Here are the year-end nominees from the Online Film Society Awards. This year 366 Weird Movies’ G. Smalley will vote in the poll for the first time. The names of the winners will be released on January 2.
“The Tree of Life”, Terrence Malick’s exploration of suburban family life in the 1950’s, received seven nominations for the 15th Annual Online Film Critics Society awards. The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Malick), Best Supporting Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain), Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Cinematography.
Joining “The Tree of Life” in Best Picture are Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist”, Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants”, Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive” and Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”. Malick, Hazanavicius, Refn and Scorsese were joined in the Best Director race by “Melancholia” director Lars von Trier.
“Drive” was the second most nominated film picking up six mentions including the aforementioned Picture and Director as well as Best Supporting Actor (Albert Brooks), Best Adapted Screenplay, Editing and Cinematography. Brooks was nominated alongside John Hawkes in “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, Nick Nolte in “Warrior”, Pitt and Christopher Plummer in “Beginners”. In Best Supporting Actress, the nominees were Chastain, Melissa McCarthy for “Bridesmaids”, Janet McTeer for “Albert Nobbs”, Carey Mulligan for “Shame” and Shailene Woodley for “The Descendants”.
Woodley and Mulligan’s co-stars shared nominations in the Best Actor slate, George Clooney and Michael Fassbender respectively, who were nominated alongside Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”, Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and Michael Shannon in “Take Shelter”. The Best Actress category features Kirsten Dunst in “Melancholia”, Elizabeth Olsen in “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”, Tilda Swinton in “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and Michelle Williams for “My Week with Marilyn”.
Each year, the OFCS also submits nominations for Special Achievement Awards, granted only by a majority vote of the membership. This year, the Online Film Critics have selected two individuals, Jessica Chastain and Martin Scorsese, to receive special citations.
Chastain’s tremendous and quality-filled output this year has brought her instant acclaim and recognition marking one of the most stellar debuts in recent memory.
Scorsese has long been a champion of film preservation and with his love letter to the cinema this year, “Hugo”, he continues to show his admiration for film history and the many pursuits to keeping those records alive.
You may have noticed that this column, which normally appears on Sundays, has been pushed back to Monday this week so that we could warm your weird heart with the tale of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny on Christmas Day. We’d like to tell you that things will be getting back to normal after that minor bit of schedule shuffling, but right about now we’re cursing whoever decided to schedule awards season in the middle of both the holiday season and the cold and flu season. We’re simultaneously trying to catch up on the major awards nominees we missed in the past 51 weeks of 2011 while fighting off chills and sniffles and struggling to express seasonal cheer to well-wishers. So this upcoming week we will be slacking off on new reviews and instead focusing on bringing you top 10 lists and year-end surveys of both mainstream and weird movies (although Alfred will chime in with a review of the 2010 small-screen documentary Gauguin: The Full Story). When 2012 rolls around in a week, we’ll start diving back into that long-neglected reader-suggested review queue.
Since you’ve had to wait an extra day to get your weekly dose of weird search terms, you’re probably hoping for some extra-strange stuff. And indeed, with overall search volume up moderately what with the kids out of school and on Google, we had a nice little haul of odd queries for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest. We had the typically mangled searches for movies that may or may not exist, such as “a film about a girl discovers cow movement” (not on the bottom of her shoe, we hope) and “cult film when kennedy killed a erection” (a search for Bubba Ho-Tep, only the viewer mistook the mummy for a woody?) We also must mention the seeker looking for information on “our brain’s nativity comedy.” And every week we can rely on horny English-as-a-second-language students for something bizarre: this week’s entry is “hookey sexy porn womence.” But our official Weirdest Search Term of the Week goes to the absurdly specific “what about a list of one time seen on tv unpopular thriller movies in 1977 or 1979 about twins kids.” The searcher gets bonus points for starting off his search with “what about” (as if he’s free-associating to his keyboard), and for writing his elaborate request to specifically exclude one-time seen on TV unpopular thriller movies about twin kids from 1978.
Here’s that reader suggested review queue (which we will be getting back to paring down during 2012, we promise!): Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the 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.
Spielberg and his minions have driven all traces of weirdness from theaters this week, under the guise of “Christmas spirit.” We weirdophiles will have to cower in our hovels this week, regroup, and return to the cinemas in 2012.
IN “DEVELOPMENT“:
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: Tells the shocking true story of “Weird” Al Yankovic, from his days as an accordion-loving outcast to his multi-platinum “Eat It,” as his career magically survives alcoholism and sex with Madonna. Our favorite line from the trailer? “I’m the weird one!” Reminder to readers: on this site, we occasionally include notices for films that don’t actually exist.
NEW ON DVD:
Columbiana (2011): A young woman (Zoe Saldana) grows up to be an assassin after witnessing her parents’ murder. Thinking it was an ordinary action movie, we passed over this one when it played theaters (even though it came from mildly weird director Luc Besson); we just now noticed the Amazon editorial review says it contains “a dash of oddball surrealism.” We prefer a lot more than a dash, but in a slow week we’ll take what we can get. Buy Colombiana.
Love Exposure (2008): Shion Sono’s 4 hour (!) comedy epic involves Roman Catholicism, candid panty photos, and a butt-kicking, man-hating schoolgirl. Thanks to Olive Films, who really earn our respect lately by releasing this and Skidoo in the same calendar year. Buy Love Exposure.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Columbiana (2011): See description in DVD above. Includes an UltraViolet digital download. Buy Colombiana [Blu-ray].
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973): Gaseous vapors turn an embryo into an eight-foot sheep monster. Distributor Something Weird calls it “one of the weirdest, wackiest, oddballest monster movies ever made” (and they should know). Watch Godmonster of Indian Flats 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.
In preparation for Christmas we’ll be having a “naughty or nice” week here at 366 Weird Movies. We’ll take in a couple of nice movies about naughty people, starting with The Arbor (2010), a reverent experimental documentary about alcoholic working class playwright Andrea Dunbar. She’s matched up against the subject of Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010), a biopic of the brilliant, boozing womanizer Serge Gainsbourg (and of his scary puppet alter ego). Alfred will cover Claus Guth’s arguably naughty 2010 rendering of Handel’s Messiah, which dramatizes the holy text with a tale of adultery and suicide. And in the “definitely naughty” category is Otto Preminger’s infamous flop Skidoo (1968), a square attempt at a counter-cultural comedy that gives us the spectacle of Jackie Gleason taking LSD and Groucho Marx smoking pot (!)
And we’ll be saving a surprise for Christmas day: a true lump of cinematic coal for our naughty readers (we already know you’re naughty because we caught you reading ourAphrodisiac! review). It would be wrong of you to try to figure out the title of this clunker of a Christmas surprise we’ll be reviewing for you on X-mas day, but since we’ve already decided you’re naughty, you can go ahead and guess in the “comments” section if you wish.
With Google now masking about 12% of all search queries, it’s getting harder to find truly demented candidates for our “Weirdest Search Term of the Week” contest. Nonetheless, we soldier on with our survey of strange and sick searches. “Woman breastfeeding a dwarf” is a type of query we get a lot; while it looks weird on the surface, it’s far too understandable for us to give it anything more than an honorable mention (if the searcher was looking for a man breastfeeding a dwarf, well, that would be a different matter). We’ll also mention the fairly ordinary yet disturbing search for “men sitting on toilets.” Our favorite search terms this week fell into the “movies we’d really like to see, if they actually exist” category. The runner-up was the simple but effectively odd “40’s musical movie with pervert baby.” But nothing caught our attention this week more than the description of a “90s movie where girl discovers uncle was perverse and she is haunted by an apple.” There are so few produce-related haunting films out there that we suspect this one will turn out to be a classic by default.
Here’s the reader-suggested review queue: Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (next week!); Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; The Bride of 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):
“Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival”: Headlined by Santa Claus Conquers the Martians with a handful of retro Christmas-themed shorts tossed in to pad the running time to a jolly two hours, the ad copy for this Holland releasing production sure makes it sound like the kind of thing our readers would dig: ” a bunch of the very rarest (and sometimes weird) Christmas filmic moments… these mind-boggling artifacts will seem either surreal or cheesy – or both.” It’s got fairly wide distribution with playdates from Dec. 2 to 23, so be sure to check the calendar to see if and when it’s screening near you. Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival official site.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
‘Manos’, the Hands of Fate (1966) restoration: Seriously. Ben Solovey (presumably the same Ben Solovey who was an assistant cameraman on Bitch Slap) is spending his free time making a high-definition restoration of the jaw-droppingly awful Manos (read our review) from a work print he bought at an Ebay auction. We’re in the camp that says cleaning up Manos‘ infamously murky look can’t help but hurt the film’s odd appeal (as Joel Hodgson famously observed, “Every frame of this movie looks like somebody’s last known photograph.”) Still, the old muddy, cruddy PD print will still be available for those of us who want to view the movie the way it was meant to be see, so why not restore it for those who think all Manos needs is a new paint job? ‘Manos’ in HD blog.
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (2012): The Cartoon Network cult comics get their own billion dollar extravaganza, but blow the entire budget on celebrity cameos by Jeff Goldblum, Zach Galifianakis, and Will Ferrell, among others. The plot has something to do with shrim [sic]. Debuting in theaters March 2, and on video-on-demand in January. Tim and Eric’s homepage.
NEW ON DVD:
A Cadaver Christmas (2011): $7,000, Troma-inspired, faux-grindhouse zom-coms are a dime a dozen. This one, about a janitor fending off the living dead at a university during Christmas break, should have a leg up: it actually got a good review in Variety. That favorable notice apparently didn’t help the makers snag a distribution deal, however, as they’re currently stuck self-distributing the finished product from their website. A Cadaver Christmas official site.
“Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)/Beast from the Haunted Cave (1959)”: Scarily cleavalicious horror hostess Elvira hosts the true-to-its-title seasonal absurdity, with a cheapie Roger Corman creature feature filling out the double bill. Serious question: is that really sexagenarian Cassandra Peterson still tramping around as Elvira, or did they slip a new actress into the role without telling anyone? Buy “Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians / Beast From Haunted Cave“.
“Found Footage Festival, Vol. 1: Live from Brooklyn” (2006): The folks at Found Footage Festival have been collecting awkward, embarrassing bits of pop-culture effluvia from VHS instructional tapes, public access TV shows, and other moldy sources since 2004. They have released these DVD collections of their finds before this (you can find even more volumes to buy at their website), but this compilation shows up as a new release this week, presumably because they now have a serious distributor in Lorber. Buy “The Found Footage Festival: Volume 1”.
“The Found Footage Festival, Vol. 2” (2007): More zero-budgeted, misbegotten zaniness from the curators of crud. Special note to lonely male 366 readers: this compilation includes the title “How to Seduce Women Through Hypnosis.” Buy “The Found Footage Festival: Volume 2”.
Histoire(s) du Cinéma (1998): Cinephile alert! Jean-Luc Goddard’s decades in the making, 4-part, 266-minute poem/essay on the history of film—told with overlapping images and optical effects as well as the auteur’s own odd reflections—is released on Region 1 for the first time. Thanks Olive Films! Histoire(s) Du Cinema.
Mammuth (2010): To correct a paperwork snafu, a recent retiree played by Gerard Depardieu hops on his motorcycle and treks across modern France to track down his last ten employers in this quirky, satirical comedy that some critics have labeled “absurd” and “surreal.” It didn’t play big screens in the USA, but UK critics praised Depardieu. Buy Mammuth.
Medea (1969): The story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, told Pier Paolo Passolini style, with bloody pagan rituals, Centaurs, and very little dialogue. Opera diva Maria Callas stars (but does not sing) in this long-unavailable art film rescued from oblivion by Entertainment One. Buy Medea.
“Mystery Science Theater, Vol. XXII”: As long as they keep releasing episodes of the hilarious 1990s cult movie-mocking series, we’ll keep buying them. Four more strange and awful movies are “riffed” this time around, including the Japanese Planet of the Apes ripoff Time of the Apes, the Japanese Bond ripoff Mighty Jack, the Ed Wood-scripted girls-gone-wild-(50s-style) juvie flick The Violent Years, and Rondo Hatton as The Brute Man. Buy “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXII”.
Santa Claus (1959): Santa lives in a castle in the sky, spies on children with a nightmarish eye-on-a-stalk telescope, and fights the Devil in this colorfully bizarre K. Gordon Murray Mexican import. This VCI release is actually a “special edition” complete with a commentary track, deleted scenes and Murray shorts! This one is definitely in our “reader suggested” list (we checked it twice). Buy Santa Claus.
“Ultimate Horror Collection (50 Movies)”: Absolutely not the ultimate horror collection, but these multi-packs of public domain and near public domain films make great stocking stuffers. Notable titles include the Certified Weird Carnival of Souls, public domain poster-child Night of the Living Dead, and Larry Cohen‘s super-odd God Told Me To. 3/50 is not a bad batting average for weirdness. Buy “Ultimate Horror Collection”.
Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971): So-bad-it’s-weird-ness from schlockmeister Al Adamson, featuring John Bloom as a Frankenstein who looks like he has chewed-up wads of toilet paper stuck to his face, the one-and-only Zandor Vorkov (in his one-and-only role) as the screen’s least scary Dracula, and Lon Chaney Jr. and Forrest J. Ackerman hanging around looking embarrassed. A horrible, entertaining movie. Watch Dracula vs. Frankenstein 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.
Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!
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