A 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):

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same:  We hate to stereotype, but cool weird b-movie title usually equals lame predictable parody.  Coming off a midnight run at Sundance, screening at the ReRun Gastropub in New York City before heading off to DVD.  Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same official site.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia: A group of policemen and a suspect patrol the Anatolian countryside one long night searching for a victim’s corpse.  It looks like an arthouse police procedural but critics hints at something deeper: NPR’s Ella Taylor describes it as “an existential fairy tale set in a nocturnal netherworld…”

NEW ON DVD:

Attack of the Vegan Zombies (2009):  Owners of a vineyard accidentally create vegan zombies when they hire a witch to bless their failing crop.  Borderline weird stuff, but we wanted to mention some DVD release this week. Buy Attack Of The Vegan Zombies.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa (2005): The plot synopsis, which is surely more comprehensible to fans of this long running anime series than it is to me, involves extraterrestrial alchemists embroiled with 1920s Nazis and the Thule Society.  It’s probably more fantasy than surrealism, but many people are convinced anime is inherently weird.  Watch Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa 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.

Courtesy of the Online Film Critics Society.  Our votes and comments appear at the bottom of the post.

“The Tree of Life, which led the Online Film Critics Society nominations with seven, was the big winner at the 15th Annual Online Film Critics Society Awards. The film took home the prize for Best Picture as well as trophies for Best Director (Terrence Malick), Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain), Best Editing and Best Cinematography. No other film won more than one award.

The other three acting winners were Michael Fassbender winning Best Actor for his performance in Shame; Tilda Swinton’s work in We Need to Talk About Kevin won the award for Best Actress; and Christopher Plummer received the Best Supporting Actor prize for his work in Beginners.

The full list of winners of the 15th Annual Online Film Critics Society Awards:

Continue reading 15TH ANNUAL ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY AWARDS (WITH OUR VOTES AND COMMENTS) →

Welcome to 2012!  We’ll get in the swing of the new year by rededicating ourselves to that long-neglected reader-suggested review queue.  First off, on Monday we’ll belatedly weigh in on the Serbian Movie controversy, with a long discussion/analysis from the always-opinionated Pamela De Graff.  Next off, we’ll finally welcome seminal weird filmmaker Kenneth Anger to the 366 discussion with a survey of The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 2, and in-depth coverage of one of the five films on that set (but which one?)  Finally, we’ll take a look at Roger Corman‘s The Terror (1963), made in 24 hours, with Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff wandering around on leftover castle sets trying to think up a plot on the spur of the moment.

It was an anemic week in weird search terms; people were likely staying indoors and celebrating the holidays with loved ones instead of typing randomly deranged search strings into Google.  Looking for Weirdest Search Term of the Week candidates, we’re forced to fall back on old standbys like “women breastfeeding horse” (believe it or not, we field requests for ladies breastfeeding various types of livestock at least once a week).  A bit more unusual is the search for “mustard disturbing weird movies.”  “How to intimidate your paranoid schizophrenic weird creepy sleezy neighbour so they leave” was a phrase that made perfect logical sense, yet still struck us as peculiar advice to seek from a search engine.  We’ll give our vote for Weirdest of the Week to “pornographic movies in the celebrations, in fact,”: it was a weird enough query anyway, but adding the superfluous “in fact” at the end pushes it over the edge of oddness.

Speaking of the reader-suggested review queue (which we’ll be cutting down by three items next week!) here’s how it currently stands: A Serbian Film (next week!); The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others—next week!); The Terror (next week!); Kairo [AKA Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Not much going on this week as the studios tend to their holiday hangovers.  See you in 2012!

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Swet (est. 2012):  A conspiratorial musical horror satire (?), or something like that.  We only know writer/director Matthew Reel (Jessicka Rabid) promises it will be “a lot flashier and crazier than anything I have done in the past.”  Starring the familiar face of Damon Zex, alongside Damon (Reflections of Evil) Packard.  Swet Facebook page.

NEW ON DVD:

Fish Story (2009): Japanese movie about how a punk rock single from 1975 saves the world from destruction by a comet in 2012.  Not much information on this one but the synopsis does sound weird, plus it’s from “the team behind The Native Duck, the Foreign Duck and God in a Coin-locker” (!). Buy Fish Story.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Horrors of Spider Island (1960): Read our Certified Weird review!  Since it’s in the public domain, it was only a matter of time until someone put this so-bad-it’s-weird misogynist fever dream up on YouTube.  Watch Horrors of Spider Island 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.

Here are the year-end nominees from the Online Film Society Awards.  This year 366 Weird Movies’ G. Smalley will vote in the poll for the first time.  The names of the winners will be released on January 2.

“The Tree of Life”, Terrence Malick’s exploration of suburban family life in the 1950’s, received seven nominations for the 15th Annual Online Film Critics Society awards. The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Malick), Best Supporting Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain), Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Cinematography.

Joining “The Tree of Life” in Best Picture are Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist”, Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants”, Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive” and Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”. Malick, Hazanavicius, Refn and Scorsese were joined in the Best Director race by “Melancholia” director Lars von Trier.

“Drive” was the second most nominated film picking up six mentions including the aforementioned Picture and Director as well as Best Supporting Actor (Albert Brooks), Best Adapted Screenplay, Editing and Cinematography. Brooks was nominated alongside John Hawkes in “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, Nick Nolte in “Warrior”, Pitt and Christopher Plummer in “Beginners”. In Best Supporting Actress, the nominees were Chastain, Melissa McCarthy for “Bridesmaids”, Janet McTeer for “Albert Nobbs”, Carey Mulligan for “Shame” and Shailene Woodley for “The Descendants”.

Woodley and Mulligan’s co-stars shared nominations in the Best Actor slate, George Clooney and Michael Fassbender respectively, who were nominated alongside Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”, Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and Michael Shannon in “Take Shelter”. The Best Actress category features Kirsten Dunst in “Melancholia”, Elizabeth Olsen in “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”, Tilda Swinton in “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and Michelle Williams for “My Week with Marilyn”.

Each year, the OFCS also submits nominations for Special Achievement Awards, granted only by a majority vote of the membership. This year, the Online Film Critics have selected two individuals, Jessica Chastain and Martin Scorsese, to receive special citations.

Chastain’s tremendous and quality-filled output this year has brought her instant acclaim and recognition marking one of the most stellar debuts in recent memory.

Scorsese has long been a champion of film preservation and with his love letter to the cinema this year, “Hugo”, he continues to show his admiration for film history and the many pursuits to keeping those records alive.

The full list of nominees for the 15th Annual Online Film Critics Society Awards: Continue reading 2011 ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY AWARD NOMINEES →