Category Archives: Miscellanea

YOUR VOTE DETERMINES THE WINNER OF THE 14TH ANNUAL WEIRDCADEMY AWARDS

(If you’d like to watch Gregory J. Smalley and Giles Edwards reveal this year’s nominees on YouTube first, click here. Otherwise, proceed with your reading.)

This year, Poor Things (and , Poor Things) mark the only overlap between the Weirdcademy Awards and Hollywood’s lipstick-on-a-pig hootenanny, the Most Conventional Movie Awards. Other than ‘ fantasy, weird movies got about as far with the Academy as they normally do: nothing at all. Even an Academy suck-up like can’t buy a single nomination for Asteroid City—not even a “Best Original Song” nod for the year’s best filmed hoedown, “Dear Alien, Who Art in Heaven.”

Instead, we get to choose between the usual brace of biopics, an estrogenic advertisement for a kids’ toy, ‘s attempt to remake Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles as a Nazi movie, and an indie comedy thatmade such an impression in the public consciousness that Bing is still calling it “Untitled Erasure adaptation.”

The Oscars are a joke, and everyone knows it. But you, my friend, you aren’t content with the same-old same-old. You want weird in your movies. The Weirdcademy Awards are for you, the moviegoer whose friends roll their eyes and sigh loudly when you suggest movie night should feature a black and white flick about alien bounty hunters who kidnap a corporate mogul who has developed an immortality serum with side effects that turn him into, uh, kind of a dick.

Although the editors of 366 Weird Movies select the nominees from the pool of available movies, the Awards themselves are a naked popularity contest, and do not necessarily reflect either the artistic merit or intrinsic weirdness of the films involved. The Weirdcademy Awards are tongue-in-cheek and for fun only. Ballot-stuffing is a frequent occurrence. Please, no wagering.

The Weirdcademy Awards are given to the Weirdest Movie, Actor, Actress and Scene of the previous year, as voted by the members of the Weirdcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Weirdness.

Who makes up the Weirdcademy? Membership is open to all readers of 366 Weird Movies. If you can figure out how to vote in the poll, you are qualified to join. You can not be turned down because of your age, sex, religious affiliation, pronouns, vaccination status, or the fact that you only watched the Superbowl to see what Taylor Swift was wearning. There is no requirement that you’ve have to actually see any of the movies listed before voting. You can vote for any or all categories.

You can only vote once—so choose carefully. We’ll keep voting open until March 9, so we can announce our results before the Academy Awards and steal their thunder.

We are using new poll software this year, which allows for a much cooler-looking ballot, but gives us less control of some aspects of the voting and which may have yet-unforeseen drawbacks. Please be patient.

Be sure to also vote for Weirdest Short Film of the Year. To watch all five nominees and to cast your vote, please click here.

Here is your ballot for the 2023 edition of the Weirdcademy Continue reading YOUR VOTE DETERMINES THE WINNER OF THE 14TH ANNUAL WEIRDCADEMY AWARDS

VOTE FOR THE WEIRDEST SHORT FILM OF 2023

It’s time for the 2023 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 2023′s Weirdest Short of the Year together in one place, for ease of voting.  You can cast a vote for your favorite until March 9. Choose carefully, because you can only vote once. This year’s slate features hallucinogenic chicken nuggets, Thai commercials, modern dancers inside an eyeball room, Joe Biden and Donald Trump eating spaghetti, and the Soviet version of Principal Skinner.

You can watch all the nominees in full below before voting (shorts may contain strong language, substance abuse, and/or disgusting spaghetti):

“The Innocent Eyes” by

“Inside the Blind Iris” by

“Joe Biden and Trump Eating Spaghetti, but it’s an AI generated nightmare” by

“LA on Acid” by

“Steamed Hams but it was banned in the USSR” by

TS Poll - Loading poll ...

ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY 27TH ANNUAL AWARDS (2023) (WITH OUR VOTES)

The Online Film Critics Society awards for 2023 are in the books. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Oppenheimer, an epic biopic from a major director, dominated the results—although I admit I am surprised at how thoroughly it nuked the competition. Weird movies did earn a lot of nominations this year—Poor Things earned 11, Asteroid City 4, and The Boy and the Heron 1—but took home no prizes. (Poor Things getting totally blanked surprised me; hopefully, Oscar voters will be more generous.)

As always, despite the occasional levity in my tone, I take my voting responsibility seriously. I do not put forward weird films at the expense of worthier mainstream candidates just because it’s “my thing.” Here is the list of this year’s winners, along with my choices and a touch of personal commentary.

BEST PICTURE

Oppenheimer posterWinner: Oppenheimer

Also nominated (listed ranked in order of votes): Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Poor Things, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, Past Lives, May December, Asteroid City, The Zone of Interest

My vote: Poor Things

Comments: Overall, Poor Things was the best movie of the year; groundbreakingly original, yet with a traditionally structured, if outlandish, plot that makes it accessible to the average cinemagoer. Incredible dialogue, luscious sets, and an iconic performance from Emma Stone (with two awards-caliber supporting roles from and ) make it 2023’s outstanding achievement in cinema. I personally ranked Oppenheimer third on my ballot; well-made, but too conventional to earn a higher vote. I didn’t see ‘s late-arriving Zone of Interest, and judging from its tenth place finish, a lot of voters were in the same boat.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Winner: Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse

Also nominated (in alphabetical order): The Boy and the Heron, Nimona, Robot Dreams, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

My vote: Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse

Comments: It was a tight call (and a tight race) between the massive Spider-Man and ‘s latest fable. Miyazaki’s handmade charm was tempting, but ultimately the Hollywood production was just too overwhelming; it brought abstract and experimental animation—incorporating multiple sub-universes as drawn by Chagall or Continue reading ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY 27TH ANNUAL AWARDS (2023) (WITH OUR VOTES)

AND THE WINNERS OF THE 13TH ANNUAL WEIRDCADEMY AWARDS ARE…

In just a few hours, the telecast of the Oscars (or, as we refer to them, the “Weirdcademy Awards for squares”) will begin. We are happy to steal the Academy’s thunder by announcing cinema’s weirdest winners of 2022 now.

In the category of “Weirdest Short Film,” the winner is The Backrooms (Found Footage)… soon to be a major motion picture! (Seventeen-year-old director will be filming it over his summer break [that’s not a joke]).

In the category of “Weirdest Scene,” the Weirdcademy Award goes to Men for the scene where a man gives birth to a man who gives birth to a man.

In the category of “Weirdest Actress,” the Award goes to Everything Everywhere All at Once‘s Michelle Yeoh (who will also likely take home the Academy’s Most Conventional Actress award, joining Natalie Portman as the only actress to complete this impressive feat).

(WARNING: NSFW clip)

In the category of “Weirdest Actor,” the award goes to Rory Kinnear for playing the title characters in Men.

And finally, the award for Weirdest Picture of 2022 goes to… drum roll… Mad God!

Thanks to all voting members of the Weirdcademy, and see you again next year!

R.I.P. ALFRED EAKER

Late Saturday, I received sad word that our own Alfred Eaker had passed away. No further details were provided. I don’t even know his exact age; I believe he was in his early 60s.

Alfred’s contribution to this site, from almost the very beginning, was immeasurable. He was the first contributor here besides myself. Although he had scaled back his writing here to pursue other projects, he was still engaged with 366 Weird Movies; in fact, he had ambitions for a written series running through the entire video nasties list. He recorded this podcast episode with me (others were planned) a mere three weeks ago:

Alfred was the kind of guy who became famous (here) more for what he hated than for what he loved. But when he loved something—Ed Wood, or classic Westerns, or opera, or Chaplin, or Ken Russel, or Andrei Tarkovsky, or Mahler, or Picasso—his passions matched or exceeded his excoriations. Alfred’s loves were no more secrets than his hatreds. It’s just that his hatreds tended to draw more offended commenters.

Alfred Eaker as Brother Cobweb
Alfred Eaker in character as “Brother Cobweb”

For every reference to “Mango Mussolini” or such you read in Alfred’s essays, be sure I edited out at least one other. But although I didn’t always agree with whatever outrageously elaborate insult Alfred drifted into whenever he sensed the presence of Trumpists, evangelicals, or assorted “constipated critics,” I let him say it, because it came from the heart. Alfred annoyed a lot of readers, and admittedly he earned the site a hearty handful of hate-clicks, but whatever broadsides he launched were aimed at what he honestly viewed as cultural threats.

Over the weekend, I culled through hundreds of pages of Alfred’s writing to select a few of my favorite gems below. (If printed, Alfred’s contributions to the site would take up several volumes on a 366 bookshelf). This is, I think, the best tribute I could give him: to let him speak in his own words. Please enjoy.

“I rarely set out to push people’s buttons. I just don’t give a hoot or a holler if I do, and I believe it’s an artist’s ethical responsibility to have the balls to write without inhibition and to always take an attitude of saying to hell with the status quo (and everything has the potential to develop its own status quo, even weird movie aficionados).”–Alfred Eaker on a decade of writing for 366 Weird Movies

“… essentially a 21st century update of Animal House… a bodiless set of redneck testicles.”–Alfred on Avengers: Infinity War

“When I saw that 366 Weird Movies’ readers had topped themselves in sadism with this year’s summer blockbuster picks (a video game, a Disney, AND a comic book movie) you can understand why I, Continue reading R.I.P. ALFRED EAKER