It’s the last week to enter the July contest and there are still plenty of chances to get that Donnie Darko stuff. Enter now!

We have another full slate of reviews planned for next week, starting off later today with Pamela’s review of Some Call It a Sling Blade, the short film that Billy Bob Thornton later expanded into the Oscar-winning (Best Adapted Screenplay) feature film. Later in the week you can look forward to a review of the cowboy musical sci-fi serial Stingray Sam (2009), John Waters’ transgressive Female Trouble (1974), and Seijun Suzuki’s sadly underseen surrealist Yakuza film Branded to Kill (1967). We’ll also handle three films from the reader-suggested review queue: 964 Pinocchio, Southland Tales, and David Cronenberg‘s Spider.

There were two good candidates for weirdest search term used to locate the site this week. You have to admire the incredible specificity of someone searching for “a story 366 words long that no-one has ever heared before.” But for the weirdest search term, we’ll select the mangled “weird pants boys are weird picture archive.” Isn’t “weird pants boys are weird” a tautology?

Here’s the reader-suggested review queue, which we’re actually (believe it or not) making a dent in: rash Humpers (waiting for the DVD release);  Southland Tales (next week); Spider (2002) (next week); 964 Pinocchio (next week); Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; Being John Malkovich; The Apple;  Arizona Dream; 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;  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; 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; and Clean, Shaven.

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):

Life During Wartime: Not weird, but of interest, is Todd Solondz’s semi-sequel to his 1998 controversial cult-favorite black comedy Happiness, with different actors in the lead roles.  With Shirley Henderson, Ciarán Hinds, Allison Janney, Charlotte Rampling, and Paul Reubens.  Opening in New York City this week with dates in other major cities in August. Life During Wartime official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Thunder-Sky: Our own Alfred Eaker‘s documentary project about Raymond Thunder-Sky, the outsider artist obsessed with clowns and construction workers. See raw footage, pledge support and follow the project’s progress at the new Thunder-Sky indiegogo page.

NEW ON DVD:

Legends of the Dark Kings: A Fist of the North Star Story (2010):  Fist of the North Star was an influential anime with reportedly weird elements.  This is a Japanese television show; it’s not clear to me exactly what “a Fist of the North Star story” entails, but if you’re in the target market you probably get it. Buy Legends of the Dark King: A Fist of the North Star Story.

A Town Called Panic [Panique au Village] (2009): A stop-motion animated children’s film from Belgium; according to the press release, it “follows the wacky, hilarious and often surreal adventures of three plastic toys named Cowboy, Indian and Horse who share a rambling house in a rural town which never fails to attract the weirdest events.”  Expect a review soon! Buy A Town Called Panic.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Evil Aliens (2005):  Gory would-be cult movie that prefers to compare itself to early Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi rather than to explain what’s unique about this movie.  From the director of Razor Blade Smile (1998).  Buy Evil Aliens [Blu-ray].

Legends of the Dark Kings: A Fist of the North Star Story (2010):  See description in DVD above. Buy Legends of the Dark Kings: Fist of the North Star [Blu-ray].

Tin Man (2007): Nick Willing‘s Emmy-winning SciFi Channel miniseries, a dystopian adult retelling of the Wizard of Oz, hits the Blu-ray ranks this week in a 2-disc edition. Zooey Deschanel stars as Dorothy and Neal McDonough is the Titular Tin Man.  We haven’t seen it, but it was better reviewed than Willing’s followup Alice, which we liked.   Buy Tin Man [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

W the Movie (2009):  Speaking of Alfred Eaker, 366 Distribution is putting W the Movie up on YouTube to watch for free, for a limited time.  We’re describing it, with typical hyperbole, as “a surreal permutation of the Bush years, which could easily have been the Nixon years as well. W the Movie is a nightmare tale straight from the Theater of the absurd, a biblical melodrama told on wrestlemania television, a Greek myth played out on a Christian Broadcast network, the Book of Revelations told as a cheesy 1950’s sci-fi movie.”  If you enjoy it, please consider adding the DVD to your collection.

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.

Still plenty of Donnie Darko posters left… all it will cost you is a comment.

We’ve got a very full week of reviews planned.  We’ll be giving our initial impressions on Inception; the weird movie event of 2010 so far, so be sure to check in and join in the discussion!  We’ll also provide coverage of Vincenzo Natali‘s 2010 sci-fier Splice (still in second run theaters, no word yet on a DVD release date); Love Object, a 2003 entry in the weird “blow-up-sex-toy-comes-to-life” subgenre; the last entry in Alfred’s coverage of B-westerns, the silent Hell’s Hinges (1916); and we’ll knock Nic Roeg‘s Walkabout and Ken Russell‘s Altered States out of the reader suggested review queue.

Our survey of the weirdest search terms used to locate the site brought some interesting inquiries this week. First, there were searches for two movies we don’t know the identities of, but are anxious to see based on the descriptions: “russian mummy horror film egg sex” and “black cat kills baby staircase movie.” (Somehow, it’s much more upsetting to see baby staircases killed onscreen then full-grown staircases). For the person who asked “is tom hardy missing a pinky?,” we’re pretty sure the answer is “no.” But we found “what is unexpected about centipedes?” to be the weirdest query of the week; we can’t even begin to formulate an answer to that one.

Here’s how the reader-suggested review queue stacks up: Trash Humpers (waiting for the DVD release); Altered States (next week); Walkabout (skipping ahead to come out next week); 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; 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; and Conspirators of Pleasure.

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.