Received this question via email from someone looking for the name of a particular film:
“Starts in Heaven. God is going to destroy the world. Instead He sends an angel down. Angel takes the form of a dog then water then wind … ‘Angel’ helps a young film maker. Helps him make a film but it is not a commercial success. Final scene is the film is projected onto a sheet in the Notre Dame in Paris.
I have been searching for three years for the answer!”
It doesn’t ring a bell with me, and a preliminary search of IMDB keywords didn’t turn anything up. Does anyone recognize the title?
Also, if you have any weird movie mysteries of your own you want solved, post them in the “Comments” section and we’ll see what we can do.
UPDATE: Jordan of the B-Movie Film Vault says this plot seems familiar but he can’t place it. He asks whether it could be one of the “Left Behind” movies (or something from that genre).
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):
After.Life: Looks like another psychothriller about a dead person who doesn’t know she’s dead, although this one tips its hat in the plot synopsis. Christina Ricci wakes up on a slab in funeral parlor director Liam Neeson’s mortuary; she insists she’s alive, he tells her she’s in passage to the afterlife (or the after.life, I guess). Critics have been cruel; Ricci’s nude scenes may be the main draw. After.Life official site.
It Came from Kuchar (2009): Documentary on the works of the undeservedly obscure Kuchar twins, the 1960s trash-underground filmmaking pioneers who made Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965) among other titles that should be covered here. Buck Henry, John Waters, Atom Egoyan and Guy Maddin are among the hip celebrities attesting to their influence in the doc. Screening at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City this week; playing San Francisco and Berkeley the week after. Be on the lookout for a DVD release this summer. It Came from Kuchar official site.
Women Without Men (2009): Iranian magical realist story about four women who find respite from chaos and men in a magical garden during the 1953 coup that installed the Shah. Playing in the L.A. area only, unknown if there will be any future dates. No official site.
SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 12):
The Battle of the Sexes: Animated!: It’s girls vs. boys as the audience gets a chance to vote on which gender is better at making short animated (non-porno) sex films. Featuring films from five male directors (Bill Plympton, John Goras, PES, Duncan Beedie and Ondrej Rudavsky) and five females (Signe Baumane, Lisa Yu, Saray Dominguez and Joanna Quinn). The bout is scheduled for Monday, April 12 at 9 PM at the IFC Center; more information here.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Paprika: The sort-of good good news: MTV is reporting that director Wolfgang Petersen (The Neverending Story) has high hopes for a treatment of a live-action version of the surreal anime film Paprika (currently languishing in our reader-suggested review queue). The very, very bad news: Petersen is quoted as saying that he hopes to make this version “more accessible for a wide audience… more of a film for a mainstream audience.” Bad Wolfgang! Bad director!
NEW ON DVD:
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009): The concept, at least, is totally crazy: the great Werner Herzog remakes Abel Ferrara’s singular, bleak Bad Lieutenant, but as a self-aware action parody, with Nicolas Cage going wild (maybe channeling Klaus Hinski?) as the titular drug-crazed cop. We missed this in its eyeblink theatrical release and look forward to catching it on video. Buy Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
Jade Warrior [Jadesoturi] (2006): A Finnish/Chinese (!) co-produced fantasy about a Nordic blacksmith who relives a past life as a Chinese warrior. Reportedly quite confusing, though good. “Mystery Science Theater” fans may be pleased to hear that the plot prominently features a “sampo,” so this may be your chance to finally find out what a “sampo” is. Buy Jade Warrior.
Little Hercules (2009): Little Hercules travels from Mt. Olympus to Los Angeles in this apparent remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger flop Hercules in New York (1970). Surprisingly, this was a flop too, despite the remarkable cast: Judd Nelson, Robin Givens, Elliot Gould (as Socrates!), top-billed Hulk Hogan (as Zeus!), and three of Hulk Hogan’s offspring. Rated a 1.9 on IMDB, which would be low enough to put it in the bottom 100 movies if it had enough votes. Buy Little Hercules (at your own risk; 366 Weird Movies and it’s affiliates accept no responsibility for any emotional scars resulting from the viewing of Little Hercules).
Taxidermia (2005): Three interwoven stories about three generations of Hungarian men: a WWII veteran grandfather, a would-be athlete father, and a taxidermist son—surrealy woven together by weird director György (Hukkle) Pálfi. This is currently sitting in our reader-suggested review queue; we’ve been awaiting this Region 1 DVD debut for some time now. Buy Taxidermia.
Dreamscape (1984): Forgotten would-be blockbuster about a psychic who agrees to a job entering people’s nightmares to try and fix them. Starring Dennis Quaid, with Max von Sydow; the multiple dream sequences are supposed to be pretty good. Buy Dreamscape [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.
Next week’s a little up in the air as to reviews; lots of different pots are simmering. Definitely expect to see the bizarro extraterrestrial film, XTRO (1983). As to the rest of the week, it could be any combination of Frownland (2007), Kontroll (2003), Loren Cass (2006), an update of Antichrist (2009), and the recent George Mieles box set. You’ll just have to check back to see!
The Internet is falling down in its mission to amuse us with poorly conceived search terms used to locate the site in search engines. More and more, people are coming here actually looking for “weird movies” or other completely appropriate search terms like “weird nude feature film jesus” or “sea shell bras.” Looking for a notably weird search term, we’re forced to select “Anges exterminateurs free watches” because it makes us think someone is looking for a Jean-Claude Brisseau timepiece.
Updating the reader-suggested review queue: Xtro (next week); Basket Case; Suicide Club; O Lucky Man!; Trash Humpers (when/if released); Gozu; Tales of Ordinary Madness; The Wayward Cloud; Kwaidan; Six-String Samurai; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Altered States; Memento; 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]; Necromania (1971, Ed Wood); 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; Frownland;The Seventh Seal; Taxidermia; Primer; Maniac (1934); Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Walkabout; Private Parts (1972); Possession; Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; Malice in Wonderland; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); The Human Centipede (First Sequence); 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; and Session 9.
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):
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008): Badly animated CGI birds attack community theater actors who swat at them with coat hangers. Those of you who thought that the trailer we posted yesterday was an April Fool’s Day joke, consider yourself fooled. Birdemic is all too real. Watch for midnight screenings this week in New York City, Phoenix and Los Angeles; in upcoming months it will play Austin, TX; Washington, DC; Portland, OR; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; San Francisco, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis, MN; Houston, TX; Dallas, TX; Cleveland, OH; and Seattle, WA. Sounds worth a road trip. Birdemic: Shock and Terror official site.
NEW ON DVD:
Alice in Wonderland (1951) (2 Disc Special Un-Anniversary Edition): Disney re-releases Uncle Walt’s original animated version of Lewis Carroll’s tale to capitalize on the popularity of Tim Burton‘s mediocre live-action reimagining. Extras on the second disc include a “making of” documentary, a deleted scene and a deleted song, the Mickey Mouse short “Thru the Mirror,” and interactive games. Buy Alice in Wonderland (2-Disc Special Un-Anniversary Edition).
Girly [Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly] (1970): Intriguing sounding, obscure British black comedy about a lunatic family that kidnaps hippies and forces them to play deadly games; losers are “sent to the angels.” It’s comforting to see that offbeat, forgotten films like this still surface on home video from time to time. Buy Girly.
I Sell the Dead (2008): Offbeat tale of a pair of Victorian grave robbers who specialize in digging up, capturing and trafficking the un-dead—a lucrative underground business they dub the “resurrection trade.” With Ron Perlman. Part of Glasseye Pics innovative “ScareFlix” series (which also includes the Certified Weird I Can See You). Buy I Sell the Dead.
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
The Usual Children (1997): No real information on this obscure movie, but it’s a family musical fantasy about a young boy who wishes his sister dead on Christmas Eve, and finds his wish granted in a parallel universe. The hitch is, his little sister returns as a ghost to haunt him. Sounds pretty odd to us. Watch The Usual Children 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.
We don’t usually like to pimp mainstream movies here, but we’ve recently learned of two upcoming films that we predict are going to dominate the Oscar buzz next season, and decided we just had to share them with our readers.
The two movies occupy opposite hemispheres of the cinema world. The first (still untitled) movie, from a director who shall remain nameless, is an inspiring drama/romance/comedy/thriller packed full of catch phrases that hip people are sure to be quoting on their Facebook profiles.
The second movie could not be more different, but is just as likely to find favor with the Academy. From visionary director James Ngyuen, master of the romantic thriller, this is a beautifully imagined, CGI-heavy (in the tradition of Avatar), an environmentally conscious thrill-ride that brings to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds:
Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!
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(at your own risk; 366 Weird Movies and it’s affiliates accept no responsibility for any emotional scars resulting from the viewing of Little Hercules).
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