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.

After several summer weeks of scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something weird, there’s an embarrassment of surreal cinematic riches to be had this week.

IN THEATERS (WIDE RELEASE):

Inception: Highly anticipated sci-fi psychological thriller from Christopher Nolan starring Leonardo DiCaprio as an agent with the ability to enter his target’s subconscious and steal (or plant) ideas.  Early reviews are generally positive, with some proclaiming it a masterpiece.  Look for a full report from us next week (and chime in with your own opinions).  Inception official site.

SCREENINGS (IFC CENTER, NEW YORK CITY):

El Topo (1970): Read El Topo‘s Certified Weird entry.  See Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s surreal, mystical Spaghetti western as it was meant to be seen: on the big screen, at midnight.  Playing at 11:55 PM Friday, July 16 and Saturday, July 17.

Henri-George Clouzot’s Inferno (2009): Documentary on the director’s unfinished L’enfer, a big budget avant-garde movie from 1964 that was intended to out-weird Fellini’s surprise hit 8 1/2; the production was plagued with problems and never completed.  The filmmakers had access to the raw footage and apparently use it liberally in the doc.  Henri-George Clouzot’s Inferno at IFC center.

Valhalla Rising (2010): Dark Ages tale of a mute, one-eyed slave who escapes his Scottish master and joins with a group of Viking renegades; their ship is wrecked and washes up on a strange island.  Critics are using adjectives like “trippy,”  “crazy,” “hallucinatory,” and “poetic.”  From director Nicholas Winding Refn, who already struck weird gold with Bronson (2008).   Valhalla Rising official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Artois the Goat (2009): Indie comedy with dream sequences about a lab technician who tries to create the perfect goat cheese: a “cheese of destiny.” The Austin Chronicle called it “slightly surreal.” Buy Artois the Goat.

Mystery Science Theater 3000, Vol. XVIII:  A TV show premised on the concept of robots mocking bad movies qualifies as weird.  We think a new MST3K collection is always noteworthy, but this one even more so because it contains the gang’s treatment of the Certified Weird The Beast of Yucca Flats.   Other movies in the set include Lost Continent, Crash of the Moons and Jack Frost, a strange and obscure Soviet-era fairytale adaptation. Buy Mystery Science Theater 3000, Vol. XVIII

Parasomnia (2008): Unreleased Hollywood horror about a beautiful woman with a rare disorder that causes her to sleep most of her life away; a love triangle between an earnest beau and an evil mesmerist for her hand is told through her dreams and nightmares. Despite it’s unimpressive ancestry (it comes from the director of The House on Haunted Hill and feardotcom), it does look weird, an a few reviews make it sound like it might be a minor offbeat gem. Buy Parasomnia.

Pornography: A Thriller (2009): Murder and weirdness in three related tales from the world of gay porn. The press release promised that “surreal and supernatural elements weave together these three haunting stories.” Reviews were generally negative. Buy Pornography: A Thriller.

Saint John of Las Vegas (2009): his quirky road trip story about a retired blackjack player turned insurance fraud investigator returning to Las Vegas has some surreal interludes, but even the presence of Steve Buscemi and Sarah Silverman didn’t stop critics from savagely beating it and leaving the remains for dead in the desert. Buy Saint John of Las Vegas.

Terribly Happy (2009): Danish film noir about a police officer assigned to a strange and insular town after he has a nervous breakdown; often compared to the Coen brothers or David Lynch, Slant calls it a “surreal noir” and The Hollywood Reporter called it “seriously weird.”  Check back this weekend for our take! Buy Terribly Happy.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

In Bruges (2008): Brendan Gleeson and Collin Farrel star as two vulgar Irish hitmen who hole up in the medieval Belgian city of Bruges after a botched murder. Often compared to a brainier Pulp Fiction, it’s at least highly odd, if not all the way to weird, and it was both a critical and popular success. Buy In Bruges [Blu-ray].

Insomnia (2002): Not necessarily weird, but they say there is some disorientation in Christopher Nolan‘s followup to Memento, which features Al Pacino as a bleary-eyed, guilt-ridden detective who has trouble sleeping in the eternal sunshine of Alaskan summer. Released to coincide with Inception. Buy Insomnia [Blu-ray].

Parasomnia (2008): See entry in DVD above. Buy Parasomnia [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.

We’re adding some new functionality to the site, and the easiest way to achieve this turns out to be to completely redo our visual theme from the bottom up.

So, for the next few weeks, this site may look different at times. We’ll be switching back and forth between our old look and the new look we’re slowly developing.

If you notice any bugs showing up, we’d appreciate you notifying us here!

UPDATE 7/13: We’re fooling around again (just to get one feature to work). We’re aware of the center column width problem and promise we’ll try to get everything perfect as soon as possible!

UPDATE 7/14: We’re settling on the current look, at least for a long while. No more remodeling except for small tweaks.

First things first: dear readers, please join the July contest. All you have to do is make a comment, and then announce your intention to enter! I can’t hang all five Donnie Darko posters in my home.

Next announcement: we are still redesigning the page and the appearance may be changing the next few days: don’t be alarmed.

With an infusion of new writing talent, we’re hoping to print even more reviews than ever before: in fact, later today we’ll be publishing a review of the dark Korean treatment of Hansel and Gretel (2007). Also is the next week expect to see reviews of the strangely conceived vampire b-movie Life’s Blood (2009) (God’s a lesbian in this one) and the Coen-esque Danish black comedy Terribly Happy (2008). Alfred will give us the scoop on Harry Langdon‘s slice of surreal silent slapstick, Long Pants. And we’ll be getting to two items from the reader-suggested review queue: Michael Haneke‘s Funny Games (1997) and the apocalyptic rock-and-roll fantasy Six-String Samurai (1998).

For the weirdest search term used to locate the site this week, we’ll choose the incredibly specific question, “what type of heel did tim curry wear in the rocky horror picture show”? But we also want to tell the person who asked Googe “in what movie does a zombie walk around saying boogie woogie?” that if they ever find the answer, we want to know, too.

Here’s the state of the reader-suggested review queue: Trash Humpers (we’re still waiting for the DVD release); Six-String Samurai (next week!); Funny Games (jumping in line to come out next week); Altered States; Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; Being John Malkovich; The Apple; Southland Tales; Arizona Dream; Spider (2002); Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; Necromentia; Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Mary and Max; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Danger: Diabolik; 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; 964 Pinocchio; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; The Seventh Seal; Primer; Maniac (1934); Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Walkabout; 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, and This Filthy Earth.

Kickstarter is an exciting new idea for funding independent movies or other art projects.  The concept is that the artist describes his or heridea, and people pledge money for it to be completed.  No donor is required to make good on the pledge unless the project reaches its target goal.

Our own Alfred Eaker has placed his new partially completed documentary, “Thunder Sky,” on kickstarter.  “Thunder Sky” tells the tale of the possibly autistic outsider artist Raymond Thunder-sky, who was equally obsessed with clowns and construction workers, and used to dress in a hardhat and a clown collar while wandering through downtown Cincinnati looking for construction sites to sketch.

At the time of this writing there’s only 7 days left to raise $4900 more dollars to complete the film.  (For a mere $15 pledge you can get a thank you in the film credits; a $50 pledge gets you and autographed DVD).

You can see the trailer on the kickstarter.com website.  We hope you’ll consider supporting the documentary.

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.

Another extremely disappointing week for weird movies. The summer can’t get over fast enough, though there is hopefully relief on the horizon thanks to Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

IN THEATERS (WIDE RELEASE):

Predators: Reboot of the Ahh-nald sci-fi/action series, sans the Governator.  The movie’s not of interest in itself; we mention it sadly, to show that Hollywood has swallowed up another promising directorial talent (Nimród Antal, of Kontroll).  Come back to us, Nimród!

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Dali & I: The Surreal Story (planned for 2011): Upcoming Salvador Dali biopic, with Andre (The Truman Show) Niccol mentioned as director, Cillian (Peacock) Murphy attached as “I” (an unscrupulous art dealer), and—here’s the kicker—Al Pacino as the Surrealist painter. I’d expect something along the lines of Little Ashes, but even more salacious: the author of the memoir the screenplay is based on describes as an expose of how ” the artist authorized forgeries of his own work as a means of funding his so-called ‘sex circus’ of surreal orgies with young actresses.” You can read more about this project, which may or may not be completed, at the book author’s site.

NEW ON DVD:

God of Vampires (2010): There’s no truly weird DVD releases this week, but you might take a chance on this gory action/horror/comedy/would-be-cult-film hybrid about Chinese vampires in America.  This low-budget independent film was six years in the making.  Buy God of Vampires.

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.