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):

Let Me In: A tiny bit mainstream for us, but word on the street is positive on this US remake of the Swedish cult film Låt den rätte komma in [Let the Right One In] about a cute little girl who’s also a vampire. Considering the fact that most Americanized versions of foreign horror films suck (and not just in the vampiric sense), maybe it’s a little weird to find one that apparently doesn’t?  Let Me In Facebook page (no official site).

SCREENINGS (WEDNESDAY, OCT. 6-7, IFC CENTER, NEW YORK CITY):

Idiots and Angels (2008):  We’ve been wondering if Bill Plympton’s animated black comedy about a venal man who sprouts angel wings one day was ever going to show up in theaters.  We’ll see if this screening is the start of a limited theatrical run (we suspect it’s an indication the DVD will be coming soon).  Plympton will attend in person, and his new short “The Cow Who Wanted to Be A Hamburger” will precede the feature presentation.  Idiots and Angels at IFC Center.

FILM FESTIVALS – VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (SEP 30 – OCT 15)

We noticed a few titles of interest in Vancouver that we hadn’t seen mentioned elsewhere.

• Cold Fish – “based on a true story,” Sion (Suicide Club) Sono’s most recent gruesome film is set in the world of tropical fish retailers.  Screening Oct. 1 & 2.
• David Wants to Fly – a documentary taking a critical look at the Transcendental Meditation movement, of interest here because one its main subject is TM enthusiast David Lynch. Oct. 3 & 7.
• Dissolution – set in Israel, based on “Crime and Punishment,” and described as an “almost surreal fairy-tale.” Oct. 7, 13 & 15.
• The Family Complete – grandpa is raped by a giant cat and a virus turns men gay in this surreal exploration of homosexuality in Japan.  Oct. 5 & 6.
• Fourth Portrait – tale of a Taiwanese orphan, shot and told in a dreamlike style.  Oct 5, 8 & 9.
• Metamorphosis – South Korean adaptation of the Franz Kafka story about a man who wakes up one morning to discover he has become a cockroach.  Oct 4 & 5.
• Rubber – a French film about—wait for it—a killer tire.  No word on whether it’s radial or not.  Oct. 4, 8, & 14.
• Rumination – quirky debut about the Chinese Cultural Revolution; according to the description, the experimental narrative moves backwards and forwards at the same time.  Oct. 6 & 7.
• Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) [Prezít svuj zivot (teorie a praxe)] – This is the big one: the North American debut of the latest Jan Svankmajer film.  This one uses a technique of cut-out collages alongside the usual stop animation, and the scenario involves a man who impregnates his own anima (!) while undergoing psychoanalysis.  Oct. 5, 9 & 13.
• Thomas Mao – Novelist/director Wen Zhu puts his dreams on screen.  Oct 4 & 5.

Vancouver International Film Festival official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Suck (2009): A musical/horror/comedy about a rock band who find success when they become vampires.  A bunch of young unknowns headline, but there are some interesting cameos, including former Kid in the Hall Dave Foley and weird icon Malcolm McDowell (footage from O Lucky Man! is incorporated into his character’s flashback), as well roles for several rock musicians: Alice Cooper, Moby, Henry Rollins, and Iggy Pop.  Buy Suck.

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’s reviews aren’t necessarily all set just yet, but we can confirm coverage of the following: the indie artisanal cheese comedy Artois the Goat (2009); Monte Hellman’s existential 1967 western The Shooting (starring Jack Nicholson); and, from the reader-suggested review queue, we’ll tackle Ingmar Bergman’s only horror movie, The Hour of the Wolf (1968), and we’ll give you two sets of opinions on the Neil Gaiman penned dream-fantasy MirrorMask (2005).

Weird search terms brought multitudes of visitors to the site last week.  We have no idea why someone would visit this site because “i think i found a capsule of heroin.”   But that fellow has nothing on our weirdest visitor, a guy looking for “girmilk out milky brast in kittle and happy.”  We are glad we can’t make heads or tails of that particular request, because we can only assume he’s trying to describe some freakish fetish that would make Takashi Miike blush.

Here’s how that reader-suggested review queue now stands: Hour of the Wolf (next week); MirrorMask (next week); Trash Humpers (waiting on the DVD release); The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Performance; The Apple; Songs From The Second Floor; Necromentia; Possession; Suspiria; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Faust; Sublime; Battle Royale; Pink Floyd: The Wall; Escanaba In Da Moonlight; Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; Zardoz; The Films of Suzan Pitt; Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]; Paprika; The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets; The Nines; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; The Seventh Seal; Primer; Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Private Parts (1972); Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; 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 Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Uzumaki [Spiral]; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small; Bunny & the Bull; “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney” (assuming I can find it); Cinema 16: European Short Films; Freaked; Session 9; Schizopolis; Strings; Dellamorte Dellamore [AKA Cemetery Man]; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; The Addiction; Liquid Sky; The Quiet; Shock Treatment; Tuvalu; “Zombie Jesus” (if we can locate it); 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; May; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; Little Otik; Final Programme; Careful; Sweet Movie; The Triplets of Belleville; “Foutaises” (short); Johnny Suede; “Jam” (TV, UK, 2000), The Tale of the Floating World, Un Chien Andalou, Bloodsucking Freaks; Fellini Satyricon; Three Crowns of the Sailor; 8 1/2; Death Race 2000; Dororo; Lost Highway; Valerie and Her Week of Wonders; Dogville; and Julien Donkey-boy; Amelie; The Ten; The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao; 1; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Tokyo Gore Police; At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul; The Trial [Le procès) (1962); Marquis; Hell Comes to Frogtown; Hellzapoppin’; Seom [The Isle]; Allegro Non Troppo; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; Lust in the Dust; Celine and Julie Go Boating; “Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life;” The Magic Christian; Black Cat, White Cat; The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T; Abnormal: The Sinema of Nick Zedd; Robot Monster; Nightdreams; 3 Women; Rubin & Ed; Teeth; Vera; Weirdsville; Prospero’s Books; Inferno; Garden State; Persona; and The Real McCoy; Rat Pfink a Boo Boo; Themroc; Candy (1968); Run Lola Run; Pink Flamingos; Buffalo ’66; Northfork; Weekend; The Room; Glen or Glenda?; Night of the Hunter; The Fox Family; Midnight Skater; Angelus; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Twister (1989); Yokai Monsters, Vol. 1: Spook Warfare [AKA Big Monster War]; Haxan; This Filthy Earth; Conspirators of Pleasure; Piano Tuner of Earthquakes; Clean, Shaven; Bubba Ho-Tep; Sheitan; Innocence; “Chingsao the Clown”; Léolo; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Blue Velvet; ID (2005); Master of the Flying Guillotine; Yesterday Was a Lie; The Ninth Configuration; Forbidden Zone; The Cell; The Illustrated Man; The Man Who Fell to Earth; Fando y Lis; Rampo Noir; Head; Christmas on Mars; “Broken Glass”; Videodrome; Air Doll; The Ossuary and Other Tales; Arrebato; Symbol; Wicked City (1992 live action); Barbarella; Picnic at Hanging Rock; The Cars that Ate Paris; The Boxer’s Omen [aka Mo]; Solyaris (1972); Portait of Jennie; Salo, the 120 Days of Sodom; The Last Sunset (1961); Orpheus (1950); A Scanner Darkly; Safe; The Atrocity Exhibition; My Dinner with Andre; Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque); Slacker; Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell; Color of Pomegranates; and Horror Express.

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.

Most of the time it’s famine in the world of weirdness, but sometimes it’s feast… this is one of those weeks, with two Certified Weird movies seeing Blu-ray releases and tons of other interesting releases. Let’s dive right in…

IN THEATERS (WIDE RELEASE):

Devil:  Synopsis: “A group of people trapped in a elevator realize that the devil is among them.”  We doubt this is weird (we have high standards for weird), but we can’t verify because there haven’t been any pre-release screenings for the press.  Apparently this is because there is a twist the producers don’t want leaked, but we also note the name “M. Night Shyamalan” in the credits, a fact which also provides a potential motive to keep the movie away from the critics for as long as possible.  Devil official site.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Never Let Me Go:  Speculative tale about a fascist alternate-past England where students of a boarding school are raised to give “donations,” but can escape this fate by falling in love.  Adapted from a novel by celebrated writer Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day; but, more interesting to us is the fact that he wrote the screenplay for Guy Maddin‘s The Saddest Music in the World).   Never Let Me Go official site.

The Temptation of St. Tony [Püha Tõnu kiusamine] (2009): Black and white, surrealist Estonian film about a mid-level manager who begins to question the value of virtue; the scenario seems to be inspired equally by the story of St. Anthony and Dante’s “Inferno.”  Comparisons to Werckmeister Harmonies make us drool (the janitor at 366 World Headquarters complained about having to mop up the saliva trails).  We’ve had our eye on this one since we first heard of it playing at Sundance, and the fact that an actual Eastern European weird art film is being released in the US at all is cause for celebration, even if it’s only playing in one Manhattan theater with a single LA date to follow.  The Temptation of St. Tony official site.

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY, ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES):

The Anchorage (2009): Plot synopses are vague, which seems accurate: there doesn’t appear to be much story in this one.  It follows the daily routine of a hermit woman on a Swedish island, whose isolation is only broken by visits from her daughter and a “strange” deer hunter.  For better or worse, it’s being compared to Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman.  Playing all week.  The Anchorage at Anthology Film Archives.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

We R Animals: A Swedish film about grotesque puppet animals forcing cute puppet animals into prostitution.  Looks like it’s aimed at the Meet the Feebles crowd (and director Thobias Hoffm addresses, if not embraces, the early Peter Jackson comparison).  The stills are a little bit frightening; you may want to check them out.  We R Animals Facebook page.

NEW ON DVD:

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (2009):  Here’s another one we’ve been anxiously awaiting.  An actor who’s killed his mother holds a family hostage while a detective investigates his bizarre personal history. Sounds like it could be a mundane tale of descent into madness, except that it comes from a weird dream team: directed by Werner Herzog, and executive produced by David Lynch! Buy My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?.

Necromentia (2009): The scenario has something to do with a Ouija board tattooed on a man’s back opening a portal to Hell. This one is also in the reader-suggested review queue, so expect it to be reviewed here posthaste. In the meantime buy Necromentia.

Paper Man (2009): A writer (Jeff Daniels) hires a babysitter (Emma Stone) to make sure he works on his novel; he’s also periodically visited by his imaginary friend, a superhero named Captain Excellence. Offbeat-sounding, but panned by most critics. Buy Paper Man.

Starcrash (1978): By all accounts this Roger Corman produced Star Wars exploiter is crazy, campy fun. With a cast featuring fundamentalist con-man turned B-movie leading man Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Christopher Plummer, and a young David Hasselhoff, it has a significant curiosity factor, at the very least. Buy Starcrash.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Delicatessen (1991): Read our Certified Weird entry. A major event in weird Blu-rays! This release includes all the special features from the 2 disc special edition DVD and adds a new one hour retrospective featurette. Buy Delicatessen [Blu-ray].

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978): This Donald Sutherland led reimagining of the 1956 paranoia classic about aliens possessing the bodies of your friends and neighbors stands as one of Hollywood’s better remakes, and it’s arguably weirder than the original. This package also includes a DVD version; not being a marketeer, I’m mystified as to why any company would sell a redundant Blu-ray/DVD in the same package, but here it is. At least the price isn’t more than a typical single disc. Buy Invasion of the Body Snatchers [Blu-ray+ DVD Combo].

Jacob’s Ladder (1990): Read our Certified Weird entry.  The bizarro Blu-ray bonanza of the past two weeks continues with this classic psychological thriller with knockout hallucination scenes.  Descriptions lead me to believe that the extras are exactly the same as the Artisan DVD. Buy Jacob’s Ladder [Blu-ray].

Return of the Living Dead (1985): Before the zombie genre became way, way overdone, master B-movie screenwriter Dan (Dark Star, Lifeforce) O’Bannon penned and directed one of the best Dawn of the Dead ripoffs (plotwise its a Return of the Living Dead ripoff, but in the mucho gorier style of Romero’s sequel). Lots of nudity and punk music and gallows humor, but there’s also a surprising 1980s innocence. Another DVD/Blu-ray combo. Buy Return of the Living Dead [Blu-ray + DVD Combo].

Se7en (1995): Not a weird movie, but David (Fight Club) Fincher fans will want to know about this release. Buy Se7en [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES 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’s reviews: we’ll be taking a look at Catherine Breillat’s 2008 costume crack at the legend of medieval serial-killer Bluebeard and Ken Russell‘s 1974 surreal take on the life of romantic composer Mahler. We’ll also be dipping heavily into that reader review queue with quick takes on Jan Svankmejer’s animated surrealist version of Lewis Carrol’s Alice (1988); the bizarre and sick Greek film noir tribute Singapore Sling (1990); and Emir Kusturica’s lone American movie, the magical Arizona Dream (1993), with a killer cast led by Johnny Depp supported by Faye Dunaway, Lilli Taylor, Vincent Gallo and Jerry Lewis.

It was a decent but not great week for weird search terms used to locate the site. Special apologies must be issued to the guy who came hoping to see a “milky orgy” and ended up reading about Luis Buñuel‘s weirdly intellectual exploration of heresy in the Catholic church, La Voice Lactee, instead. This week’s winner for weirdest search term, however, goes to “the weard meatball.”

We’re focusing on whittling down that huge reader review queue, even if it means publishing some shorter “placeholder” reviews until we have time to officially inaugurate some of the entries. Here’s how the massive list of reader suggestions stands as of now: Trash Humpers (still waiting for the DVD); The Science of Sleep (review coming later today); Arizona Dream (next week); Singapore Sling (next week); Alice [Neco z Alenky] (next week); The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Performance; The Apple; Songs From The Second Floor; Necromentia; Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Faust; Sublime; Battle Royale; Pink Floyd: The Wall; Escanaba In Da Moonlight; Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; Zardoz; The Films of Suzan Pitt; Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]; Paprika; The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets; The Nines; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; The Seventh Seal; Primer; Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Private Parts (1972); Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; 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 Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Uzumaki [Spiral]; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small; Bunny & the Bull; “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney” (assuming I can find it); Cinema 16: European Short Films; Freaked; Session 9; Schizopolis; Strings; Dellamorte Dellamore [AKA Cemetery Man]; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; The Addiction; Liquid Sky; The Quiet; Shock Treatment; Tuvalu; “Zombie Jesus” (if we can locate it); 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; May; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; Little Otik; Final Programme; Careful; Sweet Movie; The Triplets of Belleville; “Foutaises” (short); Johnny Suede; “Jam” (TV, UK, 2000), The Tale of the Floating World, Un Chien Andalou, Bloodsucking Freaks; Fellini Satyricon; Three Crowns of the Sailor; 8 1/2; Death Race 2000; Dororo; Lost Highway; Valerie and Her Week of Wonders; Dogville; and Julien Donkey-boy; Amelie; The Ten; The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao; 1; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Tokyo Gore Police; At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul; The Trial [Le procès) (1962); Marquis; Hell Comes to Frogtown; Hellzapoppin’; Seom [The Isle]; Allegro Non Troppo; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; Lust in the Dust; Celine and Julie Go Boating; “Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life;” The Magic Christian; Black Cat, White Cat; The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T; Abnormal: The Sinema of Nick Zedd; Robot Monster; Nightdreams; 3 Women; Rubin & Ed; Teeth; Vera; Weirdsville; Prospero’s Books; Inferno; Garden State; Persona; and The Real McCoy; Rat Pfink a Boo Boo; Themroc; Candy (1968); Run Lola Run; Pink Flamingos; Buffalo ’66; Northfork; Weekend; The Room; Glen or Glenda?; Night of the Hunter; The Fox Family; Midnight Skater; Angelus; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Twister (1989); Yokai Monsters, Vol. 1: Spook Warfare [AKA Big Monster War]; Haxan; This Filthy Earth; Conspirators of Pleasure; Piano Tuner of Earthquakes; Clean, Shaven; Bubba Ho-Tep; Sheitan; Innocence; “Chingsao the Clown”; Léolo; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Blue Velvet; ID (2005); Master of the Flying Guillotine; Yesterday Was a Lie; The Ninth Configuration; Forbidden Zone; The Cell; The Illustrated Man; The Man Who Fell to Earth; Fando y Lis; Rampo Noir; Head; Christmas on Mars; “Broken Glass”; Videodrome; Air Doll; The Ossuary and Other Tales; Arrebato; Symbol; Wicked City (1992 live action); Barbarella; Picnic at Hanging Rock; The Cars that Ate Paris; The Boxer’s Omen [aka Mo]; Solyaris (1972); Portait of Jennie; Salo, the 120 Days of Sodom; The Last Sunset (1961); Orpheus (1950); A Scanner Darkly; Safe; and The Atrocity Exhibition.

A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

There’s nothing of even moderate weird interest debuting in theaters this week. Maybe we should all go outside and enjoy the last days of fading summer.  Or, stay inside and enjoy the bonanza of cult Blu-ray releases this week (along with the releases mentioned below, there’s also a hi-def version of the iconic sci-fi Forbidden Planet being released this week… it may be time for you Blu-ray holdouts to get your hands on a player).

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Mars Attacks! (1996): Tim Burton‘s silly but star-studded tribute to 50s alien invasion movies gets its Blu-ray debut. Buy Mars Attacks! [Blu-ray].

Stardust (2007): This epic fantasy/romance with unicorns and falling stars, based on a Neil (Coraline) Gaiman novel, starred Claire Danes, Ian McClellan and Robert De Niro, yet made little impact at the box office.  I’ll confess to being one of the many who missed it, but its reputation is growing on home video; its weirdness is still in doubt, though. Buy Stardust [Blu-ray].

THX 1138 (1971):  Made a long time ago in a stylistic galaxy far away from the shock and awe of Star Wars, George Lucas’ somewhat avant-garde debut was a dystopian fable set in a narcotic future where everyone sports a number rather than a name, shaves their heads, and dresses in white in a white walled, whitewashed world.  Starring Robert Duval and Donald Pleasance, and cult fave Sid Haig even puts in an appearance.  The Blu-ray release contains numerous extras including Lucas commentary, but all of them appeared on the previous 2-disc DVD special edition. Buy THX 1138 [Blu-ray].

Tommy (1975): Ken Russell directed this adaptation of the Who’s rock opera about a “deaf, dumb and blind kid” who becomes a pinball messiah in between his crazed biopics of Mahler and Liszt.  It’s a candidate for the List, so we may be getting around to reviewing this one sooner rather than later.  The only downside is that this is a bare-bones Blu-ray, lacking the Russell commentary and other extras that graced previous DVD editions.  Buy Tommy [Blu-ray].

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.