This month’s Amazon Prime Watch Party—Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)—starts in fifteen minutes.
You’ll need to be an Amazon Prime member in the US to participate.
There will be no pausing or rewinding except for technical reasons.
We are offering no technical support, so help each other out if needed.
Here is the link to join: https://amz.onl/hXap1cF
See you soon!
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
Man with a Movie Camera (1929): Read our review. Kino’s Blu-ray reissue of this influential Soviet experiment in cinematography and editing includes the extras from the British “Masters of Cinema” Blu-ray (so they’re not new, except in the US). Buy Man with a Movie Camera.
CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
Weird movie screenings remain sparse in a Covid world. By the end of the year (or, fingers crossed, this summer) we should be back to normal.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: Amazon Prime subscribers, please join us tomorrow at 10:15 PM for our screening of Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970). As always, the link to join will appear here, on Facebook, and on Twitter around 10 PM ET. Join us! People are dreading it already.
Next week we have a light slate of reviews. Currently, all we have scheduled is Giles Edwards‘ omnibus report on the remaining films playing at Slamdance (which turns off its servers Feb. 25) and Gregory J. Smalley‘s review/reflection on Mark Fisher’s short book, “The Weird and the Eerie” (a topic near and dear to our hearts). Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
Here’s the poll to vote for Febrary’s Amazon Prime Weird Watch Party, which will start on Feb. 20 at 10:15 PM ET. If you plan on virtually attending, please vote for the movie we’ll be watching below. We’ll screen the movie that get the most votes; your host, Gregory J. Smalley, will personally break any ties. Note that unlike our other polls, you can only vote once. Poll closes at midnight ET on Wednesday, Feb. 17. You may vote for multiple movies, but not for every movie (because that would be pointless).
Now vote!
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
FILM FESTIVALS –(South by Southwest [SWSX], online, 3/16 to 3/20):
Just as we’re about to launch into our coverage of Slamdance (which starts today), the South by Southwest festival announces its lineup, which will be all virtual this year. In recent years, South by Southwest has grown into the second most important of the early season film festivals, and you can often find films that were too weird to be selected by Sundance there. Having said that, based purely on the short descriptions described in the announcement, there’s nothing at SWSX this year that jumps out at us as obviously weird. You can check out the list yourself, however, and let us know if anything sings to you.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Poor Things (202?): Giorgos Lanthimos‘ next movie will star Emma Stone as a woman who has a fetus’ brain implanted in her head. Thanks to Paste for the news.
CROWDFUNDING:
“‘World of Tomorrow: The First Three Episodes’ on Blu-ray”: Don Hertzfeldt is raising money for an independent release of the “World of Tomorrow” trilogy on Blu-ray. The disc will also include the seldom-seen short “intro” (2017) and other features to be named later. If you’re nervous about this project being funded, just know that, with 27 days to go, it’s raised over $255,000 of a requested $30,000. So no need to pledge to make it happen, but you can still get the backer rewards, including stickers, a jigsaw puzzle, signed art, etc. “World of Tomorrow: The First Three Episodes” on Blu-ray Kickstarter page.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
Queens of Evil [Le regine] (1970): A hippie flees a deadly crash and runs into a nest of three beautiful sisters, who have been waiting for him. Fantastique Eurotrash that Cinema Sojourns called “weird.” From Mondo Macabro, on Blu-ray only. Buy Queens of Evil
ONLINE CANONICALLY WEIRD SCREENINGS:
8 1/2 (1963) – 2/18 at 7 PM ET. With introductory comments. Free, but registration required and limited to 100 viewers. Sponsored by Indiana University. Register here.
CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
Weird movie screenings remain sparse in a Covid world, unless you happen to live in Winchester, VA, which decided to pick up the slack for the rest of the continent. By the end of the year (or, fingers crossed, this summer) we should be back to normal.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: Next week we’ll be looking at Slamdance releases. will cover one, and Giles Edwards will tell you about pretty much everything else. Expect to see individual reviews of the Lanthimosian Ukrainian comedy A Family and the dystopian indie comedy Man Under Table, along with omnibus columns addressing the supplemental films. (Remember, this festival is entirely online this year for an extremely affordable $10 pass—$5 for college students!—so you have little excuse not to watch along with us). Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Reader recommendation by June Culpepper
DIRECTED BY: Tom Green
FEATURING: Tom Green, Harland Williams, Marisa Coughlan, Rip Torn
PLOT: Gord Brody (Tom Green), a slacker with a dream of becoming a cartoonist, goes to California to get his cartoon made.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Panned by critics to this day, this film is a Godard-esque prank on both the film industry and the audience, more of a nightmarish combination of Sweet Movie, Adaptation, and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie than another Jack and Jill.
COMMENTS: Tom Green did not want to make a movie. After his meteoric rise from Canadian public television to MTV fame with “The Tom Green Show” (a late night talk show that combined gross-out stunts with surrealist humor, predating “The Eric Andre Show” by two decades), Hollywood most certainly took notice. “We don’t understand him, but the kids seem to love him,” the execs probably said. “Let’s give him 15 million dollars.” After handing him the check, Tom went back to a shack in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, and came out nine months later with Freddy Got Fingered.
Freddy Got Fingered works as a sort of deconstruction of the gross-out comedy schlock of the era, taking every trope of these sorts of films and stretching them to their absolute limit, to the point where the audience is left to wonder why they liked these gags at all. The angry father who disapproves of his son’s wild dreams is played by Rip Torn, a screaming warthog in a human skinsuit. The love interest, who in most of these films is just there to satisfy the lead’s sexual needs, is a wheelchair-bound Marisa Coughlan, who is obsessed with rocketry and fellatio. Green takes the essential pillars of gross-out comedies and breaks them down to the point where you can never build them up again.
Freddie Got Fingered also has a meta-cinema tinge to it, almost as if the film itself is the joke. The movie, in a weird way, is about the movie itself being made. Gord, who is obviously a stand-in for Green himself, has a meteoric rise to fame, in a way that almost feels out of his control. He then blows all of his money on pointless nonsense (the movie itself). In his own words, “Easy come, easy go.”
This film is an over-the-top combination of meta-cinema, surrealism, punk spirit, and weird gross-out moments that caught me so off-guard that I don’t even want to spoil them. Tom Green got to make his perfect film, and weirdos making their magnum opuses are what this site is all about.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by “Frank,” who said ” I feel the farcical, insanity of Freddy Got Fingered is at least worth a look.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)