Reviews definitely appearing next week: we’ll be covering Desperate Living (1977), the third and final entry in John Waters‘ “Trash Trilogy;” looking into the 2009 “Un Certain Regard” winner, Dogtooth (2009), the absurd story of three children hidden away from the real world by rich parents; and rolling our eyes at Thankskilling, the DIY horror-comedy about an axe wielding turkey puppet.  From the reader suggested review queue, we’ll be tackling the “Beat” Kitano comedy Getting Any? and Michel Gondry‘s surreal Science of Sleep. And don’t forget to check back this evening for our review of one of the most outlandish exploitation movies ever made, 1934’s incredible Maniac.

It was a good week for entertainingly weird search terms used to locate the site.  The perverts (God love ’em) were out in full force, scouring 366 for info on “Georges Melies adult movies,” “overdeveloped jugs,” “weird sissy sex movies,” “mofo sexo,” and hoping for the opportunity to “watch a movie of sexual footmen and his daughter.”  The most striking search term, however, in our view was “wierd girl has unusualy tiny vagina.” 

Here’s the state of the reader-suggested review queue: Trash Humpers (still waiting for the DVD); Maniac (1934) (coming later today); The Science of Sleep (next week); Getting Any? (next week); The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Performance; The Apple; Arizona Dream; Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; 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); and Orpheus (1950).

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):

Machete:  A machete-wielding vigilante chops up his enemies in this grindhouse-styled (expanded from one of the fake trailers in Grindhouse, in fact) action flick  featuring some major star power (in mostly minor roles).  Starring Danny Trejo, with Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Segall and Lindsay Lohan.  Weird?  We’re betting no, but cult director Robert Rodriguez‘s numerous followers will be checking this out for sure.  Machete official site.

TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: SEP 9 – 19

The TIFF is one of the world’s top film festivals; frankly, though, we dropped the ball by not covering the horror-oriented alternative festival, Toronto After Dark, last week.  Next year, TAD (though we admit we’re skeptical about any festival that could give The Human Centipede a silver medal).  Regardless, here are some of the movies featured at TIFF of interest of that we’ll be keeping an eye out for in the upcoming months:

• 13 Assassins – Takashi Miike’s latest is a bloody but reportedly non-weird period samurai film
• The Adder’s Bite – this 9 minute short film (described as “deliciously surreal” by Twitch) is based on a chapter of Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and has been garnering positive buzz for upcoming director Firas Momani; perhaps he’ll get a feature deal out of it
• At Ellen’s Age [Im Alter von Ellen] – an airline hostess falls in with a group of radical animal rights activists in a story that’s described as containing “a pinch of the surreal”
• Black Swan – highly anticipated psychological thriller from Darren Aronofsky about rival ballerinas, starring Natalie Portman
• Bunraku – alternate reality dystopian actioner starring Josh Hartnett, Woody Harrelson (as a samurai bartender), Ron Perlman and Demi Moore
• Deep in the Woods [Au Fond des Bois] – in 19th century France a bourgeois woman is abducted by a magical wild man and taken into the forest for a “nightmare of carnal sex” (?)
• The Four Times [Le Quattro Volte] – the four stage journey of a shepherd’s soul through the afterlife, told according to one of geeky Greek cult leader Pythagoras’ lesser-known theorems
• The Illusionist [L’illusionniste] – Sylvain Chomet’s followup to The Triplets of Belleville is a nearly silent animated feature about an out-of-fashion magician, from an unproduced script by Jacques Tati
• John Carpenter’s The Ward – thriller about a woman in a mental institution; we’ll be watching simply to see if Carpenter has returned to form yet
• The Last Circus [Balada Triste] – from Alex (The Day of the Beast) de la Iglesia comes a parody of the Spanish Civil War with killer clowns battling over a circus dancer
• L.A. Zombie – hardcore gay porn/gore horror/art film from oddball Bruce LaBruce
• Machete Maidens Unleashed! – best-of exploitation compilation in which director Mark Hartley tries to do for the Philippines what he did for Australia with Not Quite Hollywood
  
• Man with a Movie Camera: The Global Remake – the title explains it: a remake of the groundbreaking Russian classic Man with a Movie Camera recreated by folks who uploaded their recreations of scenes to a website
• Passion Play – fantasy fairy-tale starring Mickey Rourke as a jazz musician and Megan Fox as a “Bird Woman”
• The Sleeping Beauty [La Belle Endormie] – before we’ve even had a chance to catch Bluebeard, Catherine Breillat is back with another postmodern fairy tale
• The Strange Case of Angelica – story of a photographer who sees the dead as the living when he looks through his camera, from 101-year old director Manoel de Oliveira
• Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – for some reason we didn’t notice this Thai fantasy about the afterlife until after it won the Palme D’Or
• You Are Here – a series of absurdist narrative snippets make up Daniel Cockburn’s feature debut; promoters are bandying about Charlie Kaufman‘s name as a stylistic touchstone

There’s also an exhibit of Tim Burton‘s artwork to check out for Torontoians (Torontites?)  Toronto International Film Festival official site.

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY: ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES)

Our Beloved Month of August [Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto, AKA This Dear Month of August] (2008): A narrative experiment: the filmmaker (Miguel Gomes) could not find funding for his movie but starting filming anyway, creating a documentary about vacationers in the Portuguese mountains in August.  Then, he introduced a fictional drama without explaining to the audience what was documentary and what was scripted.   It’s questionable whether this is truly weird, but it’s definitely experimental and “postmodern.”  Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto Official Site (French).

NEW ON DVD:

Lorna the Exorcist (1974):  There’s nothing truly weird debuting on DVD this week, but if you’re desperate to rent something off-the-wall you might give this Jess Franco lesbian-heavy occult fairy tale a go-go. Buy Lorna The Exorcist.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Evil Dead (Limited Edition) (1981): Sam Raimi‘s bloody low-budget debut, which was half remade/half sequelized as the Certified Weird Evil Dead II.  There are a veritable zombie host of extras, but all of them appeared on one or another of the film’s previous video incarnations with the exception of a new commentary track from Raimi, star Bruce Campbell and producer Robert Talpert. Buy The Evil Dead (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Boxing Jesus [Il Pugno di Jesu] (2007): An odd title and plot description (Jesus returns to earth as a boxer but is sent to a madhouse where he meets John the Baptist).  We couldn’t swear that this unknown Italian film is weird, rather than a lame comedy, but you can try it out and report back to us.  Watch Boxing Jesus 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.

Reviews that are definitely coming next week: La Promesa [The Promise] (2004), a Spanish Gothic thriller about a devout woman who sees religious visions and a telepathic boy; the Korean version of a spaghetti western: The Good, the Bad and the Weird (2008); Tim Burton’s superhero burlesque Batman Returns (1992); the just-barely-still-in-theaters anarchic video game comedy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010); and from the reader-suggested review queue, the deranged pre-Code exploitation flick Maniac [AKA Sex Maniac] (1934).  Several contributors are working on other projects, as well, so we’ll see what else may turn up.

A strange week in weird search terms used to locate the site.  Nothing jumped out at us as a definitive winner, but there are a couple of interesting notes.  First, we are happy to report that (as of this writing) we now hold the coveted #1 spot on Google for the search “pour lust movies.com.”  We were also sort of complimented, in a backhand way, by the fact that someone chose to come to us to research “weird movies no one likes.”  But the week’s weirdest search term, by a narrow margin, is “wierd  contac lense in the villege gothic store of new york.”

Here’s how the ever-growing reader review queue stands: Trash Humpers (still waiting for the DVD);  Being John Malkovich (in about an hour); Maniac (1934) (next week); The Science of Sleep; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; The Apple; Arizona Dream; Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; 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; and Salo, the 120 Days of Sodom.

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):

Louis (2010): It’s disappointing to read the negative reviews from the preview audiences for such an appealing-sounding project: a modern silent film about young Louis Armstrong growing up in Storyville, with Jackie Earl Haley as a Chaplinesque villain and live musical accompaniment by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and classical pianist Cecile Licad. Playing successive nights in Chicago (Aug 25th); Detroit (26th); Bethesda, Md. (28th); New York (30th); and Philadelphia (31st). Louis official site.

SCREENINGS (MOUNT VERNON, NY):

The Milk of Sorrow [La Teta Asustada] (2009): Magical realist tale with an interesting premise: women who are abused during pregnancy transmit their sorrow to their children through breast milk.  Most critics found the pace poetic, others complain it’s too slow, but all agree it features an interesting alternative use for potatoes.  Peru’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2010.  The Milk of Sorrow official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Godkiller: Walk Among Us (2010): From the product description: “a twisted, sci-fi/horror adventure about a 16 year old boy’s odyssey through a post-nuke wasteland (populated by fallen gods, organ-stealing hookers, and sex-addicted technowizards) as he searches for a new heart to save his dying sister.”  Animated, from an indie comic, and it’s gotten fairly good notices in the genre press.  Lance Henriksen and Bill Mosely supply voices. Buy Godkiller: Walk Among Us.

“Kick Ass Heroes” [Four Film Super Collection: Fantastic Argoman (1967)/Green Inferno (1988)/Robo Vampire (1988)/Red Eagle (1970)]: We haven’t seen any of these, but at least one of these losers could fall into the so-bad-it’s-weird-category: Robo Vampire, which features a poorly costumed robot and Taoist hopping vampires and was directed by the infamous Godfrey Ho.  Green Inferno is better known as Cannibal Holocaust II.  We have to confess to admiring the boxcover’s shameless marketing moxie; it’s designed to fool the extremely feeble minded into thinking that they’re purchasing the overrated Hollywood blockbuster.  They might accidentally get exposed to something interesting instead. Buy “Kick Ass Heroes”.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Death Note Collection (2006):  Read our capsule review of part I of Death Note.  This release contains both installments of the interesting and mildly weird story of a college student who finds a book which allows him to kill anyone whose name he writes in it, and the eccentric techno-detective who hunts him down.  Contains a disc of extras. Buy Death Note Collection (Death Note/Death Note II: The Last Name) [Blu-ray].

Shogun Assassin (1980): Not very weird, but definitely cult-y: this bloody Japanese samurai story was re-edited by Americans from two previous “Lone Wolf” movies to produce what many fans believe is actually a superior film.  The tale involves a masterless samurai assassin with a son and a baby cart full of weapons who is hunted by ninjas, and it’s wall-to-wall fight scenes. Buy Shogun Assassin [Blu-ray].

Time Bandits (1981): Read the Certified Weird entry.  Cause for celebration: Terry Gilliam‘s early masterpiece joins the high-def ranks!  The only downside is that there’s only one extra, a new fifteen minute interview with Gilliam.  It’s still great news for Blu-ray owners. Buy Time Bandits [Blu-ray].

Withnail and I (1987): Capping off a fantastic week in cult Blu-ray cinema is this beloved (though non-weird) British black comedy about a pair of unemployed actors “enjoying” a boozy weekend retreat at an uncle’s cabin. Buy Withnail and I [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.

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.

SCREENING (NEW YORK CITY):

Altiplano (2009): Heavy-looking message movie about corporate types allowing mercury to poison the water supply of pure and virtuous Andes villagers; there are reportedly touches of surrealism (the Village Voice complains that it looks at times like a “Benetton ad by Alejandro Jodorowsky–lite“).  Screening this week at the Village East in Manhattan, with a date to follow in LA in October.  Altiplano official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Untitled Spike Jonze/Arcade Fire collaboration:  While we patiently wait for news on Jonze‘s reported adaptation of the “eternal winter” novel Light Boxes, it seems that the former music video prodigy is working on a short film project with indie rock darlings the Arcade Fire.  Word is it’s a sci-fi b-movie.  More info at slashfilm.

WEB PROJECTS:

Star Wars Uncut:  Star Wars fans and aspiring filmmakers submitted  15-second recreations of scenes from the classic Episode IV: A New Hope, and an editor chose the best (nearly 500 different segments) and stitched them together to recreate the entire movie.  The idea is similar (but more amateur) than Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated (review coming later today).  It’s interesting to see the style and actors change every few seconds: talented animators and semi-professional film crews are put on equal footing with the large number of folks who simply re-enacted scenes using their kids or pets.   I confess that I enjoyed seeing Darth Vader with breasts in an early scene.  The project manager promises to release this as soon as he finishes “working through the legal issues.”  Good luck with that.  While we wait, here’s the clumsy link to watch Star Wars Uncut online.

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

NEW ON DVD:

Big Money Rustlas (2010):  A Western from the rappers Insane Clown Posse, who play the entire movie in their trademark clown makeup and enlist reality-TV show level talent like Ron Jeremy, Brigitte Nielsen, Vanilla Ice (!), Todd Bridges, and a post-sex scandal Screech (Dustin Diamond) to their cause.  Avoid if you’re a Juggalo, as if you are it apparently makes sense; all others are encouraged to try it out. Buy Big Money Rustlas.

The Good, the Bad and the Weird (2008):  A South Korean tribute to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns that wowed audiences on the festival circuit.  Though “the weird” refers to a character and not the film’s style, it’s pretty hard for us not to notice a movie with such a title, especially when it gets glowing reviews containing words like “wild” and “ridiculous.”  Buy The Good, the Bad, the Weird

Ichi 1: Origin [AKA 1-Ichi] (2003): Direct-to-Japanese-video prequel of Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer, telling how the title character became a sadomasochistic killer (was he teased in high school?).  It comes from one of Miike’s assistant directors.  If this were any good, we suspect it would have been released on these shores years ago, but some may be curious. No idea why this Tokyo Shock edition is being released just one year after Unearthed put out a DVD of the prequel.  Buy Ichi 1: Origin.

The Lost Skeleton Returns Again (2009):  Sequel to the minor cult hit The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001), with most of the same cast returning.  The original was a campy tongue-in-cheek send-up of 50s science fiction films and we expect the sequel to be more of the same. Buy The Lost Skeleton Returns Again.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Good, the Bad and the Weird (2008): See description in DVD above. Buy The Good, the Bad, the Weird [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.