What’s up with Netflix?  They tell me the #1 movie in my queue, Ink, which I desperately wanted to review for next week, is available NOW.  Then, they send me the #2 movie in my queue instead.  So, you won’t get that Ink review this week.   Instead, you’ll get a review of Powder, as well as that great double-feature that gets to the heart of Havana soul, Cuban Story and Cuban Rebel Girls.  Throw in some mix of reviews of Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead, Absurdistan, Richard Kelly’s The Box, and the undead baby flick Grace, and you’ve got yourself a week.

As for the weirdest search term used to locate the site this week, we’ll go with “www.doctor.assess.movies.com.”   I can only guess that the searcher was looking for a very specific website of film reviews by a M.D.; sadly, it doesn’t seem to exist.  Hope you liked our site instead.

In related news, we’re proud to say that last week we came up #1 on Google for the popular search term, “weirdest sex movies.”  Surely people searching for that phrase are hoping to find descriptions of Lucia y el Sexo and Girl Slaves of Morgana le Fay.  It marks a refreshing change from all the people who accidentally stumble on the site looking for porn.

Here’s the depressingly long reader review queue: Greaser’s Palace (substituted for Institute Benjamenta), 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], Dark Country, Necromania (1971, Ed Wood, unless the original requester gets back to me to clarify what he or she meant), and Hour of the Wolf.

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.

Looking over this week’s big-screen offerings, it occurs to me that once 366 Enterprises becomes a multi-million dollar corporation, we’re going to have to relocate our offices to New York City; that’s the only place in America you can see  two exclusive, unavailable-anywhere-else weird films in one week.  Right now, we can’t afford the cost of Manhattan popcorn, much less rent.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Big River Man:  Documentary about Martin Strel, a hard-drinking, overweight, eccentric Slovenian, and his unprecedented attempt to swim the length of the Amazon river.  By their very nature, documentaries start behind the eight ball in terms of weirdness, but Strel is such a character that this doc is being labeled “strange,” “insane,” and “surreal” and “bizarre.”  Appears to be playing NYC only.  Big River Man official site.

Film ist: A Girl and a Gun:  A montage of silent-film footage arranged into a “a highly suggestive, quasi-narrative, but essentially enigmatic mosaic.”  Playing this week at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City only.  No official site, but see Anthology Film Archives for more information.

SCREENINGS (DEC. 11 & 12, NEW YORK CITY):

Coming Soon (2006/2008):  See our review.  The controversial bestiality mockumentary makes its U.S. debut at The Living Theater.  Mark your calendars, and expect one weird crowd.

NEW ON DVD:

The Brooklyn Heist [AKA Capers] (2008):  Three teams of criminals each plan to rip off the same Brooklyn pawnbroker on the same night in this caper spoof; the twist is that each team is living in a different cinematic reality, including a gang apparently based on the French New Wave whose scenes are shot in black and white.  This comedy slipped under our radar, but reviews and film festival audience reactions were both positive.  Looks worth a shot. Buy Brooklyn Heist from Amazon.

WEB EXCLUSIVES:

Creepy Christmas Film Fest: 25 short films, one for every day from Dec. 1st to Dec. 25th, each built around a different creepy Christmas toy selected by artist Beck Underwood from her grandmother’s collection.  The subtly disturbing films come from Larry Fessenden, Voltaire, Graham Reznick, and Ti West, among others.  A couple of these shorts will be featured on these pages in the coming month; for the other 23, you’ll have to go to creepychristmas.net.  It’s a recommended visit.

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 we will review two unrelated vampire movies with the same name: Thirst (1979) and Thirst (2009).  There’s also a good chance we may get up a review of Richard Kelly‘s latest, The Box (2009): there’s sure to be a difference of opinion among our writers on this one!  Also, on Thursday Alfred gives us 10 weird Yuletide choices, so start trying to work up some holiday spirit, won’t you?

Though you can probably see it in the post above this one, I’d like to point out that we have another top 10 list, this one by Graham Reznick, director of the certified weird movie I Can See You.  We love to see what others think is weird and why, so we’re thrilled to have this new contribution!

In terms of the weirdest search term used to locate the site last week: we fall into a little trap with this one.  Talk just once about rape movies or pony riding cults when you’re picking up on unusual search terms, and the search engines pick it up and the next week you’re hit with 100 requests along the same line.  So, we had plenty of pretty pony fans stumbling onto the site last week, and probably leaving disappointed.   This week we’re going with a non-fetish choice: “”hours of productivity independent movie explode.”  You could make a true statement by rearranging those words slightly: “independent movies explode hours of productivity.”  At least, I’ve found that to be true.

The ever-growing, sadly neglected reader-suggested review queue now looks like this: Greaser’s Palace (substituted for Institute Benjamenta), 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], and Dark Country.  After Last Season and Dark Country are most likely to jump ahead in the review queue as we continue to focus on covering 2009 releases before 2010 rolls around.

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):

Home (2008):  When a busy highway opens next to a rural Swiss homestead, the insular family takes increasingly desperate and bizarre measures to block out the intrusion of the outside world.  Starring Isabelle Huppert, this Swiss entry for the 2009 foreign language Academy Award is receiving fantastic reviews.  No official site located. The trailer below makes it look like a wacky comedy, but reviewers make it sound like a disturbing parable.

NEW ON DVD:

Shorts (2009): Robert Rodriguez directed kiddie fantasy about a rainbow-colored rock that grants wishes.  Critics describe it as hyperactive and unfocused: Toby Young of the Times goes so far as to say that it’s “[S]o structurally complicated that it almost qualifies as an experimental film.” Buy from Amazon.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Shorts (2009): See DVD review above. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon.

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.