You may have noticed that this column, which normally appears on Sundays, has been pushed back to Monday this week so that we could warm your weird heart with the tale of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny on Christmas Day.  We’d like to tell you that things will be getting back to normal after that minor bit of schedule shuffling, but right about now we’re cursing whoever decided to schedule awards season in the middle of both the holiday season and the cold and flu season.  We’re simultaneously trying to catch up on the major awards nominees we missed in the past 51 weeks of 2011 while fighting off chills and sniffles and struggling to express seasonal cheer to well-wishers.  So this upcoming week we will be slacking off on new reviews and instead focusing on bringing you top 10 lists and year-end surveys of both mainstream and weird movies (although Alfred will chime in with a review of the 2010 small-screen documentary Gauguin: The Full Story).  When 2012 rolls around in a week, we’ll start diving back into that long-neglected reader-suggested review queue.

Since you’ve had to wait an extra day to get your weekly dose of weird search terms, you’re probably hoping for some extra-strange stuff.  And indeed, with overall search volume up moderately what with the kids out of school and on Google, we had a nice little haul of odd queries for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest.   We had the typically mangled searches for movies that may or may not exist, such as  “a film about a girl discovers cow movement” (not on the bottom of her shoe, we hope) and “cult film when kennedy killed a erection” (a search for Bubba Ho-Tep, only the viewer mistook the mummy for a woody?)  We also must mention the seeker looking for information on “our brain’s nativity comedy.”  And every week we can rely on horny English-as-a-second-language students for something bizarre: this week’s entry is “hookey sexy porn womence.”  But our official Weirdest Search Term of the Week goes to the absurdly specific “what about a list of one time seen on tv unpopular thriller movies in 1977 or 1979 about twins kids.”  The searcher gets bonus points for starting off his search with “what about” (as if he’s free-associating to his keyboard), and for writing his elaborate request to specifically exclude one-time seen on TV unpopular thriller movies about twin kids from 1978.

Here’s that reader suggested review queue (which we will be getting back to paring down during 2012, we promise!): Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the 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…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.

Spielberg and his minions have driven all traces of weirdness from theaters this week, under the guise of “Christmas spirit.”  We weirdophiles will have to cower in our hovels this week, regroup, and return to the cinemas in 2012.

IN “DEVELOPMENT“:

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story:  Tells the shocking true story of “Weird” Al Yankovic, from his days as an accordion-loving outcast to his multi-platinum “Eat It,” as his career magically survives alcoholism and sex with Madonna.  Our favorite line from the trailer?  “I’m the weird one!”  Reminder to readers: on this site, we occasionally include notices for films that don’t actually exist.

NEW ON DVD:

Columbiana (2011): A young woman (Zoe Saldana) grows up to be an assassin after witnessing her parents’ murder.  Thinking it was an ordinary action movie, we passed over this one when it played theaters (even though it came from mildly weird director Luc Besson); we just now noticed the Amazon editorial review says it contains “a dash of oddball surrealism.”  We prefer a lot more than a dash, but in a slow week we’ll take what we can get. Buy Colombiana.

Love Exposure (2008): Shion Sono’s 4 hour (!) comedy epic involves Roman Catholicism, candid panty photos, and a butt-kicking, man-hating schoolgirl. Thanks to Olive Films, who really earn our respect lately by releasing this and Skidoo in the same calendar year. Buy Love Exposure.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Columbiana (2011): See description in DVD above.  Includes an UltraViolet digital download. Buy Colombiana [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973):  Gaseous vapors turn an embryo into an eight-foot sheep monster.  Distributor Something Weird calls it “one of the weirdest, wackiest, oddballest monster movies ever made” (and they should know).  Watch Godmonster of Indian Flats 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.

In preparation for Christmas we’ll be having a “naughty or nice” week here at 366 Weird Movies.  We’ll take in a couple of nice movies about naughty people, starting with The Arbor (2010), a reverent experimental documentary about alcoholic working class playwright Andrea Dunbar.  She’s matched up against the subject of Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010), a biopic of the brilliant, boozing womanizer Serge Gainsbourg (and of his scary puppet alter ego).  Alfred will cover Claus Guth’s arguably naughty 2010 rendering of Handel’s Messiah, which dramatizes the holy text with a tale of adultery and suicide.  And in the “definitely naughty” category is Otto Preminger’s infamous flop Skidoo (1968), a square attempt at a counter-cultural comedy that gives us the spectacle of Jackie Gleason taking LSD and Groucho Marx smoking pot (!)

And we’ll be saving a surprise for Christmas day: a true lump of cinematic coal for our naughty readers (we already know you’re naughty because we caught you reading our Aphrodisiac! review).  It would be wrong of you to try to figure out the title of this clunker of a Christmas surprise we’ll be reviewing for you on X-mas day, but since we’ve already decided you’re naughty, you can go ahead and guess in the “comments” section if you wish.

With Google now masking about 12% of all search queries, it’s getting harder to find truly demented candidates for our “Weirdest Search Term of the Week” contest.  Nonetheless, we soldier on with our survey of strange and sick searches.  “Woman breastfeeding a dwarf” is a type of query we get a lot; while it looks weird on the surface, it’s far too understandable for us to give it anything more than an honorable mention (if the searcher was looking for a man breastfeeding a dwarf, well, that would be a different matter).  We’ll also mention the fairly ordinary yet disturbing search for “men sitting on toilets.”  Our favorite search terms this week fell into the “movies we’d really like to see, if they actually exist” category.  The runner-up was the simple but effectively odd “40’s musical movie with pervert baby.”  But nothing caught our attention this week more than the description of a “90s movie where girl discovers uncle was perverse and she is haunted by an apple.”  There are so few produce-related haunting films out there that we suspect this one will turn out to be a classic by default.

Here’s the reader-suggested review queue: Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (next week!); Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; The Bride of  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…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel: If you’re not yet burned out on B-movie documentaries—and you live in New York or Los Angeles—you might want to head out to the cinema to soak in this survey of the life and work of independent impresario Roger Corman.  An odd assortment of Oscar winners and cult figures turn out to pay tribute to the King of the B’s, including Jack Nicholson, Pam Greer, Martin Scorsese and Traci Lords.  Corman’s World official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

1000 Kings [1000 Könige] (est. 2012): Sort of an abstract science fiction ballet set in a sky-ball dystopia where monks hate red sleeping bags, or something like that, this German first feature by Georgian-born Bidzina Kanchaveli is in post-production but still searching for completion funding. It looks like superlative weirdness; check out 1000 Kings at Indiegogo or at the 1000 Kings official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Astron-6 (2011): A 2-disc compilation of the 1980s-spoofing short films of the absurdist Canadian collective behind the pop-killer feature Father’s Day.  Titles include Inferno of the Dead, Gore Blade, and H.I.Z. (Erection der Zombi).  Avowed fans of the group include Uwe Boll, George Kuchar, Guy Maddin, and Jasmine from jasmines-panties.com.  Buy Astron-6.

Branded to Kill (1967): Read the Certified Weird entry!  After years of promises the Criterion Collection has finally re-released Seijun Suzuki’s totally whacko rice-sniffing yakuza film, with a new restoration and extras including interviews with the director and chipmunk-faced star Joe Shishido.  This is the new #1 killer version of the classic of weirdness. Buy Branded to Kill [Criterion collection].

Def-con 4 (1985)/Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988): Def-con sounds like just another Mad Max ripoff (The Los Angeles Times called it a “suspenseful, action-packed drama”—yawn).  Hell is much cooler, featuring wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper fighting future frog-men for the right to impregnate Earth’s remaining fertile females.  Hell is in our reader-suggested review queue. Buy Def-Con 4 / Hell Comes to Frogtown (Double Feature).

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2011): Read our capsule review. Tsui Hark returns to form with this colorful action fantasy set in a magical version of Imperial China. Buy Detective Dee & The Mystery of the Phantom Flame.

Jessicka Rabid (2010): The sensitive story of a female sex slave who is raised like a dog until one day she’s bitten by a rabid canine and goes on a killing spree.  Shot in a style reminiscent of a 1960s home movie, it co-stars Troma veteran Trent Haaga, perhaps best known as the screenwriter of The Toxic Avenger 4: Citizen Toxie (2000) and Deadgirl (2008). Buy Jessicka Rabid.

Tokyo Drifter (1966):  An ex-yakuza hitman finds himself in trouble when a rival gang won’t recognize his retirement in this stylized, deconstructed gangster movie.  You wouldn’t expect the Criterion Collection to re-release Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill without giving equal time to this colorful ,comic book -styled warm up, and indeed they did not.  Buy Tokyo Drifter.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Branded to Kill (1967): See description in DVD above.  Buy Branded to Kill [Criterion Blu-ray].

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2011):  See description in DVD above.  Buy Detective Dee & The Mystery of the Phantom Flame [Blu-ray].

Heavenly Creatures (1994):  Two sheltered Kiwi girls develop an obsessive friendship and invent a fantasy world that they prefer to reality; their bond eventually ends in murder.  This was Peter Jackson‘s first arthouse movie after making three fun but tasteless underground cult provocations.  It’s also in our reader-suggested review queue.  Buy Heavenly Creatures [Blu-ray].

Tokyo Drifter (1966):  See description in DVD above.  Buy Tokyo Drifter [Criterion Blu-ray].

Velvet Goldmine (1998): An impressionistic, and frequently surrealistic, portrait of an aging androgynous glam-rock star (obviously modeled on David Bowie).  This visually splendiferous movie could not be more different than the film that first brought director Todd Haynes to the attention of the underground—Superstar, an unauthorized biography of anorexic pop star Karen Carpenter acted out by Barbie dolls.  Buy Velvet Goldmine [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Faust (1926): F.W. Murnau’s telling of the Faust legend owes little to Goethe or Marlowe, but it’s a classic of German expressionism.  Watch Faust (1926) 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.

DIRECTED BY: Craig McIntyre

FEATURING: Randy Tobin, Celeste Martinez, Devanny Pinn, Ava Rose, Nekromistress, Chase Monroe, Marna K., Brandon Engstrom

PLOT:  The tagline sums it up best: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer meets Van Nuys Blvd.
Drug dealer Grahm has a side hobby of picking up women and brutally killing them. Kristy is fresh off the train from Ohio to take part in the L.A. scene. Their paths will eventually cross.

COMMENTS: Give this one points for its skeezy atmosphere and for Randy Tobin’s performance as the title killer.  Looking like a low rent Jay Mohr channeling early Nic Cage, Tobin is completely believable as a modern day Jack The Ripper, prowling about the city in his van.

It aims for a sort of ‘you-are-there’ semi-documentary quality, as it alternates between Grahm’s killings and Kristy’s arrival and life in L.A., their meeting and his obsession over her, which ends up exactly where you think its going.  The film is successful in that aspect.  It grabs onto the grindhouse vibe without any obvious self-consciousness about it (although the last third of the film, where the two main characters end up in an isolated desert hideaway, may have you thinking of similar events in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).  There’s not a lot of character development, but in this case, that may not be a hindrance.  Where the film comes up a bit short is in the technical department, with annoying camerawork and overbearing music being two strong flaws almost impossible to ignore.  Most early reviewers have commented on the ‘satirical’ bits of the film—I didn’t notice anything ‘satirical’ here, unless the term has been altered to now specify awkward line readings and some idiosyncratic, but effective, editing choices.

It could be better, but it’s a pretty decent straightforward ‘Modern Grindhouse’ movie.  A “limited edition” DVD release is planned soon.

Trivia: Director Craig McIntyre worked in the makeup/special effects unit on Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 3.

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DISCLAIMER: A copy of this film was provided by the production company for review.