August’s Netflix Watch Party—Homunculus (2021)—starts in fifteen minutes.
Please install the Netflix Party extension (now officially called “teleparty”) if you haven’t already. You must have a U.S. Nextflix account and a Chrome-based browser to participate.
Here is the link to join: https://redirect.teleparty.com/join/caa91b80a2799320
Be sure to click on the red Teleparty icon to sync up and join the chat room.
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
FILM FESTIVALS –(Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto, satellite screenings throughout Canada, & online, Sep. 9-18):
TIFF has risen from a scrappy underdog to an awards-season kingmaker (this year, they host the Dune debut). As their profile has risen, the number of smaller, weirder films debuting here has fallen. Still, the slate is so massive that something strange can always be found there.
The selections for the Midnight and Wavelengths (experimental films) sections were released this past week, so the announcements for TIFF are essentially complete (shorts and exact screening dates have yet to be named). We’re ready to run down what we’ll be keeping an eye out for.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Annette: Leos Carax returns with a musical (words and music by Sparks) wherein Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard give birth to a daughter with mysterious powers. One critic used the w-word to describe it, but we’ve more commonly seen descriptors like “over-the-top,” “unusual,” and “loopy.” At select theaters this week, hopefully expanding soon. Annette Amazon site (in theaters now, streaming from 8/20).
CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
This section will no longer be updated regularly. Instead, we direct you to our new “Repertory Cinemas Near You” page. This week, we welcome Cleveland’s Cinematheque to that list with tonight’s screening of After Hours (1986), along with the return of Manhattan’s Film at Lincoln Center, who hosts rare screenings of The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) on 8/10 and 8/12. We will continue to mention exceptional events in this space from time to time, like the ones below:
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: Join us tomorrow night (Saturday August 7) at 10:15 PM ET for our latest weird Netflix party, Homonculus (2021). As always, the link to join will appear here, on Facebook, or on Twitter around 10 PM ET.
And in reviews next week, Giles Edwards will dare the dreamy drama The Waiting Mare (2020) before slipping into more Fantasia Festival 2021 coverage with the Japanese time travel tale Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes. Gregory J. Smalley also plans to get into the Fantasia game with a look at Mickey Reece‘s drama-defying possessed-nun feature Agnes. And more Fantasia reviews might pop up at any moment, so stay tuned. Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
The Green Knight: An adaptation of the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain, who accepts the Green Knight’s challenge to engage in a friendly beheading contest. David Lowery‘s long-awaited (and pandemic-delayed) epic is being characterized as “stoned” and “surreal.” The Green Knight official site.
Mondo Hollywoodland: We’re just going to drop this logline here: “A groovy mushrooms dealer and a man from the 5th dimension journey through Hollywood to find the meaning of ‘Mondo.'” Needless to say, you’re more likely to catch this one on VOD than at your local cineplex. Mondo Hollywoodland official site.
Never Gonna Snow Again: A mysterious masseur appears in an upscale Polish neighborhood. Comparisons to Teorema naturally arise. Never Gonna Snow Again American distributor site.
Nine Days: Souls interview to potentially be born on Earth. Jake Wilson of The Age was lukewarm but concedes that the movie has a “certain amount of genuine weirdness.” Nine Days official site.
STREAMING (ARROW):
Man Under Table (2021): Read our review and interview with Noel David Taylor. Thanks to Arrow’s streaming service, this microbudget surreal satire on indie filmmaking (and fracking) has a chance to be seen by a relatively wide audience. Be sure to freeze frame that trailer to read the critic’s quotes. Man Under Table at Arrow.
https://youtu.be/3UyiHX9dq8I
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001): Read Giles Edwards’ review. Christophe Gans‘ genre-spanning cult movie (is it a werewolf flick? mystery? action picture?) gets a collector’s edition Blu-ray from Shout! Factory, promising four hours of bonus material. Buy Brotherhood of the Wolf.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002): Read Giles Edwards’ review. Charlie Kaufman‘s face-value script about “Gong Show” producer Chuck Barris’ alleged double life as a spy is released on Blu-ray for the first time (in North America). Buy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
“Ken Jacobs Collection, Volume 1”: A collection of Jacob’s experimental movies, including arty and weird films like the doll-abusing short “Little Stabs at Happiness” and the abstract feature-length experiment “Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son.” Despite being “Volume 1” this is a “greatest hits” 2-Blu-ray collection that spans the director’s entire output from 1955-2021. Buy “The Ken Jacobs Collection, Volume 1”.
L’amour braque [Mad Love] (1985): A bank robber seeks to rescue his girlfriend from mobsters. A confusing postmodern gangster film from Andrzej Zulawski, inspired by Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot.” Blu-ray only, with special features including multiple commentary tracks, from Kino Lorber’s “Studio Classics” sub-label. Buy L’amour Braque.
CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
This section will no longer be updated regularly. Instead, we direct you to our new “Repertory Cinemas Near You” page. This week, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art is officially back, hosting screenings of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) this Wednesday through next Friday. We also welcome back Pittsburgh’s Row House Cinema, who reopens with a week’s worth of Night of the Hunter (1955) among their offerings. We will continue to mention exceptional events in this space from time to time.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: We’ll still be taking votes and comments on August’s Weird Netflix Watch Party (scheduled for August 7) until tomorrow.
We’ll be busy next week. The Fantasia Film Festival officially kicks off next Thursday, and we’ll be pre-gaming it as Giles Edwards kicks off his coverage with “fantasy puppet horror buddy comedy” Frank & Zed, while Gregory J. Smalley inspects the dream-auditing indie drama Strawberry Mansion. (That’s at a minimum; you might be seeing other movies covered, too). With all that, we still need to give you our take on The Green Knight (see trailer above); and, since you might be tired of all this current stuff, Pete Trbovich pitches in with a vintage review of Christopher Lee in 1967’s Poesque The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism. Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
FILM FESTIVALS –Fantasia International Film Festival (Montreal, Canada and online, 8/5-25):
If you’ve been reading the site for a while, you know we make a big deal about Fantasia every year. It’s a huge genre festival and, although it doesn’t focus specifically on our brand of weird, the programmers’ tastes are wide enough that we discover a list-worthy film or two there just about every year. In 2020, the pandemic forced the festival to go online only; this year, they’re going with a hybrid format of limited theatrical screenings mixed in with virtual events. We will have extensive coverage, as usual.
It’s quite the lineup this year, especially when it comes to revivals and restorations. The biggest news is that rights issues have (finally!) been ironed out for the canonically weird Dr. Caligari (1989), the infamous sexy and surreal 1980s pop-art in-name-only sequel to the 1920s Expressionist classic. A home video release from Mondo Macabro should follow soon! There will even be a free “masterclass” with director Stephen Sayadian, and it’s being teased that he may tease a future project. Funky Forest: The First Contact is also getting an overhaul and future release (late 2021 or early 2022), paired with Shunichiro Miki‘s rarely-seen 2011 follow-up The Warped Forest. If that’s not enough, Fantasia is also screening a new restoration of 2000’s spiraling-horror Uzumaki.
Headlining the continuing festival favorites screening here is the Sion Sono/Nicolas Cage collab Prisoners of the Ghostlands; they’ve also got Sundance’s drama about dream-tax assessors Strawberry Mansion, the role-playing horror We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and the trippy cryptid animation Cryptozoo.
Here’s just a few of the new titles we’ll be angling to see (Fantasia will also be debuting something called The Suicide Squad that looks like box office poison, but we’ll stick to the weird stuff):
Tickets go on sale today. Sorry, all virtual screenings are geoblocked to Canada. Fantasia International Film Festival homepage.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Mandibles (2020): Quentin Dupieux‘ latest surreal comedy is about two friends who try to exploit a giant fly they find in their car’s trunk. It’s getting better U.S. distribution (Magnolia) and better reviews than the usual Dupieux; we don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Mandibles official site.
CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
This section will no longer be updated regularly. Instead, we direct you to our new “Repertory Cinemas Near You” page. (We just added Manhattan’s Quad Theater, screening 8 1/2 all week, and the Roxy, who will be showing Celine and Julie Go Boating this Friday, Saturday and Sunday). We will continue to mention exceptional events in this space from time to time.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: Join us tomorrow night on Amazon Prime at 10:15 PM ET for July’s Weird Watch Party, Uzumaki (2000) (coincidentally, also mentioned above in our Fantasia preview). As always, the link to join will appear here, on Facebook, or on Twitter around 10 PM ET.
Next week’s reviews will feature Shane Wilson‘s review of Netflix’s hot absurdist comedy series “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson,” which just dropped its second season. In movies,
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs and Blu-rays (and hot off the server VODs), and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
IN DEVELOPMENT (post-production):
Flux Gourmet (2022): There’s not much info on the plot of Peter Strickland‘s just-wrapped latest; all we really know is that it’s set at some kind of culinary institute and focuses heavily on “alimentary disorders.” Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie star, and IFC will distribute. More on Flux Gourmet at Variety.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
The Carnivores (2020): A lesbian couple’s marriage is tested when Alice becomes jealous of Bret’s relationship with their dying dog. That synopsis sounds like it could make for a dry indie dramedy, but the trailer promises something much darker and weirder. Already available on VOD, it’s now on DVD (no Blu-ray) with a director’s commentary and alternate ending. Buy The Carnivores.
The Great Gabbo (1929): A ventriloquist (Erich Von Stroheim) goes insane as he transfers he personality to his dummy. This early talkie experiment mixing bizarre and incongruous musical numbers with a tale of psychological horror is in the public domain, but Kino puts it on Blu-ray with a commentary track by author Richard Barrios. Buy The Great Gabbo.
CANONICALLY WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
This section will no longer be updated regularly. Instead, we direct you to our new “Repertory Cinemas Near You” page. This week, Portland’s Hollywood Theater joins that list as it finally reopens, hosting a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) on Saturday. We will continue to mention exceptional events in this space, like the following:
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: We’ll have one more wrap-up post on the North Bend Film Festival on Saturday, as we cover the cryptid animation Cryptozoo as well as a handful of curious leftover features. Next week, Gregory J. Smalley checks out the “surrealistic” biodoc Moby Doc (2021), and we’ll take on a couple of items from the reader-suggested queue as Pete Trbovich roars about the notorious big cat extravaganza Roar (1981) and Giles Edwards handles Matteo Garrone‘s dark take on Pinocchio (2019). Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.