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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

The Rabbi’s Cat [Le Chat du Rabbin] (2011): In this animated fantasy set in Algeria in the early 20th century, a rabbi’s cat find he’s able to speak after he swallows a parrot; he makes sarcastic comments, lusts after his master’s daughter, and tries to secure a bar mitzvah for himself. Director/artist Joann Sfar was last seen directing live actors (and giant-headed puppets) in Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life. The Rabbi’s Cat official site (French).

SCREENINGS (Multiple locations, Dec. 7-22):

Everything is Terrible! Holiday Special 2012: More terribleness, this time themed around the terriblest season of the year, the holidays. Playing one night only at multiple venues across the country: check the EiT website for details. Everything is Terrible! Holiday Special dates and venues.

NEW ON DVD:

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985): Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher join Mark Twain aboard his airship as he flies off to see Haley’s Comet. this claymation feature sounds cute and kid-friendly, but it’s actually based on Twain’s cynical adult works like “The Mysterious Stranger,” and what everyone seems to remember is the surreal scene where the kids come face-to-face with Satan. Buy The Adventures of Mark Twain.

Alps (2011): Giorgos Lanthimos’ followup to Dogtooth involves a service that sends impersonators out to pretend to be the deceased loved ones of mourning families. It appears to be another weird one, but in a more subtle and quiet mode than the Greek’s provocative debut. Buy Alps.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012): Read our capsule review. With this home video release, Beasts becomes officially eligible to be placed on the List—just saying. Buy Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Blood Beat (1983): An early 80s, Christmastime shot-on-video horror; as near as I can tell, the plot involves a samurai who appears and kills people whenever the lead actress masturbates (?) The publicity materials describe it as “quite possible the most bizarre Christmas themed horror film ever made!” [sic], and state that it’s also a limited edition (?) Buy Blood Beat.

Ninja Scroll (1993): Read our capsule review. This re-release of the 1993 fantasy/adventure anime classic is remastered, but has no special features. Buy Ninja Scroll.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964): Santa does what the title says he does in this ridiculous holiday misfire. This is the remastered version of the public domain “classic,” and it includes additional public domain shorts (some from Max Fleischer) as filler bonuses. Buy Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Remastered Edition).

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985): See description in DVD above. Buy The Adventures of Mark Twain [Blu-ray].

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012): See description in DVD above. This release includes a DVD and digital copy. Buy Beasts of the Southern Wild [Blu-ray].

Brazil (1985): Read the Certified Weird entry! Just a year after Universal releases a Brazil Blu, Criterion tops them with this deluxe re-issue. Buy Brazil (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

eXistenZ (1999): David Cronenberg‘s turn at making a mindbending virtual reality movie; parts do for video games what Videodrome did for television. A long-awaited Blu-ray release. Buy eXistenZ [Blu-ray].

“Francis Ford Coppola: 5 Film Collection”: We took notice of this set because of the angry and dreamy Vietnam War classic Apocalypse Now (1979) and its 3.5 hour director’s cut, Apocalypse Now Redux. This box also includes Coppola’s latest drama, Tetro (2009), along with his romantic musical One from the Heart (1982) and the paranoid classic The Conversation (1974). Buy “Francis Ford Coppola: 5-Film Collection” [Blu-ray].

Ninja Scroll (1993): See description in DVD above. Buy Ninja Scroll [Blu-ray].

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964): See description in DVD above. Buy Santa Claus Conquers the Martians [Blu-ray].

Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)/Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005): Read our Sharkboy review. A pair of bizarrish kiddie movies from cult director Robert Rodriguez together on a single Blu-ray. Buy Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over/Adventures of Sharkboy [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.

As we move into the chill of December, here’s what we’ve got for you: we’ll take a look at the overlooked mindbending sci-fi anime King of Thorn (2009); pay a visit to the surreally sad courtesans inhabiting The House of Pleasures (2011); and take a trip with Jean-Luc Godard through the bizarrely ravaged French countryside of 1967’s Weekend. In bonus coverage, Alfred will finish off his behind-the-scenes coverage of the “Creeporia” series.

As we begin our survey of bizarre search terms in our quest to find the Weirdest Search Term of the Week, we have to admit we were extremely disappointed by the person who was looking for “something more than weird film.” I guess weird film isn’t good enough for some people. Fortunately, we have the horny pervert ESL search contingent to supply us with some strange search terms to cheer us up; for example, the guy who wonders “weres to finde real sex and porn with relativs not forbidn bat free.” I wouldn’t know firsthand, but from the description I’m guessing that infestations of bats are a constant problem plaguing incest porn videos. By comparison, the fellow looking for “weird,strange big-triple breasted naked cheerleaders galleries” seems like a pretty normal guy. As weird as the festishists were this week, however, we’re giving our Weirdest Search Term of the Week award to the person looking for “the teen movie were the white kids were like google looking glasses on three heads.” At least, we think that wasn’t a fetish search: we admit we can’t visualize “google looking glasses on three heads,” and confess that it might be sexually exciting to someone out there.

Based on comments received last week, I started a forum post regarding the next 10 movies in the ridiculously-long reader-suggested review queue. Speaking of that review queue, here’s how it now stands: Weekend (next week!); The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; Liquid Sky (re-review); Society; Final Programme; “Foutaises”; Bloodsucking Freaks; Lost Highway; Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (official Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Walk Away Renee (2011): Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette takes a cross-country trip with his bipolar/borderline schizophrenic mother Renee; along the way she loses her medication and her behavior becomes erratic. After the trip, Caouette illustrates some of his mom’s delusions with trippy paranoid fantasy sequences in this indie documentary/fiction hybrid. Playing IFC Center in Manhattan this week, future venues uncertain. Walk Away Renee at IFC Center.

NEW ON DVD:

The Experiment: Who’s Watching You? (2012): A financially desperate stripper agrees to serve as a pharmaceutical company guinea pig and falls into what the press materials call a world of  “drug induced madness and surreal sensuality.” It looks like Ken Russell‘s grandson decided to shoot a Skinemax movie on a webcam, or something like that. Buy The Experiment: Who’s Watching You?

“Serial Experiments Lain: Complete Series”: An introverted girl follows a suicide classmate into a virtual reality world where anything can happen in this mind-blowing 13-episode cult anime series. This one is currently in our reader-suggested review queue. Only available in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack. Buy “Serial Experiments Lain: Complete Series”.

“Visions of Ecstasy: The Films of Nigel Wingrove”: Visions of Ecstasy (1989) was an 18-minute film interpretation of the visions of St. Teresa of Avila that brings the notorious erotic subtext of the mystics visions of the nun to unsubtle life (i.e. she has sex with Jesus). It’s mainly notable for being the only film ever to be banned in Britain solely on the grounds of blasphemy. Also included on this disc are Wingrove’s full-length softcore nunsploitation feature Sacred Flesh (2000) and the short Axel (1988) (about which we could find no information).  Wingrove later went on to direct the Satanic Sluts series, and, more importantly, to found Redemption Films (which restored and re-released the movies of Jean Rollin and other Eurotrash auteurs). Buy Visions of Ecstasy: The Films of Nigel Wingrove.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

“Serial Experiments Lain: Complete Series”: See description in DVD above. Buy “Serial Experiments Lain: Complete Series”.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Black Biscuit (2012): Experimental punk documentary focusing on… well… the director’s manifesto suggests he strives to make films that are “bewildering, vague, self-indulgent, plotless, risky, egotistical, limpid, raw, ugly, and imperfect.” If that aesthetic appeals to you, then by all means give this a chance. Watch Black Biscuit free on YouTube.

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.

Next week we’ll suffer through 2009’s Fever Night AKA Band of Satanic Outsiders; dip into The Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger (2004); and we’ll take a trip into The Fourth Dimension (2012) (with a segment by Harmony Korine). Also, Alfred will give us more insight into the upcoming Creeporia web feature.

Thanks to reasons we won’t go into (anyone heard of link-injection spam?), Google traffic was down slightly last week, providing us with fewer candidates for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest. Nonetheless, we still caught enough doozies to run the contest this week. We’ll start off with a seasonal search for  “nerd turkey” (submitted on Thanksgiving Day, no less!) Moving on, the “what was that weird movie?” page is bringing us increasingly bizarre search traffic, including this guy looking for “movies of reall nakid giants crashing buildings.” The increasingly jaded movie viewer just won’t thrill to movies of fake naked giants crashing buildings anymore, I guess. But our Weirdest Search Term of the Week winner pulls it off with the most creative/confusing use of and/or clauses we’ve yet encountered in all our years of tracking weird search term: “the sexiest of the top and in beds and pregnancy and showing all the parts in the same of boy or a girl or men alone or girl alone.” We’re speechless.

Here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue stands: The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; Liquid Sky (re-review); Society; Final Programme; “Foutaises”; Bloodsucking Freaks; Lost Highway; Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (official Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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 on the official site links.

NEW ON DVD:

Big Tits Zombie (2010): Japanese strippers battle zombies, with the usual splatterpunk absurdity. We can’t pass up a title like this, as much as we’d like to. Buy Big Tits Zombie.

“Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku” (The X from Outer Space/Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell/The Living Skeleton/Genocide): Four films from the award-winning (Tokyo Story) Shochiku Studios short-lived dive into the pulp-horror market, 1967-1968. Vengeful ghosts, killer bugs, and giant alien chickens populate these wild movies; of most interest to us are the alien space vampires of Goke, which we can now officially mark off our out-of-print wishlist. Buy “Eclipse Series 37: When Horror Came to Shochiku”.

Naked Trip: On the Run from the Mafia (2008): A British filmmaker kidnaps an actress and goes on the run from the mafia in what the promotional material describes as a “surreal mix of trash, experimental and art-house cinema.” That part sound encouraging, but we’re a little bit concerned about why this took almost 5 years to make it to DVD. Buy Naked Trip: On The Run From The Mafia.

Slaughter Tales (2012): A 15-year old boy steals a cursed VHS videotape and watches the horror anthology contained therein. The weird part? This tribute to 1980s shot-on-video horrors was directed by 15-year old horror fan Johnny Dickey. Buy Slaughter Tales.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Grave of the Fireflies (1988): Heartbreaking dramatic anime about the fate of two Japanese orphans during World War II. Not entirely realistic, yet something of a stretch for “weird”; it’s still a highly anticipated Blu-ray debut that’s worth taking note of. Buy Grave of the Fireflies [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.