It’s time for the 2020 edition of the Weirdcademy Awards, the premier (only) awards contest focused on weird films, chosen by weird film fans. That means shorts as well as features. We’ve collected all five nominees for 2020′s Weirdest Short of the Year together in one place, for ease of voting. You can cast a vote for your favorite once every 24 hours until April 25 at 12:00 Noon EST. Cameron Jorgensen, 366 Weird Movies under-appreciated shorts Czar, discovered and selected these unusual films through his own research. This year’s comedy-focused slate of nominees includes a talking plant experiment, a cow named Craig, a bodybuilder’s internal monologue, and instructional videos showing you how to make $20K every month and how to throw a tantrum.
You can watch all the nominees in full below before voting:
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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):
Come True (2020): A college freshman volunteers for a sleep study and something goes wrong, blurring the lines between the waking world and nightmares. It’s a premise we’ve seen before, but the 88% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes suggests that this time they’ve executed the scenario with atypical panache. In (some) theaters, and simultaneously releasing on demand. Come True official site.
Honeydew (2020): A young couple seek shelter on a farm overseen by a weirdly friendly woman, and experience odd phenomena. Another familiar-sounding plot, but mainstream reviewers are using the w-word, so we’ll be giving it a chance. Limited theatrical release only as of now, VOD (and review) coming on April 13. Honeydew official Facebook page.
IN DEVELOPMENT (announced):
Holy Remedies [Santos Remedias] (202?): Sofia Garza-Barba, a young Mexican-American director whose magical realist shorts have earned her comparisons to Guillermo del Toro, plans to make her feature film debut with a fairy tale about an eight-year-old girl who makes a pact with Holy Death to meet her absent father for the first time. It’s just in the pitch stage now, but we’ll keep an eye out for it. Variety has more.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974): Read our review. There’s nothing special about a hole in the ground, or the man in it, but there is something special about this special edition Blu-ray: two separate commentary tracks, one from co-writer Gordon Dawson and the other from a panel of film experts. Buy Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Touki Bouki (1973): A cowherd and a student go on a road trip, hoping to escape Senegal for France. A rare avant-garde film from Africa that made a splash at Cannes in the year of its release, now on a Criterion Collection Blu-ray (or DVD). Buy Touki Bouki.
Jeremiah Sand, “Lift It Down” (2020): We missed this when it was released a couple of months ago, but since this recording has been lingering in the vaults for forty years, we’re not that late. It’s the previously unreleased album of hippy-dippy songs from Mandy cult leader Jeremiah Sand, with lots of woozy sitars noodling behind the frontman’s poetic lyrics: “our love, like a laser/her smile, like a razor…” Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P-orridge supplies the liner notes. We’re not 100% sure who’s behind this prank, or what it might portend (dare we hope for a Sand-focused Mandy prequel?), but Linus Roache is clearly involved, and we have to assume Panos Cosmatos lurks somewhere behind the scenes. They even released a “found footage” music video (below). It’s streaming everywhere, and you can find it on YouTube, or you can buy “Lift It Down” (Vinyl or MP3).
As predicted, screenings are starting to pick up, slowly, as the virus recedes. California theaters will be allowed to reopen starting next week (although, at 25% capacity, many might decide it’s not worth it). At any rate, here’s hoping things will be back to near-normal by fall, at the latest.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: Voting for next Saturday’s Amazon Prime Weird Watch Party closes on Sunday, so cast your ballot if you plan to attend and haven’t voted yet.
It will be a busy upcoming week ’round here, as we’ll be releasing the 2020 Weirdcademy Awards ballots while also bringing you reviews from Pete Trbovich (on the ultra-obscure 1990 Satanic cult oddity Empire of the Dark), Giles Edwards (on Joe Badon‘s latest, Sister Tempest) and Gregory J. Smalley (on 1969’s The Curious Dr. Humpp, which, based solely on the title, he suspects might be an unusual film.) 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.
Here’s the poll to vote in March’s Amazon Prime Weird Watch Party, which will start on Mar. 20 at 10:15 PM ET. If you plan on virtually attending, please vote for the movie we’ll be watching below. We’ll screen the movie that get the most votes; your host, Gregory J. Smalley, will personally break any ties. Note that unlike our other polls, you can only vote once. Poll closes at midnight ET on Sunday, Mar. 14. You may vote for multiple movies, but not for every movie (because that would be pointless).
Our next Weird Watch Party on Amazon Prime is scheduled for Mar. 20 at 10:15 PM.
As always, we’ll be looking for nominations from people who plan to attend. After we get the minimum five nominations and likely attendees, we’ll put up a poll. Management will break any ties. We’re open to suggestions for different starting times, dates, or methods of propagating the watch link.
Amazon Prime’s catalog of movies is larger (and less exclusive) than Netflix’s. Ed Dykhuizen’s availability spreadsheet is a good resource to check for Canonically Weird movies (look for ones marked “free w/ Prime” in the “Amazon” column). Or, do your own research and come up with a title from Amazon. Eligible movies will have a “watch party” button on their Amazon page. You must be a Prime subscriber; you don’t have to download an extension or additional software.
When the party is set to begin we’ll announce it in three places:
On this site (if you’ve signed up for regular email alerts via the sidebar you’ll also get a notice that way)
March’s Netflix Watch Party—Freaks (2018)—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.
