Check in next week to finally see our report on the eagerly anticipated dark fairy tale Ink, which is burning up the torrent sites and already has “cult movie” written all over it. We’ll also be taking a look at the 2006 Frankenstein variation Subject Two. Other reviews that could pop up to fill out the week include Absurdistan (2008) and The Box (2009).
As far as the weirdest search term used to locate the site last week, we’ll go with “weird two worded movies.” Still wondering whether searcher is only interested in weird movies which have two word titles, or in which only two words are spoken.
The reader suggested review queue now 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], Dark Country, Necromania (1971, Ed Wood), Hour of the Wolf, and MirrorMask. We know this thing has been languishing, but we promise to start whittling it down once January comes around.
We’re working behind the scenes on a few surprises for the end of the year. Sorry we can’t be less cryptic, but we have some ambitious plans—look for an announcement in the coming weeks.
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):
The Lovely Bones: Visionary, and sentimental looking, tale about a little murdered girl who watches over her family from the afterlife. Once weird Peter (Meet the Feebles) Jackson’s fantasy/drama opens to mixed reviews, and given the talent involved and Jackson’s Hollywood cred, it’s a bit surprising that it’s only getting a limited release. Starring young Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Marky Mark, Rachel (The Brothers Bloom) Weisz, and Susan Sarandon. The Lovely Bones official site.
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?: An actor who’s killed his mother holds a family hostage while a detective investigates his bizarre personal history. Sounds like it could be a mundane tale of descent into madness, except that it comes from a weird dream team: directed by Werner (Even Dwarfs Started Small) Herzog, and executive produced by David Lynch! With that pedigree, coupled with mystified early reviews, My Son sounds like a good candidate for weirdest film of 2009—although it’s likely too late to the party to get a mention here until 2010. Debuting in NYC Dec. 11, in LA Dec. 18, and hopefully following soon to the rest of the country. My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done? official site.
SCREENINGS (DEC. 11 & 12, NEW YORK CITY):
Coming Soon (2006/2008): See our review. The controversial bestiality mockumentary makes its U.S. debut at The Living Theater. This is your second and final notice; if you attend, feel free to report back to us on the experience. Expect one weird crowd.
NEW ON DVD:
AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa: The Criterion Collection busts out this massive film geek’s wet dream just in time for the holidays. Contains the intermittently weird Rashomon (1950) along with non-weird, but essential, Kurosawa classics like Stray Dog (1949), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961), and nineteen others. We wish the Master’s most unabashedly surreal work, Dreams (1990), was included in the set, but how can anyone really complain that a treasure trove is missing a pearl? Buy AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa from Amazon.
Beautiful Losers (2008): A documentary examining the DIY skatepunk art movement in New York City in the early 1990s. Among those profiled is weird director Harmony Korine. Buy Beautiful Losers from Amazon.
World’s Greatest Dad (2009): Robin Williams stars in this dark comedy about a failed writer turned high school poetry teacher who gets a shot at fame late in life. Plot descriptions are circumspect, but we can tell that there is a twist in there, and it’s described as a very black one. Directed by the always outrageous Bobcat (Shakes the Clown) Goldwaith. It had a token theatrical release after a film festival run, but is essentially straight-to-DVD. Buy World’s Greatest Dad from Amazon
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
The Alphabet Killer (2007): A schizophrenic female detective freaks out while investigating a brutal series of murders. Hallucinations ensue. Buy The Alphabet Killer from Amazon.
Rebirth of Mothra II (1997): With his miniature princess guardians, Mothra was always one of the weirdest of the kaiju (giant Japanese monsters). Here, Mothra fights a monster genetically engineered to eat garbage. It’s a modernized Mothra, but it features old school ridiculous dubbing. Watch Rebirth of Mothra II 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.
What’s up with Netflix? They tell me the #1 movie in my queue, Ink, which I desperately wanted to review for next week, is available NOW. Then, they send me the #2 movie in my queue instead. So, you won’t get that Ink review this week. Instead, you’ll get a review of Powder, as well as that great double-feature that gets to the heart of Havana soul, Cuban Story and Cuban Rebel Girls. Throw in some mix of reviews of Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead, Absurdistan, Richard Kelly’s The Box, and the undead baby flick Grace, and you’ve got yourself a week.
As for the weirdest search term used to locate the site this week, we’ll go with “www.doctor.assess.movies.com.” I can only guess that the searcher was looking for a very specific website of film reviews by a M.D.; sadly, it doesn’t seem to exist. Hope you liked our site instead.
In related news, we’re proud to say that last week we came up #1 on Google for the popular search term, “weirdest sex movies.” Surely people searching for that phrase are hoping to find descriptions of Lucia y el Sexo and Girl Slaves of Morgana le Fay. It marks a refreshing change from all the people who accidentally stumble on the site looking for porn.
Here’s the depressingly long reader review queue: 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], Dark Country, Necromania (1971, Ed Wood, unless the original requester gets back to me to clarify what he or she meant), and Hour of the Wolf.
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.
Looking over this week’s big-screen offerings, it occurs to me that once 366 Enterprises becomes a multi-million dollar corporation, we’re going to have to relocate our offices to New York City; that’s the only place in America you can see two exclusive, unavailable-anywhere-else weird films in one week. Right now, we can’t afford the cost of Manhattan popcorn, much less rent.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Big River Man: Documentary about Martin Strel, a hard-drinking, overweight, eccentric Slovenian, and his unprecedented attempt to swim the length of the Amazon river. By their very nature, documentaries start behind the eight ball in terms of weirdness, but Strel is such a character that this doc is being labeled “strange,” “insane,” and “surreal” and “bizarre.” Appears to be playing NYC only. Big River Man official site.
Film ist: A Girl and a Gun: A montage of silent-film footage arranged into a “a highly suggestive, quasi-narrative, but essentially enigmatic mosaic.” Playing this week at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City only. No official site, but see Anthology Film Archives for more information.
SCREENINGS (DEC. 11 & 12, NEW YORK CITY):
Coming Soon (2006/2008): See our review. The controversial bestiality mockumentary makes its U.S. debut at The Living Theater. Mark your calendars, and expect one weird crowd.
NEW ON DVD:
The Brooklyn Heist [AKA Capers] (2008): Three teams of criminals each plan to rip off the same Brooklyn pawnbroker on the same night in this caper spoof; the twist is that each team is living in a different cinematic reality, including a gang apparently based on the French New Wave whose scenes are shot in black and white. This comedy slipped under our radar, but reviews and film festival audience reactions were both positive. Looks worth a shot. Buy Brooklyn Heist from Amazon.
WEB EXCLUSIVES:
Creepy Christmas Film Fest: 25 short films, one for every day from Dec. 1st to Dec. 25th, each built around a different creepy Christmas toy selected by artist Beck Underwood from her grandmother’s collection. The subtly disturbing films come from Larry Fessenden, Voltaire, Graham Reznick, and Ti West, among others. A couple of these shorts will be featured on these pages in the coming month; for the other 23, you’ll have to go to creepychristmas.net. It’s a recommended visit.
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 will review two unrelated vampire movies with the same name: Thirst (1979) and Thirst (2009). There’s also a good chance we may get up a review of Richard Kelly‘s latest, The Box (2009): there’s sure to be a difference of opinion among our writers on this one! Also, on Thursday Alfred gives us 10 weird Yuletide choices, so start trying to work up some holiday spirit, won’t you?
Though you can probably see it in the post above this one, I’d like to point out that we have another top 10 list, this one by Graham Reznick, director of the certified weird movie I Can See You. We love to see what others think is weird and why, so we’re thrilled to have this new contribution!
In terms of the weirdest search term used to locate the site last week: we fall into a little trap with this one. Talk just once about rape movies or pony riding cults when you’re picking up on unusual search terms, and the search engines pick it up and the next week you’re hit with 100 requests along the same line. So, we had plenty of pretty pony fans stumbling onto the site last week, and probably leaving disappointed. This week we’re going with a non-fetish choice: “”hours of productivity independent movie explode.” You could make a true statement by rearranging those words slightly: “independent movies explode hours of productivity.” At least, I’ve found that to be true.
The ever-growing, sadly neglected reader-suggested review queue now 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], and Dark Country. After Last Season and Dark Country are most likely to jump ahead in the review queue as we continue to focus on covering 2009 releases before 2010 rolls around.
Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!
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