Category Archives: It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: MARUTIRTHA HINGLAJ (1959)

Leave a comment

AKA Hinglaj, The Desert Shrine

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

DIRECTED BY: Bikash Roy

FEATURING: Uttam Kumar, Sabitri Chatterjee, Anil Chatterjee, Pahari Sanyal, Bikash Roy

PLOT: A young man and woman are rescued in the desert by a group of pilgrims of various castes and faiths. 

Still from MARUTIRTHA HINGLAJ (1959)

COMMENTS: Movies about religion run similar dangers to those from any long-running franchise. Built as they are around a deep canon embraced by a particularly ardent regiment of hardcore fans, the producers must satisfy the expectations of devotees while extending an outreach to any potential converts. It’s hard to be all things to all people, especially when you’re relying on the moral rectitude of the universe.

Marutirtha Hinglaj, however, is not concerned with appealing to the unenlightened, and that’s honestly to the film’s benefit, because we heathens can appreciate the pilgrims’ passion and determination at face value. An understanding of the apparent tolerance between the Hindus and Muslims on the dangerous trek, familiarity with the unique powers of redemption granted by the goddess Durga, and even the finer points of why highborn girls aren’t supposed to run away with street-rat boys are all concerns you can set aside with this movie. Hinglaj is perfectly legible as a study of the human quest for forgiveness and emotional peace, no matter how much turmoil is required to achieve it. Christian travelers to Lourdes or even rock fans making the trip to Jim Morrison’s grave can relate.

The film was based on a popular travelogue of the time, and if we were just following this group as they made their way through the desert, it would be a fairly straightforward accounting of the journey. Director Roy’s major contribution to the narrative is the introduction of the forlorn couple whom the marchers rescue from the wastelands. Thirumal is a poor fortune teller tasked with predicting the future for well-off bride-to-be Kunti. They fall madly in love (the initial transgression) and then elope (compounding the problem), which is when tragedy finds them. Roving bandits attack the couple, robbing them and assaulting Kunti, a crime that they view as punishment for their earlier wrongdoing (a frustrating instance of culturally approved victim-blaming that is probably the most inexplicable belief for a 21st-century audience). It’s a lamentable fate, not least because Roy crafts a charming montage of the illicit pair’s moneymaking ventures on the road, demonstrating their overwhelming charm as he plays music while she dances. Thirumal beams with rapturous love for his wife, but we also start to see his palpable jealousy at onlookers’ attention, which foreshadows the madness that will soon overtake him as he pivots between passion and faith.

It is difficult but essential to understand the moral code on display here. The conditions for the march across the Indian wasteland are maddeningly difficult, but of course the challenge is what ennobles the effort. They have been promised complete forgiveness for their mistakes—some of which are revealed to be quite severe—but the future looks to be as bright as the present is dark. Even Kunti, who believes herself to be unpure as a result of both her actions and the cruelties forced upon her, comes to hope for the deliverance that reaching Hinglaj will bring. By contrast, Thirumal’s mania isn’t because he doesn’t believe in the possibility of healing, but because he’s certain that he doesn’t deserve it. His struggle is balanced by the kindness and sympathy of the traveling company. The weight of this conflict lifts Marutirtha Hinglaj out of the real world and into an elevated plane of moral debate. It’s a little strange to watch these intensely earnest travelers, and when shot against Roy’s dramatic backdrops, which deftly combine imperiously vast locations in the Makran desert with unusually authentic soundstage filming, the whole proceeding takes on a surreal quality.

Marutirtha Hinglaj isn’t out to convert anyone. It’s perfectly acceptable to look at the whole enterprise as proof of the madness of religious belief. Yet there is a beauty in the purity of these travelers’ moral code, and a dramatic correctness in the way that the story metes out an appropriate justice. The film makes a weird gamble on the drama of the mystery of faith, and seems to have earned a nod of approval from the gods.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…I was moved by this film. It may be a bit dated, but there’s so much to think about here, that I will probably be dwelling on this story for some time… it hangs on urgent questions of life and death. The parallel moral journey is thus impossible to dismiss. When belief and devotion play out in extreme survival scenarios, it seems important to take them seriously.” – Miranda, Filmi~Contrast

(This movie was nominated for review by Debasish, who called it “a very existential movie with spiritual and surreal undertones.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

Marutirtha Hinglaj (Brand New Single Disc Dvd,

Marutirtha Hinglaj (Brand New Single Disc Dvd, Bengali Dvd, With English Subtitles, Released By Angel Digital)

    Go to Amazon

    Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

    IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: FUNNY BONES (1995)

    Leave a comment

    366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

    DIRECTED BY: Peter Chelsom

    FEATURING: Oliver Platt, Lee Evans, , ,

    PLOT: When the son of a legendary comedian bombs in his Vegas debut, he retrenches by returning his boyhood home in the faded resort town of Blackpool in search of material that he can pinch to re-tool his act.

    Still from Funny Bones (1995)

    COMMENTS: Among the many lessons we’ve learned throughout film’s existence , one that recurs consistently, is that comedians are the saddest bastards around. Mainstream moviemakers have never tired of reminding us that every joke-teller is merely a modern-day Pagliacci pleading with their therapist for release from the misery. Funny Bones finds an even sadder level: the comic who isn’t funny. Can you imagine such a predicament? Here you are with the pedigree, the material, the opportunity, and the moment the spotlight hits you, you die on the vine. Sheesh, even Pagliacci could get his act together come performance time.

    This is the fate of painfully unsuccessful Tommy Fawkes (Platt), who doesn’t seem to know what funny actually is but knows for certain that he’s not it. His journey to understanding or acceptance or even surrender could be the foundation for another depressed-comedian narrative, but writer/director Chelsom has more he wants to explore: the ramifications of infidelity, the unforgivable crime of joke theft, the nature of Blackpool as a dying resort for acts of questionable merit, and even a crime thriller about the theft of valuable treasures from a group of French gangsters. When the film introduces a Chinese powder with the power of youthful regeneration, you may earnestly wonder if it’s about to take a hard left turn into science fiction. Funny Bones is impressively patient with the many storylines it wants to explore, but that also means nothing takes priority, so the “B” plots and “C” plots occupy as much screentime as the ostensible central story. It’s an approach that may work well for a television season, but less so for a two-hour feature.

    Part of what makes Funny Bones such a peculiar watch is trying to decipher how it actually feels about comedy. On the one hand there’s Tommy, who has absolutely the wrong act for a featured spot in Vegas, but who tries to rectify the situation by auditioning a series of “Britain’s Got Talent” rejects. Jack, who we are expected to believe was utterly devastated by an incident with an overly aggressive scene partner and is allegedly so broken as to be almost unable to communicate, is his polar opposite (Jack’s first appearance is on a dangerous perch atop Blackpool Tower, where the community leaders think he might be a risk to himself.) Nevertheless, we see him excel in multiple forms of performance; he has a quick wit (when asked if he has lived in Blackpool all his life, he responds, “Not yet”), he delivers a wild lip-sync routine, and finishes with circus acrobatics. There’s a hint that Jack’s approach to humor is pure, a notion either affirmed or contradicted by the casting of Jerry Lewis as a physical comedian who hits it big as a joke-teller. In any case, Tommy’s supposed to learn something at the end of all this, and the movie may not have a clear sense of what that lesson ought to be. He has spent the film confidently predicting his own demise, both onstage and in real life. The film suggests he is wrong, but exactly why is not at all clear.

    Funny Bones revels in its English-ness, from the idealization of the penny-ante human tricks that make up the Blackpool entertainment scene to the extremely low-key reactions to even the most monumental events. A heist from a mortuary delineates the difference between the English and American responses. (I also have to call out the sheer audacity of casting both British film stalwarts Richard Griffiths and Ian McNiece, actors whom I have spent far too much time mistaking for one another.) It is a curious little drama played out on the field of comedy. I actually respect the variety of interesting people the film introduces, and the Trojan Horse-tactic of sneaking a look at a lost way of life through the door by way of a big, brassy American character study. I just don’t think it works. Most comedians would tell you that the further away you go from your premise, the harder the punchline will hit when you bring it all back. Funny Bones, however, just keeps winding away, going wherever it will, but not really getting anywhere in particular.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…it plays like a production that was, at one point, granted complete creative freedom to pursue any bit of whimsy and grotesquerie it wanted to find. The final cut is a collision of tones and ideas, but it remains distinct in its intent to be unpredictable and oddly sincere, hunting for the meaning of family and emotional stability in the mine field of professional comedy…Daddy issues are vivid in ‘Funny Bones,’ but they’re soon eclipsed by the weirdness of Blackpool…” – Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com

    (This movie was nominated for review by Jonathan Allen. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)         

    Funny Bones

    Funny Bones

      New starting from: 25.00 $

      Go to Amazon

      366 Underground, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

      366 UNDERGROUND FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: DAYMAKER (2007)

      Leave a comment

      366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

      DIRECTED BY: Joe LiTrenta

      FEATURING: Joe LiTrenta, Michael Nathanson, Cristina Marie Proctor, Myla Pitt, Sakura Sugihara, Carrie Terraccino, Sara Weibel

      PLOT: On a clear day in New Jersey, twentysomethings meet up, chat, drink and take drugs, dream, and reconvene in new combinations.

      Still from Daymaker (2007)

      COMMENTS: Not too long ago, we talked about the options available to the no-budget filmmaker. They can go for taboo. They can go for shock value. They can try for goofball comedy. They can aim at surrealistic nonsense. They can go for flat-out absurdism. Whatever the approach, the goal is to demonstrate what an aspiring filmmaker can do even without all the bells and whistles and the fancy equipment and the support of a whole industry. And if there’s an important message about the human condition to convey in the process, then that’s just gravy.

      Which brings us to Daymaker, a DIY debut from writer/director Joe LiTrenta that is about drugs. It’s not about the drug trade, or drug abuse, or drug profiteering. It’s not a hard-hitting exposé or a harrowing descent into addiction or even a psychedelic celebration. It’s just about drugs. We know this because it’s the only thing anyone in the film talks about. Any other topics—work, relationships, a movie someone saw—are filtered through the ongoing use of drugs, like a benzo-laced Bechdel Test that the film cannot pass. No one wants to leave it to chance that you might miss this reading of the text, so characters come out and say it at every opportunity. “I’m addicted to cocaine.” “Janice has a drinking problem.” “We did a bunch of molly.” “That’s right, no more acid for me.” “I’m supposed to have been sober for a month now and I can’t even stop my hands from shaking.” This feature is most amusing/bananas when a woman tells her daughter, “Mommy has an illness,” and the girl replies, “Because you like beer?” Daymaker is not a coy film.

      Having laid its cards on the table, it has precious little to say about the subject. There’s a slot machine-approach to scenes, with characters from previous scenes coming together to start a new one. This hints at a La Ronde-esque format in which each new pairing reflects on the interactions we’ve seen before, or where a single character or object leads us on a picaresque journey, but there’s nothing so orderly. The unpleasantly rude boyfriend we meet at the very beginning of the film hasn’t gone any further emotionally or geographically when he returns halfway through to proposition a girl for her pink motorcycle helmet, nor has his now-ex-girlfriend when she turns up as the subject of a hastily staffed photo shoot with cigarettes and highway flares. People just come together willy-nilly, and there’s a good chance that when they do, they’ll be drinking or snorting or talking about having drank or snorted.

      After a while, you start to get the sensation that it’s not the characters that have done drugs, but that the movie itself is high. It has that drifting lope to it, that sense of being in a conversation with someone who can’t hold the plot and who seems to be way too into whatever distraction comes up next. The comparison that kept coming to mind, unfavorably, was A Scanner Darkly, a film legendarily successful at putting the viewer inside the minds of its aimless, drug-addled protagonists while revealing their world for the hollow dead end that it is. Daymaker has some of those same moves, with significantly less plot to interfere. Drugs are certainly not glorified—people are either being told they need to get off that stuff or are admitting themselves that they need to get off that stuff—but there are no consequences. The most devastating impact of their addictions is that they are dreadfully boring. At more than two hours, Daymaker really needs to have something to say to justify itself, and it decidedly does not.

      Daymaker is bad, but often in intriguing, surprising ways. The actors—you might assume they were all amateurs doing the director a solid until you see the surprising number of them with more than one credit to their name—deliver their dialogue with the desperate hopefulness of amateurs who have been asked to improvise, but the words they speak are so carefully assembled that they leave no room for an ad-lib. (At least one performer stumbles on her lines and they just leave it in.) Repeatedly, characters tell each other that they’ve just said something funny, and their word is all we have. Locations bounce between the basement of a rec center, a cellar decorated with cinder blocks and unpainted drywall, a series of sparsely decorated bedrooms and living rooms. These spaces are meant to suggest how low these people have fallen, but in fact scream “a friend loaned us their house for a day.” Twice, the film breaks into a dance number. You want it all to mean something, to add up to a message that has been lurking amidst the randomness, but it never does—and it doesn’t seem to want to.

      There is at least one moment that I can take to the bank. It’s a dream sequence where a girl walks through a field of perfect green, leaving behind her the faintest trace as she cuts through the tall grass, while a boy stares after her clutching a childish mash note. The image is genuinely captivating. The guy who shot it must have some talent; somebody ought to throw a few bucks at him and see what he can do.

      WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

      No other critics have published reviews of this movie.

      (This movie was nominated for review by Desmond, who said it was “damn weird.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)   

      Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

      IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ROCK-A-DOODLE (1991)

      1 Comment

      366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

      DIRECTED BY: Don Bluth

      FEATURING: Voices of Glen Campbell, Phil Harris, Christopher Plummer, Ellen Greene, , , Sorrell Booke, Sandy Duncan, Toby Scott Ganger

      PLOT: Chanticleer, the rooster whose morning crow brings daylight, leaves for the big city to become a singing star after the Duke of Owls banishes sunlight.

      Still from Rock-a-Doodle (1991)

      COMMENTS: Walt Disney Animation, purveyors of fine animated fairy tales since 1937, tried in three separate decades to build a feature out of the medieval tale of the arrogant Chanticleer, whose call was thought to summon the sun. The rooster boasted a fine pedigree, including an appearance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and a starring role in a play by Edmond Rostand of Cyrano de Bergerac fame, so a film showcasing a big singing bird seemed right up the studio’s alley. Alas, despite repeated attempts and the efforts of some of the Disney crew’s greatest storytellers in the studio’s history (including Uncle himself), they never found a way to make the story work, finding the central character too unlikable. Maybe it’s just a point of stubborn pride that Disney apostate Don Bluth, who notoriously ditched the 70s-era Mouse House due to its lethargic approach to animation, concluded he was the man to crack the code.

      Bluth’s solution was to deliver story in bulk. In addition to the source tale, we’ve got the addition of a new villain with a plot to block out the sun permanently, a mapped-on telling of the later years of a certain king of rock ‘n’ roll and his manipulative manager, the adventures of a bunch of country animals new to the city, and most oddly, a live-action framing story in which a young boy is reading the very story we have been watching, only to be dragged into it himself by a torrential rainstorm accompanied by a surprise dose of magic. The resulting movie somehow suffers both from a surfeit of plot and an alarming lack of it. There’s an awful lot going on, and it’s well-animated, but there’s not enough time for anything to get the attention it needs. (Subtract the credits, and the film barely squeezes by at an hour.) The movie is an undercooked omelet with too many ingredients.

      Rock-a-Doodle reeks of post-production panic. The rapid-fire intro strongly suggests a first act hacked to pieces by studio notes and confused comment cards, and the solution seems to be enlisting Harris (a Disney mainstay making his final film appearance) to ladle more and more narration on top of the hastily edited footage in an effort to knit the disparate elements together. Logic takes a beating; it’s hard to reconcile The Duke’s plan to destroy all sunlight with the fact that Chanticleer is shown that the sun continues to rise without him.

      Bizarrely, the movie consistently undercuts its best idea: Chanticleer as Elvis. It’s a cute notion to pair up the cock who heralds the sun with the pelvis stops millions of hearts, and the bird’s coxcomb is an amusing analogy to Elvis’ famed pompadour. Bluth and Co. know this is the twist that sets their version apart, and they almost go all in. Bringing in Glen Campbell to voice the character (his ability to impersonate Presley was so pronounced that songwriters frequently hired him as a stand-in for demo recordings). Enlisting Elvis’ own backing group, the Jordanaires. Lacing the film with choice elements including Vegas glitz, rockabilly tunes, and a Colonel Tom Parker analogue. And then, having gone to such great lengths to rhyme with the legend of The King, the filmmakers proceed to interfere with every single one of Chanticleer’s musical numbers, burying them beneath dialogue, sound effects, or narration. We don’t get to hear a single performance all the way through until the closing credits. Every chance to appreciate the joke is obliterated. It’s a perplexing act of self-sabotage.

      Rock-A-Doodle feels like an idea that might possibly have worked if given the chance. It also feels like an idea that was thrown into the meat grinder because it didn’t work at all. It’s hard to know which is right. All we can know for certain is that Disney said no thrice, while Bluth said yes once, and it’s the little guy who probably rues his decision.

      WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

      “…in the end I had to surrender every shred of reason and common sense and just go along for the ride. Everything about it, from the grotesque delirium of the animated city sequences to the cornball artifice of the live action scenes with Edmond and his family, is so bizarre and tonally misjudged that it offers up a perverse kind of pleasure. I’m actually amazed that this film doesn’t have a more robust cult following – it has ‘midnight screening’ written all over it. … I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone with a penchant for the weird and inexplicable.” – Scampy, The Spirochaete Trail

      (This movie was nominated for review by Suren. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

      Rock-A-Doodle

      Rock-A-Doodle

      • ROCK A DOODLE ROCK A DOODLE (1 DVD)
      • PHYSICAL FILM
      • HAO BOSCH

      New starting from: 12.88 $

      Go to Amazon

      Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

      IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: HELTER SKELTER (2012)

      Leave a comment

      Herutâ sukerutâ

      366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

      DIRECTED BY: Mika Ninagawa

      FEATURING: Erika Sawajiri, , , Kiko Mizuhara, Nao Ômori

      PLOT:  The struggle to keep up appearances and growing pressure from younger models pushes supermodel Lilico’s physical and mental well-being to the breaking point.

      Still from Helter Skelter (2012)

      COMMENTS: A helter skelter is a slide. A lighthouse-shaped structure that you climb up through the inside to then slide down on a curving ramp nailed to the outside. The Beatles’ song of the same name gives it away in its opening lyric: “When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide.” Regardless of what Charles Manson thought it meant, it’s supposed to be about something that’s fun for a brief moment, but it’s also a reminder that everything that goes up must eventually come back down, and sometimes right quickly at that.

      If the higher you go means the faster you fall, then Lilico is about to come crashing down at light speed. She is living her peak life: impossibly beautiful, her face graces countless magazine covers and advertisements. She’s about to branch out into film acting, and every girl in Japan knows her by name. So when she spots a sizeable flaw in her perfect skin, it’s a literal crack in her facade, the augur of an explosive downfall. Helter Skelter is all about that implosion, the slow-motion train wreck of her discovery that perfect beauty has always had an expiration date, and that page on the calendar has finally turned.

      It’s hard to work up a lot of pity for someone who is rich, famous, and ridiculously attractive, but Helter Skelter does a solid job in showing how Lilico’s life of luxury is not especially enjoyable. She is monstrous but also desperate, and how her misery expresses itself is the primary source of Helter Skelter’s weirdness. She takes out her rage on her doggedly loyal assistant Hana through sexual abuse and humiliation, and starts to have out-of-control hallucinations at inconvenient moments. The fact that she is being tracked by a pair of detectives who resemble the cast of a Japanese reboot of “The X-Files” is appropriate, because Lilico herself is otherworldly. These moments of panic and cruelty are so outlandish, so extreme, that the biggest surprise is that we are expected to view them realistically. Perhaps tales like The Substance have trained us to expect a supernatural element, but Helter Skelter offers no twist. The film straightforwardly insists that Lilico’s beauty has a scientific (if illegal and amoral) explanation, and that her behavior is all her own. The arrival of her very own Eve Harrington, the naturally stunning Kozue, who achieves success despite expressing apathy toward the  fashion business, reinforces that point. Kozue doesn’t expect to be beautiful forever, and while she knows some regurgitation goes with the job, she plans to give it up someday. By contrast, considering everything Lilico has done to secure her position, her fear of decline and the collapse of her enhanced body utterly short-circuit her.

      Japanese culture is both fascinated and repelled by celebrity, and Helter Skelter enlists exactly the right people to delve into its darker side. Director Ninagawa was a fashion photographer herself, and she films with the barely controlled energy of a wild photo shoot. Sawajiri also knows the world, having been a successful model before turning to acting. (She gained notoriety for a press conference where she was viewed as disrespectful to reporters and her castmates alike, so audiences in Japan would experience art imitating life in Lilico’s ultimate, disastrous encounter with the media.) Their bona fides are beyond reproach, and there’s no question that the team produces a motion picture with a unique sensibility, bringing their personal experience to the story. The thing is, while Helter Skelter is a beautifully crafted film, a certain sameness creeps in as the story seems to be building toward something cataclysmic, but never quite gets there. Lilico’s fate is inevitable—it is painfully obvious that she is going to crash—but given the many omens of doom and the explosive nature of Ninagawa’s camera and Sawajiri’s volcanic performance, the impact ultimately feels blunted. Lilico’s fate can’t quite live up to the drama of what precedes it.

      Helter Skelter is based on a popular manga by Kyoko Okazaki, and it feels like it. It jumps storylines and techniques like a page turning, and the bold and vibrant colors and off-kilter angles feel like they could have jumped straight out of the pages of a comic book. The film’s most striking image, when Lilico faces a room full of popping camera flashes, has the veneer of illustration. But like fashion itself, the movie is successful at delivering style and attitude but quickly moves on to the next new thing without imparting a message beyond the surface. It’s a fun, fast ride, but it’s just a ride. Then I get to the bottom and I see you again.

      WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

      “…a feverish character study about fame, vanity, and the terrifying fragility of manufactured perfection… The visuals never settle into a comfortable place. Scenes are filled with exaggerated color palettes and surreal staging, making the environment feel beautiful and suffocating. It’s a world built entirely around image, and Ninagawa constantly reminds the audience how artificial that image really is.” – Chris Jones, Overly Honest Reviews

      (This movie was nominated for review by Scott R. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

      Helter Skelter

      Helter Skelter

      • This lurid body horror, based on a manga by Kyoko Okazaki and directed by Mika Ninagawa (Sakuran), is a candy-colored nightmare!

      New starting from: 23.99 $

      Go to Amazon