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 (WIDE RELEASE):

Sucker Punch (2011):  Scantily clad young ladies go on an imaginary butt-kicking video-game inspired quest in Zach Snyder‘s latest comic book spectacle.  We’re not sure we’d qualify this as “weird” (we’ll see), but there has been some discussion about it ’round here.  Sucker Punch official site.

FILM FESTIVALS: GUADALAJARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Guadalajara, Mexico, Mar. 25 – Apr. 1)

Normally the Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara wouldn’t draw too much attention from us, but there’s an interesting curiosity debuting there:

El vampiro y el sexo (1969): El Santo’s first color film, Santo en El Tesoro de Drácula, had the wrestling superhero using a past life regression machine (?) and pitted him against Dracula and a coven of female vampires. Like all El Santo movies it was family friendly, but for years a still showing a Dracula-type posing with bare breasted women had circulated among El Santo fans; it was said to be from a racier version of the film. It turns out the rumors weren’t just wishful thinking; a cut of the film featuring the squeaky clean hero tempted by nude vampires had been made and shelved. The film has been reconstructed and is seeing it’s debut as El vampiro y el sexo in a vampire movie retrospective hosted by Guillermo del Toro (other movies screening in the series include the original Nosferatu, Dreyer‘s Vampyr, Polanski‘s The Fearless Vampire Killers, Andy Warhol‘s Blood for Dracula, Werner Herzog‘s Nosferatu with Count Klaus Kinski, Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the underappreciated Habit, and E. Elias Merhige‘s Shadow of the Vampire, among others). Bloody cool! Here’s del Toro’s take on sexy El Santo (in Spanish and English) from the festival’s site. [NOTE: The Guadalajara festival site briefly went down, but is back up as of March 26. Here’s a news article on the El Santo film in case you can’t get through to Guadalajara.]

FILM FESTIVALS: DALLAS FILM FESTIVAL (Dallas, TX, Mar. 31 – Apr. 10)

The Dallas Film Festival is not one of the premier movie gatherings in the USA; it is, however, one of the cheapest, particularly if you have old college buddies in town who will let you crash on their floor. A mere two months after Sundance, Texans can catch many of the Aspen films for a mere $10 a pop. The main reason to mention this particular festival, however, is that 366 plans to be in town opening weekend to take in some of the weirder offerings, to wit:

• The Future: A couple fret that the pending adoption of a cat (who narrates) will mean the end of their youthful freedom, and they slowly drift apart into surreal, solipsistic dreams. 366 in attendance Apr. 1., 7:30 PM.
• The Last Circus [Balada Triste de Trompeta]: Álex de la Iglesia blackly parodies the Spanish Civil War as a Happy Clown and a Sad Clown fight (to the death) over a beautiful trapeze artist. See 366 there at midnight, Apr 2.
• The Oregonian: A nameless woman wanders around in an Oregon wilderness meeting bizarre characters. This one had walkouts at Sundance. 366 will be there at 10:15 PM on Apr. 3 and promises to stay until the bitter end.

If you’re in DFW next weekend and see a guy in a 366 Weird Movies t-shirt, feel free to say “hi” (saying “here’s a sawbuck” while extending a greased palm is also considered an appropriate form of greeting).   Expect reviews of the foregoing to follow. Dallas Film Festival home page.

NEW ON DVD:

“4 Movie Marathon: Cult Horror Collection”: Who doesn’t love bargain multi-movie packs?  This new release contains two films of potential interest to weirdophiles: The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) (containing some very trippy hallucination scenes) and Phantasm II (1988) (sequel to the Certified Weird Phantasm).  Tobe Hooper’s forgotten slasher The Funhouse (1981) and the silly snakesploitation Sssssss (1973) round out the quartet. Buy 4 Movie Marathon: Cult Horror Collection (The Funhouse / Phantasm II / The Serpent and the Rainbow / Sssssss).

“4 Movie Marathon: Dark Comedy Collection”: This 4-pack from Universal is less bizarre than their “Cult Horror” edition (see above): the only film of marginal weird interest is John Waters‘ Serial Mom (1994), which marked a return to (relatively muted) bad taste for the Prince of Puke after a pair of PG-13 experiments in the late 80s. Half the films are from Neil La Butte: his oddball and much maligned Nurse Betty (2000), and the better-received suburban sex satire Your Friends and Neighbors (1998). The hooker-killing critical flop Very Bad Things (1998) fills out the set. Buy 4 Movie Marathon: Dark Comedy Collection (Serial Mom / Nurse Betty / Very Bad Things / Your Friends & Neighbors).

Siren (2010): A group of friends out on a pleasure cruise find a seductive woman on a deserted island; is she a mythological siren leading them to their doom? This direct-to-DVD horror reportedly contains some reality-bending. Buy Siren.

“Venture Brothers, Season 4, Vol. 2”: The cult TV series spoofing “Johnny Quest” and comic book culture with a uniquely absurdist spin releases the second half of its fourth season on DVD. Contains eight episodes, including the one-hour season finale. Please note that the DVD releases are split into two volumes; season 4 is available in its entirety on Blu-ray (see below). Buy “The Venture Bros.: Season 4, Vol. 2” (DVD).

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

“Venture Brothers, Season 4”: See description in DVD above. This release fits the entirety of Season 4 onto two Blu-rays, rather than splitting the season into two sets as was done on DVD. Buy “The Venture Bros.: The Complete Season 4” [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Currently Untitled (2010): Adam Cooley couldn’t get anyone to work with him for free on his experimental film, so he made an experimental film about making an experimental film on his own. It’s the 8 1/2 of no-budget filmmaking. Definitely weird; nearly every fame is altered with distorted sounds and/or visuals. Available on YouTube (in five parts) or as an .avi download.  You can also visit Adam’s homepage for links to more of his experimental free offerings.  Watch Currently Untitled (part 1 of 5) 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.

Greetings weirdophiles!  You are reading this because you have questions about the future; specifically, about future movie reviews that will appear on these pages in the next week.  And we are here to answer your questions about the future.  The answers are: Amer (2010), the violent and sexy tribute to Dario Argento‘s gialli; William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (2010), a reverential tribute containing almost everything you wanted to know about Naked Lunch‘s junkie author; and How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), Bruce Robinson’s almost forgotten, recently reissued satire about a stressed out ad exec who finally cracks when he grows a second head.

The other reason you’re reading this is because you have questions about what weird search terms showed up in our server logs last week.   Never fear, we have answers to those burning queries as well.  We thought it was strange that someone came here looking for a “borderline jesus cure.”  We thought the search for “french elevators are the worst in the world rape porn” seemed a little bit odd (a very specialized fetish?)  Though not that weird, we really appreciated the sentiment of the person searching for ideas for a “zardoz themed wedding” (our recommendation: leave the bit about “the penis is evil” out of the vows).  But for our weirdest search term of the week, we select “rapture his testicle,” which demonstrates how changing just one letter can change a search term from an image that makes us cringe to something delightfully surreal.

If there’s another reason you’re reading this, it’s because you have questions about the state of that huge and unwieldy list of reader-recommendations that we’ve promised to consider somewhere down the line.  Have no fear, we can answer that question as well (though you’ll have to hit that “continued” link to get the whole picture).  Here we go: Possession; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Sublime;  Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros];  The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (this Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPLINE →

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):

0s & 1s (2011): The-times-we-live-in satire about a young man who loses his laptop, and therefore his entire life.  The experimental part is that the story is told entirely through screenshots viewed on a computer screen, via the social networking sites, online video game chats, and video sharing services that make up the mass of the protagonist’s life.  Premiering this week at hipster hangout reRun theater in NYC; future playdates seem unlikely.   0s and 1s official site.

The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman (2010): Heavily stylized Chinese action comedy about a mythical blade that is melted down and made into a kitchen knife, and passes down through three different owners. Could this be a slight stirring in the crazy corpse of the Hong Kong New Wave we detect? No official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Alps (2011):  Giorgos Lanthimos already has his followup to his Certified Weird surprise hit Dogtooth in the can, and he’s in the final stages of preparing it for Cannes.  The story involves people who fill in as doubles for departed loved ones to help with the grieving (or denial) process, and Lanthimos promised the LA Times that this movie will be “darker and funnier” than Dogtooth.  You can be sure we’ll be on it when it comes out.

NEW ON DVD:

Sharktopus (2010):  Because it’s a meager week for weird DVD releases, and because Mega Piranha turned out to be “better” than we expected, we’ll highlight this SyFy backed, Roger Corman produced marine nonsense as our default weird release of the week. The poster suggests it’s about an eight-tentacled shark who climbs up on land to attack bikini babes; don’t blame us if it bites. Buy Sharktopus.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Sharktopus (2010): See description in DVD above. Buy Sharktopus [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Bluebeard (1944):  Poverty Row expressionist Edgar G. Ulmer‘s take on the French serial killer legend stars John Carradine as a model-strangling artist.  Watch Bluebeard 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, look for a review if Gregg Araki‘s latest surreal sex farce, Kaboom.  We’ll also knock two items out of the reader-suggested review queue.  First, we’ll take a gander at Alan Parker’s trippy dramatization of the Pink Floyd rock opera The Wall (with standout animation by Gerald Scarfe).  And, for those of you who are concerned with our lack of anime coverage, we’ll be checking out Satoshi Kon’s 2006 dream-thriller Paprika (often said to be one of the main inspirations for Christopher Nolan‘s Inception).

It wasn’t the greatest of weeks for weird search terms used to locate the site, but we did get some notable queries.  In the questions we don’t know the answer to, and wouldn’t care if we did category, the winner was “what did kyle maclachlan eat on the set of dune”?   The this would probably constitute too much information if it made any sense department gave us “i wont see sex film on rassian.”  But the search term that made us giggle the hardest came from our why proper spelling counts when searching Google for porn file: the entry “a lezbo girl liking another girls crouch” is our official Weirdest Search Term of the Week.  Well done!

Here’s that reader-suggested review queue (more after the jump): Pink Floyd: The Wall (next week!); Paprika (next week!); Possession; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Sublime;  Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros];  The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; 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 DEVELOPMENT:

Rocks in My Pockets: A feature length animated comedy film about depression from Signe Baumane.  23 of 90 minutes are currently animated.  The official site is here, and they are also seeking donations on IndieGoGo.

Rocks in My Pockets (an excerpt) from Signe Baumane on Vimeo.

NEW ON DVD:

Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret of Marijuana (1971): A stretch for weird, but certainly an oddity: a vintage pro-pot exploitation documentary, spiced up with ample sex scenes. If you thought what Refeer Madness needed was more naked hippies, than this is the movie for you. Featuring an early appearance by John Holmes and containing hardcore porn inserts. Distributor Impulse is advertising this version as containing all the naughty bits expunged from earlier prints, but don’t blame us if Amazon took them out. Buy Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret of Marijuana.

“Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XX”:  The twentieth box set from the cult TV movie-mocking series brings us the Season 1 sci-fi disaster Project Moonbase; Master Ninja I & II, comprising four episodes of the van-heavy failed TV show starring Lee van Cleef and Timothy van Patten; and the recast Russian fairy tale The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (the only feature in the set that might play weird on its own).  Not surreal per se, but generally of interest to weirdos like us.  Buy “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Vol. XX”.

Son of Terror (2008):  A schizophrenic artist gets involved in a case involving a serial killer preying on the homeless, and nothing is as it seems.  Poorly reviewed, but do independent horror/slasher movies made in Seattle ever get good reviews? Buy Son of Terror.

Transgression [La transgressione] (1988): Italian sexploitation film about a student who takes drugs and hallucinates a meeting with an erotic goddess. Amazon sold out of this title less than a week after release, but maybe they only ordered one copy? More units are on the way as we speak. Buy Transgression.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Excalibur (1981): Not thoroughly weird, but this Arthurian epic has its bizarre moments that may send chills up your spine—such as a young Mordred laughing through his golden mask as he leads Percival into a forest where knights in armor hang from the trees. At times it’s hard to believe this was made by the same director who made Zardoz; other times, the similarity is perfectly obvious. Buy Excalibur [Blu-ray].

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984): Early environmental-apocalypse anime from the renowned Hayao Miyazaki.  Disney has been slowly leaking out their entire catalog of Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli titles onto Blu-ray over the past few years. Buy Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo).

NEW ON VIDEO-ON-DEMAND:

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (2004): We’ve still never seen one of Spanish director Carlos Atanes’ films (except for the short “The Marvellous World of the Cucu Bird,” which can be watched online), but we’re aware of him because he’s one of the few filmmakers who proudly describes his movies as “weird.” FAQ is an underground movie about a matriarchal dystopian future; you can watch the first two minutes for free on Amazon. Rent or download FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Dead Leaves (2004): Two odd-looking amnesiacs (one with a TV for a head) are sent to a lunar prison in this sci-fi/anime/comedy. This one is currently in our reader-suggested review queue, so this is your big chance to see it for free before we cover it! Watch Dead Leaves 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.