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):

Antichrist:  Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a grieving couple who retreat to a cabin in the woods where the encounter the Ultimate Evil, in what’s described as either arty torture porn or one of the best horror films of modern times.  Lars von Trier’s latest has divided critics straight down the middle: half think its unreedemable, pandering shock trash, while others think it’s a masterpiece. Von Triers, severely depressed when he wrote the movie, dedicates the film to Andrei Tarkovsky; Cannes preview audiences reportedly booed at the comparison. Antichrist official site.

Night and Day [Bam gua nat] (2008): It’s difficult to divine much information about this well-reviewed “metaphysical” movie about an aging Korean womanizer among expats in Pairs, but reviews suggest that director Sang-soo Hong plays fast and loose with reality and may play tricks with the audiences mind in this drama/character study. Currently playing in NYC only? Bam gua nat Official Site (in French, and not safe for work due to nudity).

Rembrandt’s J’accuse (2008): Not a weird film, but rather a serious documentary about a single Rembrandt painting (“The Nightwatch”), mentioned here because it’s the product of oft-weird artist/director Peter (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover) Greenaway.  Rembrandt’s J’accuse official site.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Easy Rider (1969): Not thoroughly weird, but when Fonda and Hopper drop acid in a New Orleans graveyard, the result is one of the better “trip” sequences in cinema. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon

Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971):  Gene Wilder is iconic as Wonka in one of the weirdest and most psychedelic children’s films ever made.  Everyone loves Oompah-loompahs. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon

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 you can expect to see our long delayed review of the reader-nominated Belgian film Ex Drummer.  Also, be sure to check in on Tuesday, when we debut a new writer!  He’ll be reviewing a little underground horror/comedy movie called Zorg & Andy, which was made for $25,000 and has cult aspirations (but don’t all movies made for $25,000 ?)  Did we scoop a future classic, or sniff out some amateur trash?

As for the weirdest search term used to locate the site this week, we’re going to eschew the usual slew of misguided fetishists looking for free porn and go with “eraserhead are you a vampire”?  We’ll remember to pass on that question the next time we see him.

In the reader-suggested review queue: Ex Drummer (next week), Cowards Bend the Knee (coming soon!), Greasers Palace (substituted for Institute Benjamenta), Pan’s Labyrinth, 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, and Suicide Club. Yeah, we know we need to start whittling this thing down!

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 (WIDE RELEASE):

Where the Wild Things Are: Weird director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) takes a crack at adopting the titular classic 1963 children’s book, with the blessing of author Maurice Sendack.  Unlikely to be weird, but the previews show Jonze has done a remarkable job of bringing Sendack’s fanciful illustrations to life, and it’s always interesting to see what Spike’s up to.  Is this a one-off moneymaking detour for Jonze, or will a big hit here make him renounce his weird proclivities?  His followup project, an adaptation of Shane Jones’ weird novel “Light Boxes” about a town that battles eternal February (projected for a 2011 release) suggests we haven’t lost him yet.  Where the Wild Things Are official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Drag Me To Hell (2009):  Read our capsule review.  Sam Raimi‘s multiplex-friendly classic horror film isn’t weird, but it is an effective and well-made thrillride that has lots of in-jokes for Evil Dead II fans. Buy from Amazon.

Hardware (1990):  Fangoria calls this long-unavailable post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror film about a man who finds a robot head in the desert “gritty, trippy and frightening.. one of the best horror movies you’ve never seen!”  Sounds intriguing to us, particularly since director Richard Staley followed this up with Dust Devil (1992), another horror film with a reputation for surrealistic tendencies that’s been on our radar for a while. Buy from Amazon

Land of the Lost (2009):  Read our capsule review.  Juvenile Will Ferrel comedy that’s a bit weird, but only by summer blockbuster standards. Buy from Amazon.

Natural Born Killers (1994):  This week sees a new 2-disc “director’s cut” version Oliver Stone’s controversial, violent, hallucinogenic satire on America’s fascination with violence, which on release was way too weird for mainstream critics to swallow.  The movie’s not perfect, but it is quite trippy, well-intentioned, and much better than received critical opinion would lead you to believe.  Look to these pages for a full review in the future. Buy from Amazon

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Drag Me To Hell (2009):  See DVD review above. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon.

Land of the Lost (2009): See DVD review above. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon

Natural Born Killers (1994): See DVD review above. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999): After four cardboard cutout children see a Canadian R-rated movie, America declares war on their neighbors to the north; Saddam Hussein and Satan get worked into the plot as well. We haven’t seen it, but we can guess what you’ll get from watching the TV show: the usual blend of clever plotting, bits of pop-absurdity, spotty satire and crude, cruel humor, with the R-rating giving the creators an excuse to focus on the last element. This popular title is finally available on Blu-Ray. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon.

NEW FREE (LEGITIMATE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Carnival of Souls (1998): NOT the creepy 1968 Herk Harvey/Candice Hilligoss classic (which can be seen for free here, among other places), but a remake-in-name-only with a horrible reputation, about a pedophile clown.  Interesting mainly because it’s almost universally reviled; watch only if you want to see how low filmmakers can sink in their quest for a buck.  Watch Carnival of Souls (1998) free on YouTube.

Salome’s Last Dance (1988):  One of Ken Russell‘s rarer films is now available for streaming.  By all accounts, the director plays this period piece about a staging of Oscar Wilde’s infamous banned play “Salome” in a brothel relatively straight, but it’s still Ken Russell, so expect ample baroque perversity.  Watch Salome’s Last Dance free on YouTube.

Taxi Driver (1979):  No, we’re not kidding: you can now watch the Martin Scorcese/Robert DeNiro urban alienation classic for free on YouTube, courtesy of Crackle.  Not very weird, at least up until the ambiguous ending, but a consistently fascinating character study of a decaying mind and a classic of 1970s filmmaking.  Watch Taxi Driver 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.

A couple of announcements: today is your last day to view the experimental short film 9 (not related to the Shane Acker animated feature).  Tomorrow we will remove it, but it will be replaced with another 366 Exclusive short film.

In other news, thanks to Cameron, we now have our own 366 Weird Movies YouTube page, although it’s still in development.  You won’t find much there that you wouldn’t find here, but that could change in the future.

Expect to see reviews of Larry Cohen’s wacky genre mix God Told Me To [AKA Demon] (1976) next week, along with a review of Harry Kümel’s nearly forgotten Malpertuis, and a surprise or two.

For the weirdest search term used to locate the site last week, we’ll go with “Who wrote the diary? Why did Robin decided to write a diary?”  But an honorable mention goes to “Using the following steps write an hour by hour diary of a festival,” since two people apparently used this exact same term to find the site, probably for the same homework assignment.

We know we’ve been derelict in logging in reader reviews, and promise to be better about it—starting next week.  The ever-growing reader-suggested review queue looks like this: Cowards Bend the Knee (substituted for the unavailable Angel’s Egg), Greasers Palace (substituted for Institute Benjamenta), Pan’s Labyrinth, Ex Drummer, 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, and Basket Case.

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.

Another very weak week for the weird, with nothing odd in theaters (unless you live in NYC), and no bizarre DVD releases (although there is a very welcome addition to the Blu-ray ranks).

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY, ANGELIKAS FILM CENTER)

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 extreme violence and classical music).  Already on DVD in the UK, but it does not appear to be available in Region 1 yet.  Bronson official site.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Audition (1999) (Collector’s Edition): Perhaps Japanese shockmeister Takeshi Miike’s greatest achievement, this tale of a lonely businessman who gets more than he asked for when he looks for love by staging auditions for a fake movie has a climax that’s both shatteringly surreal and blood-curdlingly gory and extreme.  This 2-disc Blu-ray release contains full commentary by Miike (the DVD release only had commentary during the key sequence) explaining the film along with screenwriter Daisuke Tengan, and more than 90 minutes of new interviews with cast and crew on Disc 2. Buy from Amazon.

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.