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):

Father’s Day (2011):  Read our capsule review! From Canadian pranksters Astron-6, this is the first Troma release we’ve actually been looking forward to in some time. Opening in NYC with dates to follow throughout the US and Canada (and one in the Czech Republic) through May. If you’re interested in seeing it on the big screen then check the release schedule at Father’s Day official site.

The Turin Horse (2011): There’s little that’s truly strange out there in theaters right now, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to mention the latest (and final?) film from sometime weird director Béla (Werckmeister Harmonies) Tarr.  It concerns the fate of the beaten horse philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche hugged on the day he went insane, and by all accounts the pacing makes Tarkovsky look like Steven Spielberg.  Playing for a week at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in New York city, then screening across the USA at museums and other specialty venues throughout the spring. The Turin Horse official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Thunder-Sky (2012): Our own Alfred Eaker has completed his latest film: a documentary about Raymond Thunder-Sky, the autistic son of a Mohawk chieftain who dressed up as a clown and went out to paint construction sites in the streets of Cincinnati.  Limited screenings begin in March.  No official site but you can get more info at Eaker Productions Facebook Page.

NEW ON DVD:

Horror Classics: House on Haunted Hill (1959)/Little Shop of Horrors (1960)/Carnival of Souls (1962)/I Bury the Living (1958): It’s a slow week for new releases, so we’ll mention this public domain collection that includes two films of interest: Roger Corman‘s oddball carnivorous plant comedy Little Shop of Horrors (read our review) and the microbudget creepfest Carnival of Souls (read the Certified Weird entry). Buy Horror Classics 4-pack (House on Haunted Hill/Little Shop of Horrors/Carnival of Souls/I Bury the Living).

Yakuza Weapon (2011): A yakuza hit man is blown to bits and then rebuilt with a retractable Gatling gun arm, rifle in the kneecap, etc.  Co-directed by the auteur behind Meatball Machine and from the studio who brought you Alien vs. Ninja; if you’ve been paying attention to the Japanese splatterpunk movement, you know what to expect here. Buy Yakuza Weapon.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

La Jetée (1962)/Sans Soleil (1983): Chris Marker is one of the most influential filmmakers whose name you’ve never heard.  The influential science fictioner La Jetée was a mindbending tale of time travel (only 28 minutes long and composed mostly of stills with narration, it was remade at feature length by Terry Gilliam as 12 Monkeys).  Sans Soleil is a highly decorated experimental documentary/travelogue that focuses on odd world customs (sort of like an intellectual, less exploitative version of Mondo Cane).  Criterion’s Blu-ray upgrade adds a few minor featurettes not on the DVD release, including a clip from a David Bowie video inspired by La Jetée. Buy La Jetée / Sans Soleil (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

Yakuza Weapon (2011): See description in DVD above. This is a two disc DVD/Blu-ray combo. Buy Yakuza Weapon [Blu-ray/DVD Combo].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Alice in Wonderland (1915): If (like us) you’ve became jaded to Wonderlands due to overexposure, here’s a new one: a 1915 silent version with actors (some very short ones) in fuzzy animal suits. This is not quite the earliest Alice adaptation (there was a 1903 short treatment), but it’s close enough.

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.

Don’t forget to vote for the Weirdcademy Awards!  Currently, surprise candidate Andy Lau (Detective Dee) is leading for Weirdest Actor; Leslie Pulsipher is rightfully running away with Weirdest Actress for being menaced by Muppets in The Oregonian; Melancholia‘s montage is barely beating The Oregonian‘s rainbow pee for Weirdest Scene; and The Tree of Life holds a slight edge for Weirdest Movie.  You can also watch all the candidates and vote for Weirdest Short Film of 2011; currently Harmony Korine‘s Snowballs leads, but it’s still anybody’s ballgame.

Next week we’ll dip into the reader-suggested review queue with a guest review of Ken Russell‘s shock-rock opera Tommy (1975); we’ll cover the Asian antiwar amputee sex flick Caterpillar (2010); and we’ll bring you a double-shot of Buñuel with the recently Criterionized Belle de Jour (1967) (Catherine Deneuve is a housewife with masochistic fantasies) and Simon of the Desert (1965) (about a saint who lives on a pillar).

We know why you’re reading this column.  It’s weird search terms you want, and it’s weird search terms you shall have.  We start off in porn corner, always a fertile source of deranged Google queries, with the search for “men licking awful porn.”  Speaking of awful porn, the following kink has to qualify as the least erotic fetish in all of sexuality: “sudicidal horse porn movie.”  We wonder if the first searcher would be satisfied seeing a picture of a man licking a DVD copy of the second movie.  Moving on to slightly less pornographic searches, we have to admit to being amused to see a quest to find that truly obscure film, “they saved hitler’s vagina.”  But this is a family website, and we can’t award our Weirdest Search Term of the Week to such perverted entries, however bizarre they might be.  Therefore, we award our weekly prize to the guy looking for info on “how do i use noir orangutan pills.”   Well played, sir!

Here’s the ridiculously long and ever growing reader-suggested review queue (as always, many more titles after the break): Tommy (next week!); The Bride of Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small;  “My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117″; Freaked;  Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Here’s what we got next week: we’ll report on the high-octane sci-fi racing anime Redline (2009), struggle with the question of whether every boomer’s favorite psychedelic nightmare kiddie movie Willa Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) is “weird” or not, and Alfred will down the second in his”Boris Karloff’s Final Six Pack” series with House of Evil (1968).  We’ll also be revealing the nominess for 2011’s Weirdcademy Awards (including a new category, “Weirdest Short Films”), so get your index finger ready to vote for its favorites (if you’re not already a member of the Weirdcademy, we’ll provide instructions for joining).

It was a pretty great week for weird search terms, though we’re still having difficulty plowing through about 1,000 queries a day (!)  Soon, we’ll have to hire an intern just to read Google Analytics reports.  First off, we are proud to announce that, according to search engines, 366 Weird Movies remains your number one source of information about “haunted by an apple” (the exact phrase).  We have no advice for you if you’re coming here because you’re actually being haunted by an apple, but we appreciate the traffic anyway.  But that’s not the only bizarre information Google believes we can supply you with!  Tired of all those inferior guides and looking for “better pillow maturation videos”?  Apparently, we can help!  Looking for “dinosaur bras”?  Us again!  Of course, we specialize in weird movies, so it doesn’t surprise us that someone would think of us when looking for “movie where a lactating man drinking beer.”  But our favorite Weird Search Term of the week is the poetically sleazy “naked massage with its relished mysteries.”  Why just accept the mystery, when you can get naked and relish it?

Here’s the ridiculously long reader-suggested review queue: Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (next week!); The Bride of Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small;  “My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117″; Freaked;  Schizopolis; Strings; Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →