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.
SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, Aug 5,6,8):
On the Silver Globe (1988): A new restoration of Andrzej Zulawski‘s never-quite-completed visionary sci-fi epic. We are assured a video release will come eventually. Also on tap at Cinefamily this week: more screenings of Zulawski’s notorious octopus-sex fantasy Possession, and Jacques Rivette’s rare surrealist opus Celine and Julie Go Boating (which we’ve very nearly given up on ever seeing a video release of), both playing on Sunday, Aug. 8. On the Silver Globe at Cinefamily.
SCREENINGS – (New York City, IFC Center, Aug 5-11):
Multiple Maniacs (1970): Read Alfred Eaker’s review. John Waters‘s rarely screened “Cavalcade of Perversions” plays all week. The Friday night sessions with Waters in attendance are already sold out. Maniacs will be playing a few more dates at other venues in the near future (e.g.. Cinefamily starting Aug 13 and screenings at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival), and is presented by Janus Films. Janus is owned by the Criterion Collection, and a screening sponsored by them is usually a clue that a Criterion release or Eclipse box set is coming in the near future. Their site lists Maniacs as available on DCP (digital cinema package) or on Blu-ray—a hopeful sign? Multiple Maniacs at Janus Films.
NEW ON DVD:
April and the Extraordinary World (2015): Read G. Smalley’s review. Hopefully, this animated French steampunk classic with a weird twist will find an expanded audience on video after its very limited Stateside release. Buy April and the Extraordinary World
High-Rise (2015): Read El Rob Hubbard’s review (and Alex Kittle’s mini-review). No special features are listed for this release of Ben Wheatley‘s bizarro satire about the class struggle in a high rise apartment building. Buy High-Rise
The Lobster (2015): Read Alex Kittle’s mini-review. Look for a longer review of Giorgos Lanthimos‘s knockout romantic satire about a world where single people are forcibly turned into animals in two weeks. Buy The Lobster
Observance (2015): A man accepts a job spying on a beautiful woman, but surreal complications ensue. Look for a review next week. Buy Observance
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
April and the Extraordinary World (2015): See description in DVD above. Both the DVD and the Blu-ray give you the option of listening to April in the original French or in GKIDS’s English dub. Buy April and the Extraordinary World [Blu-ray]
High-Rise (2015): See description in DVD above. For some reason, at the time of this writing the Blu-ray is listed at $4 less than the DVD—no promise that will still be true by the time you read this note. Buy High-Rise [Blu-ray]
The Lobster (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy The Lobster [Blu-ray]
Observance (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Observance [Blu-ray]
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.
I would begin by summarizing Atmo HorroX‘s plot, but, although I believe there is one, I’m not 100% sure I could find it. The movie focuses largely on the stalking activities of a monster (Lecompte) wearing pantyhose with sweetgum seeds stuck on it over his face and sporting a plume of phallic balloons jutting from his crotch. He conjures levitating sausages and kills people by placing ladies’ shoes on either side of their head. There are other, more traditional-looking horror monsters running around in the film as well; the face of one is battered into liquid during the film’s opening, only to rise as a rainbow snake. There’s also some kind of witch, a creature dressed in black latex with nine eyes, a man with remote controls taped to his bodies who communicates with the main monster by walkie talkie, a playboy wearing psychedelic goggles, and others. Often, scenes go on for too long with these characters simply posing on the screen, letting us drink in their oddness. Even the best parts can go on for too long: a doctor with a mutton chop goatee takes forever to write prescriptions (which are nothing but long, elaborate scribbles) for patients, then shakes his head, tears them up, and starts over. It’s funny, but the gag repeats too many times. The entire movie probably should have been at least twenty minutes shorter: it wears on you, and many scenes could have been trimmed or cut entirely. There is no comprehensible dialogue—it’s all garbled nonsense, sometimes distorted with feedback and cranked up to painful levels—and when there is music it is just as discordant as the dialogue. The color grading is garish, saturated oranges and pinks, making the monster appear to glow against the forest or street backgrounds as he roams.
Holy Flame, of course, is not a new movie, but I feel privileged to see it on the big screen in a theater full of appreciative fans. It’s lightweight entertainment and no threat to make the List of the Weirdest Movies Ever Made, but it makes for an exhilaratingly exotic popcorn movie for a Sunday afternoon matinee.
Ultra-Sex stitches together scenes from dozens of adult movies, using comic overdubbing (from two guys, voicing both male and female roles) to create a science fiction story about… well, as might be expected, what it’s “about” is pretty incoherent. It has something to do with the search for the Ultra-Sex, which is a something-or-other that makes Earthlings hump like rabbits whose feed pellets were accidentally replaced with Viagra, either because of its presence or because of its absence, I could never tell which. The action occurs both on Earth and in space. The clips—which include robot-controlled dildos, lactating Power Rangers (!), and Mr. Spock gettin’ it on, among other sexy absurdities—can be hilarious, and I would have been happy to see a curated collection of such snippets. (The evening’s biggest grossout moment came courtesy of a nose-fellatio gag from a “Cyrano de Bergerac” porn parody). Footage from the non-porno badfilm Samurai Cop makes up one of the many subplots, and the story also contains bits from the infamous Edward Penishands. There is one amazing stop-motion sequence involving fornicating Barbie dolls and a giant blow-up monster who is subdued by toy tanks firing dildos; Google suggests a French short called “
Those who stayed away missed one of Fantasia’s great screenings, which ended with an enthusiastic round of applause and whistling from the animation-savvy audience. Psychonauts is based on the graphic novel of the same name, written by Alberto Vázquez and previously adapted into the award-winning short “Birdboy” in 2011 with co-director