Hearts and flowers may not be the top things on the surrealist mind, but if you’re looking for some alternative Valentine’s Day gifts or rentals for that special weird someone, the following suggestions offer up at least a little bit of romantic sentiment:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): With Charlie Kaufamn scripting don’t expect a happy ending, but there is a surprisingly sincere romanticism in Jim Carrey’s desperate quest to save his memories of ex-lover Kate Winslett from the memory-erasure procedure he impulsively decided to undertake.

I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006):  A love story set in a mental asylum.  Moving from vengeance to love, Chan-Wook Park shows an unexpected soft side in this hallucinogenic tale of love between a kleptomaniac and a woman who believes she is a robot.

Absurdistan (2008):  A young couple’s blooming passion is threatened when the women of their tiny village go on a sex strike against the lazy men.  The amorous young beau must find a way to restore the parched hamlet’s water supply if he wants any chance of getting some.

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006):  Love blooms in the unlikeliest places: here, among dead souls in an afterlife reserved for suicides.

Annie Hall (1977): Not the weirdest, or the happiest, choice, but Woody Allen’s most popular movie is archly funny and breaks the fourth wall to an often absurd effect.

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.

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY):

To Die for Tano [Tano da Morire] (1997): The tagline tells you everything you need to know: it’s an Italian “Mafia ‘Gangsta Rap’ Musical.”  Unlikely as it seems, the clip below indicates that description’s accurate.  The story is reportedly based on true events in that occurred in Palermo. It’s playing Cinema Village in NYC this week before being independently released on DVD in March.  To Die for Tano official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Bronson (2008): Story about a violent British bank robber who is locked up in solitary confinement for 30 years; in prison, he transforms himself into the mythical persona “Charles Bronson.” Loosely based on the true story of one of Britain’s most violent criminals, more than one critic has compared it to A Clockwork Orange (if for no other reason, then for its mixture of ultraviolence and classical music). We’ve been eagerly awaiting this Region 1 DVD release. Buy Bronson .

A Serious Man (2009):  Read our capsule review.   This retelling of the Book of Job as a postmodern absurdist comedy starring a putzy suburban Jewish professor was one of the weirder movies of 2009, though we hesitated to put it on the List until we’d seen it on video.  Now, it looks like the time may have come to make a decision.  Buy A Serious Man

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Bronson (2008): See review in DVD above. Buy Bronson [Blu-ray].

A Serious Man (2009): See review in DVD above. Buy A Serious Man [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.

Hi, boys and girls, it’s time to check in again and take a sneak peak at what’s coming to 366 next week…

First, our long awaited treatment of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is ready to go tomorrow… so be sure to check back in 24 hours!  We’re going to try to get out another major review as well, for Jim Jarmusch‘s Dead Man.  We also plan to finish up our treatment of the Toxic Avenger series with a look at 1999’s Toxic Avenger IV: Citizen Toxie, which we’re praying will remain the final entry in the series…

In terms of weird search terms used to locate the site, lonely men (and probably gals too—hey, it’s the 21st century) looking for freaky porn remain our weirdest demographic.  Our favorite search term was “yogic intellectual porn.”  But we have to give ourselves a pat on the back for ever so briefly scoring as the #1 result on a Bing search for “weird sex movies.”

Our reader-suggested review queue continues to grow at an alarming and gratifying rate.  We want to make one change: research has shown that Survive Style 5+ has never been released in North America in any form, so we’re not going to review it right away.  We’re going to put it on our “pray for a Region 1release” list instead and get to it immediately when it comes around.  In it’s place we’re going to cover an alternate suggestion for a weird Japanese film, Takashi Miike‘s Visitor Q.   Taking that substitution into account, the queue looks like this: Visitor Q; The Short Films of David Lynch; Santa Sangre; Dead Man (next week); Inland Empire; Monday (assuming I can find an English language version); The Abominable Dr. Phibes; Barton Fink; What? (Diary of Forbidden Dreams); Meatball Machine; Xtro; Basket Case; Suicide Club; O Lucky Man!; Trash Humpers (when/if released); Gozu; Tales of Ordinary Madness; The Wayward Cloud; Kwaidan; Six-String Samurai; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Altered States; Memento; Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (jumping in line to come out next week!); Gothic; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; Being John Malkovich; The Apple; Southland Tales; Arizona Dream; Spider (2002); Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; Necromania (1971, Ed Wood); Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Mary and Max; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Danger: Diabolik; Faust; Sublime; Battle Royale; Pink Floyd: The Wall;Escanaba In Da Moonlight; Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; Zardoz; The Films of Suzan Pitt; Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]; Paprika; and The Holy Mountain.  Wowie!

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):

Terribly Happy [Frygtelig lykkelig](2009): Danish film noir about a police officer assigned to a strange and insular town after he has a nervous breakdown; often compared to the Coen brothers or David Lynch, Slant calls it a “surreal noir” and The Hollywood Reporter called it “seriously weird.”  The Danish submission for the foreign language film Oscar; too weird to be nominated.  Terribly Happy official site.

NEW ON DVD:

The Time Travelers Wife (2009):  Romantic sci-fi/fantasy about a man born with a gene which causes him to become unstuck in time at random intervals.  Scripted by Bruce Joel Rubin of Jacob’s Ladder fame from a bestselling novel by Audrey Niffenegger.  Few critics thought it was too good, but at least one (Brandon Judell) thought it was “too weird,” which may be considered an endorsement. Buy The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Triangle (2009): Time-travel tale about passengers on a capsized yacht who escape to a mysteriously deserted cruise ship.  Some viewers call it a surrealistic mindbender, while others suggest its a bigger-budget version of the intriguing but non-weird Spanish film Los Cronocrimes [Timecrimes].   Looks like we’ll have to view it and weigh in. Buy Triangle.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Fear and Loathing is Las Vegas (1998): You often hear the hackneyed phrase “an acid trip on film”, but the description actual fits Terry Gilliam‘s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s hallucinogenic counter-cultural touchstone fairly literally. A big weird Blu-ray addition! Buy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [Blu-ray].

The Man from Earth (2007): Philosophical, independent sci-fi film about a college professor who claims to be 14,000 years old. A thinking man’s picture, which explains why you’ve probably never heard of it before. Buy Man From Earth [Blu-ray].

The Time Travelers Wife (2009): See description in DVD above. Buy The Time Traveler’s Wife [Blu-ray].

Triangle (2009): See description in DVD above. Buy Triangle [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.