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):

44 Inch Chest: Aging London gangster drama about a bad guy who kidnaps an enemy he believes slept with his wife and considers taking revenge while being egged on by his sleazy mates.  Apparently includes fantasy sequences, which is why we mention it.  From the writers of Sexy Beast and the producers of Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.   44 Inch Chest official site.

NEW ON DVD:

The Brothers Bloom (2009): Read our capsule review.  Quirky caper comedy with style to burn.  Buy The Brothers Bloom.

CockHammer (2009): CockHammer, a snuff film producer and dabbler in the occult, kidnaps the girlfriends of two losers in this deliberately juvenile and offensive home video horror-comedy. Judging by the trailer, it appears to be made by folks who believe Troma studios have sold out to the forces of good taste and glossy production values. We do like the tag line: “Sanity is for sissies!” Buy CockHammer.

Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (1995): A cosmetic update of the beloved cyberpunk anime—a few of the scenes have been redone with computer aided animation.  This is a rare case where the Blu-ray came out a few months before the DVD release. Buy Ghost in the Shell 2.0.

À l’aventure (2009): Not much info on this French softcore flick about a woman discovering her sexuality, but it looks like a throwback to the days of Emmanulle, only with mystical overtones (e.g., intense orgasms can apparently cause levitation). Buy À l’aventure.

Moon (2009):  Read our capsule review.  Intelligent sci-fi from David Bowie’s son; Sam Rockwell’s performance should garner an Oscar nom. Not very weird but we liked it anyway. Buy Moon.

Nun of That (2009):  Comedy involving a nun selected to join a secret supernatural religious order dedicated to wiping out the mob (!) Features cameos from Jesus, Moses, and Ghandi (!!)  Why didn’t this play our local mutliplex? Buy Nun of That.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

8 1/2 (1963): Criterion upgrades this classic weird movie to Blu-ray. A great way to get the taste of Nine out of your mouth. Buy 8 1/2 (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

The Brothers Bloom (2009): See DVD entry above. Buy The Brothers Bloom [Blu-ray].

Moon (2009):  See DVD entry above. Buy Moon [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.

We’re still trying to determine exactly what we’re going to publish next week, but you can be sure we’ll knock at least one item off the reader-suggested review queue with our treatment of Robert Downey’s absurdist Western hippie Jesus flick, Greaser’s Palace.  We’ll also cover Nine, the musical loosely based around Federico Fellini’s womanizing.

For the weirdest search term used to locate the site last week, we’ll go with “sex in movies in english 30 mint in aboue,” mainly because we’re thrilled to have come up #1 in a Yahoo search for that exact phrase!

The reader-suggested review queue continues to grow, but we’ll be knocking out at least one of these reviews a week.  Here’s how it currently looks: Greaser’s Palace (snext week!), Waking Life, Survive Style 5+, The Dark Backward, The Short Films of David Lynch, Santa Sangre, Dead Man, 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, 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), and The Peanut Butter Solution.

We’ve been holding back on announcing some of our future projects, but here’s something for you: 366 Distribution will be coming out with it’s second DVD release soon, planned for the end of January!  It’s The Best of Damon Zex, a compilation of some of the best work of public-access TV cult hero Damon Zex.  Here’s the trailer we whipped up for the release:

Weird enough for ya? We’ll let you know in this space when the DVD is officially available.

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):

Bitch Slap: Three tough women behave badly while fighting over a fortune in diamonds in this “postmodern parody” of busty bad babe flicks like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The trailer indicates there are numerous fantasy sequences, and the press release promises a parallel series of Memento-like flashbacks that reveal the backstory.  Critics say they’d like to perform the title act on the producers. Bitch Slap official site.

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY)

Flooding With Love for the Kid (1989): A one-man, shoestring-budget ($96) alternative adaptation of First Blood (yes, the Sly Stallone actioner that introduced the world to John Rambo), shot entirely inside a single apartment.  Remarkably, it’s gotten almost universal praise for its narrative ingenuity, despite every single reviewer comparing it to something you’d find on YouTube.  Playing at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan.  Actor/director Zachary Oberzan’s official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Hansel and Gretel (2007): Bizarre-sounding Korean variation on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale involves a man lost in a forest who is taken to a mysterious house inhabited by creepy children. Buy Hansel and Gretel.

Loren Cass (2006):  An experimental angry teen drama about the 1996 race riots in St. Petersburg, Florida, with poetry interludes (featuring spoken word contributions by Charles Bukowski and other underground figures) and mondo-style documentary footage of a televised suicide added for shock value.   Well-reviewed by the very few critics who saw it. Buy Loren Cass.

Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures (1987-1988):  This satirical Saturday morning cartoon show, brought to the airwaves by Ralph (Coonskin) Bakshi and John Kricfalusi (who would later create another controversial cult cartoon series, “Ren and Stimpy”), ended after two seasons amidst accusations that Bakshi had snuck a cocaine-sniffing reference into one episode. A gonzo cartoon with a small but devoted fanbase. Buy “Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures – The Complete Series”.

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.

Happy 2010 to everyone!  We’re still cleaning 2009 movies out of our vaults, so next week you can expect to see reviews of the fantasy noir The Perfect Sleep and Mr. Sadman, the indie comedy/drama about a Saddam Hussein body-double on the loose in Los Angeles.  Also on tap is a capsule review of Sharon Tate’s movie debut, Eye of the Devil (1966).  And, now that the 2009 wrap-up is nearly complete we promise to get to work on that reader-suggested review queue!

Search terms used to locate the site are getting less and less weird every week, but we thought “wierd movie titles three words” was noteworthy.  A couple of weeks ago what was presumably the same searcher was looking for two-word weird movie titles; I guess he’s completed that project and moved on.

The reader suggested review queue looks like this: Greaser’s Palace (substituted for Institute Benjamenta), Waking Life, Survive Style 5+, The Dark Backward, The Short Films of David Lynch, Santa Sangre, Dead Man, 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, 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, and Wild Zero.  Yes, we really are gearing up to start whittling this list down!