying away from Hollywood summer blockbusters and focusing our energy on weird world classics, starting with the 1966 Czech New Wave omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which includes a couple of surreal segments and a couple of entries by directors whose work should end up represented on the List. We’ll also dig into the reader-suggested review queue for Cemetery Man [AKA Dellamorte Dellamore], the world’s only arthouse surrealist Italian zombie gore movie, and maybe even bring you coverage of some surprise deep-catalog vintage exploitation films.
It wasn’t a banner week for weird search terms—summer blockbuster malaise must be infecting Google—but we always see something strange in our server logs to pass along to you. We’ll start with the quest for info about a “thai movie she as hot boob and was killing his king” (Google suggests this searcher might have meant “thai movie she is hot boob and was killing his king,” which is really not as helpful as the Googlebot thinks). There’s also the mind-boggling request for “www.empty libido in alex movies.com” (turns out that domain name is still available!) It’s not weird enough to win, but we just can’t pass up passing along this search we thought we’d never see: “mullets for preteen girls.” For our Weirdest Search Term of the Week award, we’re going to go with the elegantly simple, but still incomprehensible search for “plasticity her panties.”
Here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue stands: Dellamorte Dellamore [AKA Cemetery Man] (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 (re-review); 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE→
A 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):
American Animal (2011): Jimmy and James, two twenty-something trust-fund babies, live together in relative luxury, but unbalanced Jimmy becomes increasingly deranged when bookish James explains that he’s decided to grow up and get a job. Over and over, reviewers have used the word “bizarre” to describe it. We prematurely announced this was opening back in March, but this time we really mean it—for New Yorkers, at least. American Animal official site.
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2011): Surrealist sci-fi supposedly in the 2001 vein about a mute woman trying to escape from a mysterious enclave. Despite being handicapped by weirdness, Black Rainbow survived the film festival gauntlet to get an actual theatrical release; we are excited! Debuting this week in Los Angeles and New York City, with scattered showings across the central U.S. to follow. Beyond the Black Rainbow official site.
Elena (2011): Read our capsule review. Distributor Zeitgeist describes this dramatic battle over inheritance of a valuable apartment in Moscow is as a “modern twist on the classic noir thriller.” Playing sporadically across the U.S. over the early summer. Elena US distributor site.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Farewell to Language [Adieu au Langage]: What may possibly be 82-year old Jean-Luc Godard‘s final movie is reportedly in production. It’s about a husband and wife who no longer speak the same language, and therefore must have their dog translate for them. Oh, and it goes without saying that it’s going to be in 3-D. We really hope this will get the bad taste of Film Socialisme out of our mouths before the Old Wave icon retires for good. Story courtesy of Movieline.
NEW ON DVD:
Being John Malkovich (1999): Read the Certified Weird entry! The Criterion Collection has finally begun stalking the List for new release candidates. Look for a deluxe treatment of Skidoo coming next month. Despite not receiving our finders’ fee, we’re thrilled with this choice. Several of the special features were ported over from the Universal release, but new material includes selected scene commentaries by Michel Gondry, a behind-the-scenes mini-doc, and new interviews with director Spike Jonze and the man everyone wants to be, John Malkovich. Buy Being John Malkovich (Criterion Collection).
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Many fans of the original series are going to hate this film. Hands down. Jonathan Frid’s beloved, beautiful, complex, tortured Barnabas Collins has been morphed into a typically Burtonesque, overly made-up, funny pages version of the character, ripe for rendering into dolls and action figures. 
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