Our weekly 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 at the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
68 Kill: Bad-taste caper black comedy about a lowlife and his girlfriend who decides to steal cash from her sugar daddy. Reviews were generally impressed by its cult movie aspirations, although our own Giles Edwards was unimpressed (“it fails more often than not“). 68 Kill at Snowfort Pictures.
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NEW ON DVD:
Colossal (2016): An alcoholic woman (Anne Hathaway) discovers that the appearance of a giant monster in Seoul coincides perfectly with her blackouts in this absurd allegory. We missed it in theaters, but now is the perfect chance to get caught up. Buy Colossus.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Colossal (2016): See description in DVD above. Buy Colossus [Blu-ray].
CERTIFIED WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). We won’t list all the screenings of this audience-participation classic separately. You can use this page to find a screening near you.
- Columbus, OH, 8/4 (midnight)-8/5, 8/7 – Santa Sangre (1989). At Gateway Film Center.
- Columbus, OH, 8/5-8/9 – Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). At Gateway Film Center.
- Los Angeles, 8/4 (midnight) – Akira (1988). At Nuart Theater.
- Los Angeles, 8/5 – Night of the Hunter (1955) (double feature with Crossfire [1947], introduced by writer Preston Neal Jones). At the Aero Theater.
- Los Angeles, 8/5 (midnight) – El Topo (1970). Hosted by Ben Barenholtz (“the inventor of the midnight movie). At the Vista.
- Los Angeles, 8/6 – Barton Fink (1991). At Cinefamily.
- New York City, 8/4-8/10 – Stalker (1979). At IFC Center.
- New York City, 8/5 – Suspiria (1977). At the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
- New York City, 8/5 & 8/8 – Holy Motors (2012). At the Museum of Modern Art.
- New York City, 8/5 (midnight) – The Horrors of Spider Island [Ein Toter hing im Netz] (1960). At Spectacle Theater.
- New York City, 8/6 – Donnie Darko (2001). At the Museum of Modern Art.
- New York City, 8/10 – Eraserhead (1977). At the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
- New York City, 8/10 – The Face of Another (1966). At the Museum of Modern Art.
- New York City, 8/10 – Weekend (1967). At Videology Bar & Cinema.
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.
Tucked far out of the way of anything else at the Fantasia Festival is the “Cinematheque Quebecoise” theater. After forty minutes of searching and using the secret knock to get through the door, I was finally able to get seated for Eternal Evil (AKA The Blue Man). Directed in the mid-’80s by George Mihalka, Eternal Evil tells a dark tale of murder and astral projection. Our hero Paul Sharpe spends a lot of time with his shirt unbuttoned, and wonders why those close to him keep ending up dead. The answer stems from an interview he did with an elderly couple who claimed to achieve immortality by shifting to new bodies when their current vessels had worn out. A cult hit in its native Canada, the ’80s cheesiness was fortunately outweighed by the interesting story and clever premise. Not really something to Certify, though.
That honor might go to
On Thursday night, just one feature—a weird one. Geng Jun’s Free and Easy plays like it was shot from a screenplay whipped up by