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):

The Paranoids [Los Paranoicos]: Argentinian dramedy about a paranoid screenwriter who takes offense when a childhood friend adapts his life into a television show.  Looks quirky/oddball, not necessarily weird.  Not only that, but reviews have been generally negative.  The Paranoids official site.

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY, THE FILM FORUM, THROUGH FEBRUARY 2)

A Room and a Half (2009): This documentary portrait of exiled Jewish Russian poet Josephy Brodsky, who became America’s Poet Laureate and won a Nobel Prize for Literature, is a collage of real-life interviews, dramatic recreations, animation, and stylized staged footage recreating the Soviet constructivist style.  70-year old animator/director Andrey Khrzhanovsky made some surreal shorts in the USSR (i.e. The Glass Harmonica, 1968) that ran into censorship problems.   Reviews are glowing and universally positive; hopefully that will be enough to get this intriguing movie a distribution deal of some sort.  A Room and a Half at the Film Forum.

NEW ON DVD:

Chantal Akerman in the Seventies: A compilation of the title director’s early experimental works from the Criterion Collection’s “Eclipse” series. I’m unfamiliar with this director, but Criterion claims she came out of the New York experimental film scene and is recommended for “adventurous” viewers.   Her most famous work, featured here, is her feature debut Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1976), which included explicit (for the time, at least) scenes of lesbian lovemaking.   3 discs.  Buy Chantal Akerman in the Seventies.

The Invention of Lying (2009):  High-concept romantic comedy set in an alternate reality where no one can tell a lie, until one man spontaneously evolves this ability.  From the creator and star of the Britcom “The Office.”  Unlikely to cross over the weird border, but definitely different, well-reviewed, and worthy of a gamble. Buy The Invention of Lying.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Invention of Lying: See description in DVD above. Buy The Invention of Lying [Blu-ray].

Magnolia (1999): Paul Thomas Anderson’s third feature was a masterful ensemble drama, containing perhaps Tom Cruise’s only truly good performance, with an unexpectedly weird ending that threw audiences for a loop.  A near masterpiece, definitely worth watching at least once and probably deserving multiple viewings. Buy Magnolia.

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.

OK, 2009 is over, but we’re still catching up on some of the worthy weird flicks we missed, so check us out next week for reviews of Terry Gilliam‘s Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (still in theaters) and Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. We’ll also thrown on a review of William (Exorcist) Friedkin’s paranoia piece, Bug (2006).

As far as the weirdest search term used to locate the site this week: we got the usual rash of weird fetish requests (1ooporno pregnant horse”) , but these are getting  a little boring.  When your bombarded with bestiality search terms, they no longer seem that weird.  We like offbeat phrasing, so we’ll select “what’s good with weird movies.”  Our answer: buttered popcorn, slathered in haggis.

We actually made some progress on the reader-suggested review queue last week, knocking out two good ones with Greaser’s Palace and Waking Life.   The remaining list looks like this: Survive Style 5+ (just discovered that this isn’t available on Region 1, which may delay our getting to it), The Dark Backward, The Short Films of David Lynch, Santa Sangre, Dead Man, Inland Empire, Monday (assuming I can find an English language version), The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Barton Fink, What? (Diary of Forbidden Dreams), Meatball Machine, Xtro, 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, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gothic, 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, and Ninja Scroll.

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):

44 Inch Chest: Aging London gangster drama about a bad guy who kidnaps an enemy he believes slept with his wife and considers taking revenge while being egged on by his sleazy mates.  Apparently includes fantasy sequences, which is why we mention it.  From the writers of Sexy Beast and the producers of Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.   44 Inch Chest official site.

NEW ON DVD:

The Brothers Bloom (2009): Read our capsule review.  Quirky caper comedy with style to burn.  Buy The Brothers Bloom.

CockHammer (2009): CockHammer, a snuff film producer and dabbler in the occult, kidnaps the girlfriends of two losers in this deliberately juvenile and offensive home video horror-comedy. Judging by the trailer, it appears to be made by folks who believe Troma studios have sold out to the forces of good taste and glossy production values. We do like the tag line: “Sanity is for sissies!” Buy CockHammer.

Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (1995): A cosmetic update of the beloved cyberpunk anime—a few of the scenes have been redone with computer aided animation.  This is a rare case where the Blu-ray came out a few months before the DVD release. Buy Ghost in the Shell 2.0.

À l’aventure (2009): Not much info on this French softcore flick about a woman discovering her sexuality, but it looks like a throwback to the days of Emmanulle, only with mystical overtones (e.g., intense orgasms can apparently cause levitation). Buy À l’aventure.

Moon (2009):  Read our capsule review.  Intelligent sci-fi from David Bowie’s son; Sam Rockwell’s performance should garner an Oscar nom. Not very weird but we liked it anyway. Buy Moon.

Nun of That (2009):  Comedy involving a nun selected to join a secret supernatural religious order dedicated to wiping out the mob (!) Features cameos from Jesus, Moses, and Ghandi (!!)  Why didn’t this play our local mutliplex? Buy Nun of That.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

8 1/2 (1963): Criterion upgrades this classic weird movie to Blu-ray. A great way to get the taste of Nine out of your mouth. Buy 8 1/2 (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

The Brothers Bloom (2009): See DVD entry above. Buy The Brothers Bloom [Blu-ray].

Moon (2009):  See DVD entry above. Buy Moon [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 still trying to determine exactly what we’re going to publish next week, but you can be sure we’ll knock at least one item off the reader-suggested review queue with our treatment of Robert Downey’s absurdist Western hippie Jesus flick, Greaser’s Palace.  We’ll also cover Nine, the musical loosely based around Federico Fellini’s womanizing.

For the weirdest search term used to locate the site last week, we’ll go with “sex in movies in english 30 mint in aboue,” mainly because we’re thrilled to have come up #1 in a Yahoo search for that exact phrase!

The reader-suggested review queue continues to grow, but we’ll be knocking out at least one of these reviews a week.  Here’s how it currently looks: Greaser’s Palace (snext week!), Waking Life, Survive Style 5+, The Dark Backward, The Short Films of David Lynch, Santa Sangre, Dead Man, Inland Empire, Monday (assuming I can find an English language version), The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Barton Fink, What? (Diary of Forbidden Dreams), Meatball Machine, Xtro, 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, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gothic, 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), and The Peanut Butter Solution.

We’ve been holding back on announcing some of our future projects, but here’s something for you: 366 Distribution will be coming out with it’s second DVD release soon, planned for the end of January!  It’s The Best of Damon Zex, a compilation of some of the best work of public-access TV cult hero Damon Zex.  Here’s the trailer we whipped up for the release:

Weird enough for ya? We’ll let you know in this space when the DVD is officially available.

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):

Bitch Slap: Three tough women behave badly while fighting over a fortune in diamonds in this “postmodern parody” of busty bad babe flicks like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The trailer indicates there are numerous fantasy sequences, and the press release promises a parallel series of Memento-like flashbacks that reveal the backstory.  Critics say they’d like to perform the title act on the producers. Bitch Slap official site.

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY)

Flooding With Love for the Kid (1989): A one-man, shoestring-budget ($96) alternative adaptation of First Blood (yes, the Sly Stallone actioner that introduced the world to John Rambo), shot entirely inside a single apartment.  Remarkably, it’s gotten almost universal praise for its narrative ingenuity, despite every single reviewer comparing it to something you’d find on YouTube.  Playing at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan.  Actor/director Zachary Oberzan’s official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Hansel and Gretel (2007): Bizarre-sounding Korean variation on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale involves a man lost in a forest who is taken to a mysterious house inhabited by creepy children. Buy Hansel and Gretel.

Loren Cass (2006):  An experimental angry teen drama about the 1996 race riots in St. Petersburg, Florida, with poetry interludes (featuring spoken word contributions by Charles Bukowski and other underground figures) and mondo-style documentary footage of a televised suicide added for shock value.   Well-reviewed by the very few critics who saw it. Buy Loren Cass.

Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures (1987-1988):  This satirical Saturday morning cartoon show, brought to the airwaves by Ralph (Coonskin) Bakshi and John Kricfalusi (who would later create another controversial cult cartoon series, “Ren and Stimpy”), ended after two seasons amidst accusations that Bakshi had snuck a cocaine-sniffing reference into one episode. A gonzo cartoon with a small but devoted fanbase. Buy “Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures – The Complete Series”.

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.