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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: BOYS GO TO JUPITER (2024)

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Boys Go to Jupiter is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Voices of Jack Corbett, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, , Tavi Gevinson, Julio Torres

PLOT: It’s winter break in Florida, and teenage dropout Billy 5000 is gigging to get five grand, but instead finds a donut-shaped alien creature.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Mid-’90s-style computer-animation visuals in a mid-’00s-style slacker dramedy with a mid-’10s-style soundtrack make Boys Go to Jupiter something of a disorienting experience. Also: a dozen or so odd little aliens, a hyper-intelligent dolphin running a juice concern, and a Spanish-speaking mini-golf dinosaur skeleton.

COMMENTS: Too smart for school, but not mature enough to succeed as an adult, Billy 5000 also suffers from a strange last name, a misguided sense of purpose, and the weight of an impending technical correction crushing down on him. He seems all right, though, being one of those lucky teens: laid-back, sensible, and at least subconsciously accepting that life is stacked against him. Besides, he’s about to happen upon a singular opportunity for personal growth—it just won’t be the “Moolah” variety proselytized by the influencer he follows, or by rocking his Grubster™ gig.

Julian Glander has concocted (programmed? certainly directed) an unusual bildungsroman here, which could have so easily been drab and charmless had its pieces not been this selectively chosen and particularly assembled. The vibe from the simple 3-D animation isn’t uncanny so much as dreamlike, an element heightened by the prudent use of narrative pop songs. Billy flies above his delivery route, musing on life and wondering why everything feels so heavy… only to ground the scene with the realization he’s been carrying a sack of golf balls in his insulated delivery bag. (Freckles, the protagonist’s slightly younger—and far frecklier—friend starts as an aspiring hip-hop artist before deciding that the acoustic guitar is much more his thing: his grunge-style power ballad about different ways to eat eggs is a credit to the genre.)

The casual inclusion of outright surreal imagery is rattling, in a cute kind of way: simple faces may take up entire window frames, and, as hinted above, a Brontosaurus skeleton at a miniature golf course offers words of solace to its proprietor. Coupling the animation and the absurdity with an indie-drama vibe pays off handsomely, and that’s before we even get into the alien podcasters and dolphin machinations. Boys Go to Jupiter is both very strange and very laid-back, and zaps you for almost an hour and a half; a slice of life served up as exotic cocktail.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a movie notably unafraid to manifest the weirdest of the weird…”–Natalia Winkleman, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: EBONY & IVORY (2024)

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EBony & Ivory is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Gil Gex,

PLOT: Stevie arrives by rowboat in Scotland to stay with fellow musical legend Paul at his “Scottish cottage”; they go swimming, look at sheep, and have hot chocies and foot strokies, but never actually get around to (directly) composing the title song.

Still from EBONY AND IVORY (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: If you’ve seen one Jim Hosking movie, then this is another one. Let there be no doubt about that. This is a Jim Hosking movie with Jim Hosking humor. Jim Hosking fans will approve.

COMMENTS: Blind (?) Stevie arrives on the beach in a rowboat, wearing a fur coat and lugging three suitcases. Paul calmly stands on the beach awaiting him. A synthpop tune plays; it doesn’t sound like anything Wonder or McCartney would write. “How was your journey?” asks Paul. Stevie responds that it was a very, very, very, very long journey, then repeats himself so there will be no doubt. Paul chuckles. Stevie asks, accusingly, “So, it’s funny, is it?” “Yes, it’s funny,” Paul replies. It isn’t. Or is it?

Jim Hosking has a unique formula to which he’s unreservedly, suicidally dedicated: a base of mundane absurdity, with frequent grossout moments and infrequent bursts of surrealism. His anti-comedy tricks include characters who are simultaneously childlike and obscene and who describe their interior thoughts like particularly unimaginative narrators, long-winded repetition of unfunny dialogue until it (hopefully) becomes funny, and deliberately flat performances that occasionally express a single emotion—aggravation. Oh, and he also favors oversized prosthetic penises. If you’re a Jim Hosking newcomer, see The Greasy Strangler first—because, as outlandish and off-putting as it may be, it’s more approachable than Ebony & Ivory. If you find that one amusing, there’s a good chance you’ll also enjoy this lower-key, slightly less transgressive offering.

Stevie is easily irritated, given to bursts of profanity and shouting most of his dialogue, and usually found picking an unnecessary fight with Paul. Paul (the cute one, the one the girls go mad for) is generally easygoing, although Stevie can provoke him. They have no character development to speak of. They mention (but don’t actively pursue) musical collaboration. Despite constantly arguing, they do somehow become fast friend at the end. They eat, drink, smoke joints, argue, go swimming in the nude, and stare at an expressionless sheep for entertainment. Running gags include spitting out the phrase “Scottish cottage,” discussing vegetarian ready-meals, background music that conspicuously does not match the mood of the scene, Stevie’s blindness, and hot chocies and foot strokies. There’s also a 5+ minute sequence where Paul tries to explain the nickname “doobie woobie,” a pseudo-sex scene, and a strange marijuana-inspired dream sequence. The movie gets much weirder at the end, with the pair randomly dressing like “ghosts from yesteryear” and communing with a massive bullfrog, followed by a climax with perfectly harmonious black and white sheep, which must be seen to be disbelieved.

Ebony & Ivory features only two characters, trapped together in basically one location for 90 minutes, which means that you really have to jive with the comedy style, or be bored out of your mind. It’s a cult item that’s beyond the power of recommendation. If you’re at all intrigued by this description, you’ll probably like it. If you’ve seen and enjoyed Hosking’s other work, you’ll probably like it. But if you don’t find endless repetition of catch phrases hilarious, you’ll probably want to give it a very, very, very, very wide berth.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s hard to tell if it’s the best or worst movie of the year, largely because it’s so wantonly weird that it erases the distinction between the two… a niche offering with a genuinely avant-garde spirit, and if that limits its appeal (and it will!), adventurous moviegoers will find it to be a unique descent into a bizarro world of eccentric catchphrases and demented flights of fancy. No matter what the next five months bring, you won’t see a crazier 2025 film.”–Nick Schager, The Daily Beast (contemporaneous)

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FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: BUFFET INFINITY (2025)

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Buffet Infinity is now available to rent or purchase on-demand.

Weirdest!

DIRECTED BY: Simon Glassman

FEATURING: Kevin Singh, Claire Theobald, Donovan Workun, Ahmed Ahmed, and the voice of Simon Glassman

PLOT: An all-you-can-eat restaurant competes with neighboring stores at a strip mall as a sinkhole appears, strange noises plague the area, citizens go missing, and an occult presence seeps into the transmission.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: A narrative told through channel-surfing and a combo platter of the ridiculous and the sinister make Buffet Infinity a necessary addition to the Apocrypha menu.

COMMENTS: Westridge County is small, down at the heel, and more than a little boring. The local TV stations showcase a cavalcade of staid businesses: a doggie daycare on the verge of collapse, a pawn shop with a worryingly growing inventory, an insurance broker ready to cover questionable life events, a sandwich shop offering several types of sliced pig along with its signature sauce, a shyster lawyer happy to capitalize on his bitterness, a used car dealership suffering a violent aversion to high prices, and a buffet with suspiciously good deals and no apparent staff. Surfing the area’s TV broadcasts for one-hundred minutes, however, we glean the story of how Westridge County becomes increasingly derelict, dangerous, and decimated.

Simon Glassman is a fellow of who remembers, and, in a way, is nostalgic for a particular broadcast phenomenon which has all but disappeared. His chronicle of Westridge County’s collapse from crummy to cursed cranks true-to-life advertisements and news flashes one further turn on the dial to the absurd. The passive-aggressive war between Buffet Infinity (where something possibly extraterrestrial, and certainly evil, is going on) and Jenny’s Sandwich Shop ratchets up snarkily; though both cheerfully announce the ample parking “in the front”. (The sinkhole growing in the back-lot is the first indication something’s a bit off.) Public service warnings from “The Westridge Society for Religious Freedom” sound typo-ridden alarm bells about an impending supernatural intrusion that will rob the county of its people. But Ahmed Ahmed, the bad-rapping proprietor of the pawn shop, is ready to raise spirits through low prices on goods ranging from sound blockers to personal defense.

Glassman pulls aside the curtains drape by drape, with each surf through the channels unveiling a little more tension and a little more desperation. Glassman remarked during the Q&A session following Buffet Infinity that the film is ultimately just him dumping on a local strip mall. This much is certainly true, but the movie is much more. It dissects quotidian fears and challenges, with a heartier and heartier dose of the surreal, culminating in absurdly large portions of spectacle.

So head on down to Buffet Infinity! Its eighteen-to-twenty staff, each with their own homes and government ID numbers, will serve up platefuls of curious delights in the ever-expanding dining facility.

Just don’t enter the door marked “Prohibited”.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“What begins as a satire of small-town local television quickly spirals into a hallucinatory, absurdist descent into the mind of a community being devoured by its own identity. This is weird cinema at its best: committed, chaotic, and unnervingly hypnotic.” — Chris Jones, Overly Honest Reviews (festival screening)

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FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CHAO (2025)

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チャオ

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Yasuhiro Aoki

FEATURING: Voices of Ouji Suzuka, Anna Yamada, Ryôta Yamasato, Kenta Miyake, Kavka Shishido

PLOT: Stefan, a mild-mannered company drone with a dream, finds he is the key to peace between landmen and mermen when Neptune’s daughter chooses him to be her husband.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: This collision of Plymptonian flourish and anime fundamentals is an hour and a half of wild lines, vibrant colors, giant heads, small heads, robo-antics, and the pratfalls of a literal fish out of water. Intense. Cute, too.

COMMENTS: In an introduction recorded for the Fantasia screening, director Yasuhiro Aoki tells us to enjoy the fun, and that we should keep an eye on the many little details. It is well to heed his soft-spoken advice: his film is stuffed to the gills with sight gags, throw-away visuals, and plenty of narrative slight of hand. As a conjuring trick—for ChaO is nothing short of magical—this account of Stefan’s strange courtship pays off handsomely for the observant viewer. The wild flow of line and form, not to mention the glorious buffet of colors, builds to a fantastical showdown as the lowly hero bumbles from one awkward challenge to another.

The meet-cute between the lovebirds comes like a bolt out of the blue. (Albeit the ocean blue, not the skies above.) Dreaming of fabricating a marine-friendly ship propulsion system, Stefan faces a hectic journey one morning when alerted, and then attacked, by his roommate’s new robot-alarm invention. Shouted at, and ultimately smacked upside the head by, this assertive electronic, he escapes his tiny apartment, tossing a cool drink to the ever-present, never-working rickshaw driver out front. He’s charged with swabbing the deck of his boss’ ship (“Mr Sea”, a Little Tikes Toddle Tot-proportioned opportunist) and before he knows it, the sea king’s daughter singles him out as her suitor—and all of Shanghai is on board for the courtship.

Framed as a recollection from a burnt-out Stefan talking with an eager reporter, ChaO‘s energy is (barely) contained within its anecdotal form. Highspeed chases with feral reporters, inexplicable animated asides, and the omnipresence of ChaO herself—in glorious-pink koi form, five-foot tall, with golden high-top sneakers and jets of blue water flowing from her gills—make for an experience akin to one’s eyeballs being speedily pulled about by an enthusiastic raconteur. So much craft is packed into its ninety minutes that by the breathless, face-scrunching finale on the high seas as Neptune launches his watery arsenal at the hapless Stefan, some may be relieved that the end is in sight.

ChaO is a marvelous experience, with Yasuhiro Aoki batting the optic nerve with cleverness, cuteness, and confusion. (The infinitely long hospital bed, or the casual heaping of spun lavatory paper as Stefan panics in the men’s room, are among the head-scratching moments that could lead the viewer to a new bald spot.) Being so visual in its nature, I can only hope to convey a fraction of the peculiar charm. The child-friendly nature of this romantic comedy fish tale adds to its appeal, landing ChaO as another of the all-too-few gateway films for young weird-o-philes in development. Like Spirited Away and Ghost Cat Anzu, Yasuhiro’s madcap outing compels a manic grin which lingers well after the closing credits.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“There’s a dreamlike logic to the world that might not make literal sense, but it holds surprising emotional weight…  This weirdly beautiful and absurdly humorous fable timelessly unfolds, reveling in its Japanese tendencies and aesthetic.” — Joshua M. Hayes, Josh At The Movies (festival screening)

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FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: I LIVE HERE NOW (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Julie Pacino

FEATURING: Lucy Fry, , Sarah Rich, Matt Rife, Cara Seymour, Sheryl Lee

PLOT: Rose takes refuge in a remote hotel to record an audition video, medically abort her impossible fetus, and evade her boyfriend’s domineering mother.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: I Live Here Now serves up medical trauma and blood-pink ambience with lashings of Lynch and hearty helpings of uneasy humor; this movie goes down strangely.

COMMENTS: Dear doctor, kindly do not advise Rose that she is “very lucky” for having conceived, particularly as you are unaware of her troubling medical history. Rose faces this logic-defying declaration with quiet grit, as she faces every development throughout I Live Here Now: a discourteous casting agent (“Can you lose three pounds by Monday?”), her enthusiastic but inconsiderate boyfriend (“Not now, my queen, I have a lot of lines to memorize!”), and that boyfriend’s domineering mother, who, upon hearing the news that her dear (dear) boy impregnated such a nobody, takes a zealous interest in Rose’s decisions. And of course, there are the unexpected trials—by fire—our heroine faces at The Crown Inn: the oddest place of lodging this side of Twin Peaks‘ mysterious lodge. (Don’t worry, though: there’s complementary strawberry cake for the guests each the morning.)

Rose spends the bulk of the film in the Inn, and director Susan Pacino takes us along for the ride. The drunken matriarch and owner will see us only after a cryptic home-movie wraps up. Young Sid, all done up in cheerleader bell-hop with golden-sparkle shoes, evinces an enthusiasm for the check-in bell that’s both endearing and highly peculiar. And after settling down in “The Lovin’ Oven” room (complete with baroque infant crib, amongst its ’70s-and-timeless furniture accessories), we meet the hotel’s only other apparent guest, Lillian. Although, she is not so much a guest as the evil sister of this family-run experience. Maybe. She’s cruel, certainly, as when she callously uses the protective glassine from Sid’s diary to roll joints. Dysfunction and ambiguity run as deep as the palette of pinks runs to reds and blood-browns, and as disorienting as the smoke that seeps in from the heat vents as the surrounding forest burns.

Sliding easily from dark nightmare-memory to comedy to menace to the surreal, I Live Here Now plays with Rose and with the audience. Cruelly so, at times, particularly through the domineering mother (performed by none other than Sheryl Lee). Sometimes, this movie plays like Beau Is Afraid from the point of view of a theoretical girlfriend. Thinking back on this film regularly over the past few days, I find that myself lost in the imagery and oddities, and the tragic innocence and evil of Sid and Lillian. They are doubtless a metaphor, but I could not guess as precisely what for. These are happily confused musings, though, as Rose’s personality, the hotel’s personality, and the film’s personality are a delight to explore. A dark delight, though—like the deep red of crimson strawberry cake.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…marks a striking and unexpected debut from director Julie Pacino (yes, that Pacino) and proves she’s not afraid to go deep, weird, and unsettlingly personal… a hauntingly beautiful debut that blends indie aesthetics with psychological horror and surrealist flair.”–Romney Norton, Film Focus Online (festival screening)