Only 21 movies left to Certify Weird!

Next week Alfred Eaker completes his humiliating obligation to review summer blockbusters by allowing The Meg to chew on his tender artistic sensibilities for a while. How often do you get a read a first-hand report from someone who survived a shark movie attack? Then, Pete Trbovich takes on another microbudget underground movie in The God in My Ear, Shane Wilson dives into the reader-suggested review queue and fish out an 80s beauty in the experimental documentary Koyaanisqatsi, while G. Smalley revisits another favorite from the age of Reagan: the New Wave alien orgasm-hunting oddity, Liquid Sky, finally on Blu-ray! We’re all over the map, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.

It’s time once again for our survey of the Weirdest Search Terms that brought visitors to the site (with the usual disclaimer that privacy settings make 95% of all searches invisible to us). First we’ll mention “movie where actor speaks to his arm,” which sounds as dull as it is strange (unless that arm is one great conversationalist). Next up is a query proving that word order matters: “skinemax movie where old man tries to have sex with a girl with a huge erection she runs away.” I’d say the old man dodged a bullet there. Meanwhile, our official Weirdest Search term of the week would probably be offensive if it wasn’t so incoherent: ‘internacials banging at the border area where frida got poundent hard torrent.” That’s it, and remember to disable those privacy settings when you’re searching for weird movies!

Time for our weekly disclaimer regarding the reader-suggested review queue below: since we will definitely not be getting to all of these (though we will pick out the occasional title, as you’ll see this week), you can consider this a list of “honorable mentions” for your own perusal and amusement. That out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long reader-suggested review queue now stands: Koyaanisqatsi (next week!); Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Henry at Rawlinson Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 22 more movies to Certify Weird!

With Fantasia Festival 2018 in the books, we get back to what passes for “normal” around here. First up it’s Alfred Eaker, who finds two movies forced upon him in the sadistic “send Alfred Eaker to a summer blockbuster” contest opening in the same week. Will he choose to suffer through the big shark movie The Meg or the Internet-meme horror The Slender Man first? And will he ever forgive readers for forcing these indignities on him? You’ll have to tune in Monday to find out. On a more positive note, Pete Trbovich check’s out YouTube cinephile celebrity Rob Ager‘s sole directorial effort, 2012’s Turn in Your Grave. Then we clean two arty titles out of the reader-suggested review queue: Rafael Moreira will discuss Paul Schrader’s Expressionist biopic Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, while G. Smalley tackles Bela Tarr‘s mysterious parable, Werckmeister Harmonies.

As usual of late, there’s not much in the way of weird search terms to report this week (privacy settings, yada yada). Nevertheless, we soldier on by bringing the somewhat unusual “fat lady blows up basement movie” to your attention. There’s also “charisma yarn,” which, it turns out, is a real brand of yarn—but why would someone searching for it end up here? (Knitters accidentally ending up on 366 Weird Movies may want to check out this, though.) And finally, although we’re loath to give it an official Weirdest Search Term of the Week designation—we think this is another “no award” week—we’ll mention “movie wsre girl disappears from motel and everything is still there.” What’s weird about this one is the searcher’s insistence on clarifying that “everything is still there,” to distinguish it, I guess, from a movie where a girl disappears from a motel and everything else in existence does, too.

Time for our weekly disclaimer regarding the reader-suggested review queue below: since we will definitely not be getting to all of these (though we will pick out a few, as you’ll see this week), you can consider this a list of “honorable mentions” for your own perusal and amusement. That out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long reader-suggested review queue now stands: Mishima: Life in Four Chapters (next week!); Werckmeister Harmonies (next week!); Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 23 more titles to Certify Weird!

Next week, Alfred Eaker continues your cinematic education with the third part of his series on Louis Feuillade‘s Gothic serials with Fantômas (1913). Then, Giles Edwards delivers his eulogy on the just-concluded Fantasia Festival 2018, with another slice of mini-reviews and coverage of the Fest’s big closer, Panos Cosmatos‘ Nicolas Cage-fueled revenger Mandy. And Pete Trbovich wraps us up with one from the reader-suggested review queue: Terry Gilliam‘s time-traveling brain twister Twelve Monkeys.

As far as weird search terms go, we’re once again frustrated by privacy filters. Basically, we saw no—none, nada—Google (or other engine) searches this week that would merit consideration as Weirdest Search Term of the Week. The closest we could come up with was “coco shop under the bed at end of shop is a large secret room thats driving me crazy what is in there?” That one’s more badly phrased than weird—we have no idea what the questioner is asking about. We guess is it’s a video game for which they neglected to share the title, assuming Google is omniscient and would know what the hell they are talking about. It’s a good reminder never to assume that everyone’s frame of reference is the same as yours; but, sadly, not that weird of a search term. Well, on to next week, when we hope stranger spirits will move our searchers.

Time for our weekly disclaimer regarding the reader-suggested review queue below: since we will probably not be getting to many of these (though we will pick out a few, as you’ll see this week), you can consider this a list of “honorable mentions” for your own perusal and amusement. That out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-once-again-growing reader-suggested review queue now stands: 12 Monkeys (next week!); Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Henry at Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 24 more movies to Certify Weird, and that’s not counting the one that will be unofficially named at midnight EST tonight when the final reader’s choice poll closes. (Right now, it looks like it will be Masaaki Yuasa‘s psychedelic anime Mind Game, with Nikos Nikolaidis‘s perverse Singapore Sling in long-shot striking distance.)

As far as next week’s business goes, Alfred Eaker starts us off, as always, with the next installment of his series on Louis Feuillade‘s trilogy of strange silent serials (will it be Judex or Fantomas? You’ll have to check in to find out.) Then it’s back to Giles Edwards‘ coverage of the final week of Fantasia Festival 2018: look for writeups of the animated oddity Violence Voyager, an interview with Drew Barnhardt of the PSTD-themed indie Rondo, along with his third slice of mini-capsules of everything else. Finally, G. Smalley caps things off with a selection from the reader-suggested review queue: the surreal 2004 Japanese family dramedy The Taste of Tea. No summer vacations for chroniclers of the weird, it seems.

Despite the privacy filters blocking about 95% of all search queries used to locate the site from our prying eyes, we still saw some remarkably weird ones this week. What wondrously strange queries would we uncover if we could see them all? We can at least be thankful that we were able to espy “movie where frogs go under a car off a cliff,” which is a pretty odd conceit. Stranger still, however, was the slightly ominous “weird movie prime leather mouth spreader prison feeding” (why is “prime leather” important to the searcher? Best not to wonder.) Still, for surreal Googling, nothing we saw compared to this week’s official Weirdest Search Term of the Week, “full sin’s hops by woman’s 1 child another man full story movie.” “Full Sin’s Hops” sounds like a great name for an IPA, doesn’t it?

Time for our weekly disclaimer regarding the reader-suggested review queue below: since we will probably not be getting to many of these (though we will pick out a few, as you’ll see this week), you can consider this a list of “honorable mentions” for your own perusal and amusement. That out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long reader-suggested review queue now stands: The Taste of Tea (next week!); Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Henry at Rawlinson End; Moebius Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

With only 25 movies left to Certify Weird, we’re entering the final stretch. Please stay tuned for your final chance to directly effect the shape of the List, following very soon after this post.

It’s another busy week here at 366 (though perhaps not as busy as last week). Alfred Eaker starts us off with a look at Louis Feuillade’s seminal 1915 silent serial Les Vampires. Giles Edwards takes us into the present day with his continuing coverage of Fantasia Festival 2018, including reviews of Aaron Schimberg’s Freaks update Chained for Life, David Robert Mitchell‘s weirdo noir Under the Silver Lake, a full slate of mini-reviews, a couple of interviews, and who knows? Maybe even more. Finally, G. Smalley takes a second look at Neil Jordan‘s shcizophrenic child-murderer comedy The Butcher Boy (remember that one?) And, don’t forget to vote every day in the upcoming Final Reader’s Choice poll—we expect to see those traffic numbers up, up, up!

Once again, we don’t have very many queries to share with you for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest. (Privacy settings, yada yada…) There was “cartoon where boy is sleeping in car going through flowers movie,” which sounds kind of cool, but is it really weird? Fortunately, we did find one phrase meriting the title “Weirdest Search Term of the Week”: “mobile · … early 1990’s or late 80’s. it was a cartoon. the movie began with … 80’s, it’s a cartoon where there was a young boy that was … world through mirror …” The advanced use of random ellipses turns what might have been a perfectly normal search for a 1980s animated film into a legitimately bizarre mess!

The suggestions page is temporarily shut down while we focus on the final reader-suggested contest. And now, it’s tme for our weekly disclaimer regarding the reader-suggested review queue below. Since we will probably not be getting to many of these (though we will pick out a few), you can consider this a list of “honorable mentions” for your own perusal and amusement. That out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long and temporarily-paused reader-suggested review queue now stands: Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Henry Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 26 more movies to Certify Weird…

It’s a busy summer week here at 366. First off, our final reader-selected contest is on, your last chance to directly vote a film onto the List of 366 (and possibly win a prize!) Nominations are open here until Friday.

Alfred Eaker has a couple more pre-code films on tap in Safe in Hell (1931) and Murder at the Vanities (1934). Giles Edwards is busy catching two films a day at the Fantasia Festival, and plans to drop off a number of things—both a page of mini-capsules and some full length reviews. We’re keeping the titles secret for now, but he’s already found a couple of surprises. And amidst all the hubbub we’re also going to try to find time to post a review of Kino’s recent video release of Emir Kusturica‘s chaotic and epic ode to vanished Yugoslavia, Underground, and maybe even a report on the now-in-theaters hit (be weird movie standards) Sorry to Bother You. Check in daily!

Bucking recent trends, we actually had a few genuinely weird search terms to highlight this week. First up, we think it goes without saying that this entry has to be some kind of error: “[[[“xjs.sav.id.a3p-uiv9jxk.o”,5]],[[“id”,”type”,”created_timestamp”,”last_modified_timestamp”,”signed_redirect_url”,”dominant_color_rgb”,”tag_info”,”url”,”title”,”comment”,”snippet”,”image”,”thumbnail”,”num_ratings”,”avg_rating”,”page”,”job”]],[[“dt_fav_images”]],10000].” Back on planet earth, so to speak, was the search for “alien in woman’stomach and blew up by drinking water movie.” But for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week (and given the way things have been going, likely of the Month) we’ll pick “scary movie where girl throws up on guy but ge imagines colora.” Even fixing the misspellings results in a search for a scary movie where a girl throws up on a guy, but he imagines colors—and if that’s not a weird term to search for, we’re not sure what would qualify.

The suggestions page is temporarily shut down while we focus on the final reader-suggested contest, but it nevertheless continued to grow. Usual disclaimer: we will probably not be getting to all of these (though we will pick out a few), and you can consider this a list of “honorable mentions” for your own perusal and amusement. That out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long and temporarily-paused reader-suggested review queue now stands: Underground (next week!); Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Henry at Rawlinson End; Moebius Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 27 movies left to Certify Weird!

Next week, Alfred Eaker starts us out with a pair of new documentaries which (as he promised) feature a King and a Pope. Then Shane Wilson goes into the reader-suggested review queue for the 1966 teen satire Lord Love a Duck. Giles Edwards takes on the Joe D’Amato giallo Death Smiles on a Murderer (with Ewa Aulin and Klaus Kinski, how bad can it be? You’ll find out!) That’s one movie from the 1960s and one from the 1970s, so naturally, the next in the series will come from the 1980s: G. Smalley takes a second look at the zoology-based madness of Peter Greenaway‘s A Zed and Two Noughts (1985).

For months we’ve been predicting that Google privacy filters would cause the eventual demise of our popular (?) Weirdest Search Term of the Week feature, and it seems that time has finally come. But we’ll see if we can muster enough strange searches for a Weirdest Search Term of the Month contest instead. We’ve only got a couple of contestants this week. First up is “1990s movie which involves a cop and a women that fights monsters with the fbi and try to save rich people traped in a building.com”: a mildly weird description, made odder by the searchers affixing “.com” to the end (why do Googlers do this? Are they trying to exclude relevant information from .org or .edu domains?) The second search is perhaps even less comprehensible: “movie name s the trin drum sex all movies sex.” Is he looking specifically for The Tin Drum, or for “all movies”? And does he really think the results will be twice as sexy if he types “sex” twice?

Before listing the reader-suggested queue, it’s time for another disclaimer: with only 27 movies left to Certify Weird, all of the hundreds of suggestions listed below can’t possibly make it, or even receive a fair hearing. These movies are currently listed in order of submission, but at this point we are ignoring that order and reaching deeper into the queue for the few films we feel, for one reason or another, merit coverage. Consider the rest of them reader-suggested honorable mentions. With that out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long-and-still-growing reader-suggested review queue now stands: Lord Love a Duck (next week!); Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 28 more movies left to Certify Weird, and only four more days to participate in our latest DVD/Blu-ray giveaway contest. How time flies!

Alfred Eaker starts us out next week with another installment of his pre-Code series, examining the politically incorrect (by today’s standards) comedy Diplomaniacs, and the early Frank Capra drama The Bitter Tea of General Yen. Then, Giles Edwards reviews the recent psychological thriller Kaleidoscope (starring Toby Jones as an ex-con with mommy issues and a new corpse to deal with). Then it’s into the reader-suggested review queue as Terri McSorley looks at the post-apocalyptic, avant-garde film adult Cafe Flesh, while G. Smalley takes on Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman‘s Academy Award nominated semi-documentary animation about his experiences as an Israeli soldier in the Lebanon War.

The end may be near (for our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest, that is). Due to privacy settings, only 33 of over 1,200 search terms used to locate the site thsis week are now visible to us. Based on past experience from the glory days of non-encrypted Googling, we’re sure there are some astonishingly weird requests hiding inside those 1100+ invisible queries. But we’ll let you know what we do see, at least until those 33 visible inquiries slip to 3. We’ll point out the ambitious search for “800 weird movie,” which is more than double what we’re offering (and certainly many readers hope we’ll eventually go that high). And then there’s the slightly weird “70s movie piece of the moon turns into a monster.” But, for the first week since we started this survey, the competition was too slim to justify giving out an official Weirdest Search Term of the Week. Maybe it’s time to move to a Weirdest Search Term of the Month contest?

Time for another disclaimer: with only 28 movies left to Certify Weird, all of the hundreds of suggestions listed below can’t possibly make it, or even receive a fair hearing. These movies are currently listed in order of submission, but at this point we are ignoring that order and reaching deeper into the queue for the few films we feel, for one reason or another, merit coverage. Consider the rest of them reader-suggested honorable mentions. With that out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long reader-suggested review queue now stands: Cafe Flesh (next week!); Waltz with Bashir (next week!); Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Henry at Rawlinson End; Moebius (1996); The Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 29 movies left to Certify Weird!

Inspired by a reader suggestion to review Josef von Sternberg’s heavily Expressionistic Catherine the Great biopic The Scarlet Empress (1934), Alfred Eaker dusts off his old “Pre-code Heaven” series (he’ll pair Empress with von Sternberg’s Marlene Dietrich showcase Blonde Venus). Speaking of pre-code films, Pete Trbovich takes the helm for our second view on Tod Browning‘s impossible-to-make-today freakshow horror Freaks. Also, G. Smalley opens your mind’s eye to the indie Zen Dog, a hippie-revivalist film featuring the teachings of Zen apostle Alan Watts. And while we’re at it, why not throw in a DVD/Blu-ray giveaway contest starting on Tuesday? That should keep you checking in throughout the week…

Increasingly, our survey of the Weirdest Search Term of the Week is leaning on queries by horny ESL students. Take, for example, “best wab side incest movies.” Or “block mejer pron hd,” a search we believe contains misspellings in at least two different languages (if not, it’s just a search for nonsense pron). And how about “aobgezwgyzl2sc-s7kkw7gscqa-5_kmi60e5otc_oqj0hmdwsakfswgqjo-onflqqzmye9-fb6z6kxsf3s6pz7b0hsbyjzhxacru3q3g63p1uokcba2lllu-iawxykxihgeltzip_ry38csvo_hm4he”, a misspelling of massive dimensions (which also brings up exactly zero Google hits, making it impossible for someone to locate our site using this bizarre string of characters). With all of that orthographic carnage, we’ll turn instead to “odd accompanied porn” for our official Weirdest Search Term of the Week. (Perhaps block mejer porn would qualify as odd accompanied porn? Who can say in the world of incomprehensibly concupiscent Google searches?)

Disclaimer: with only 30 movies left to Certify Weird, all of the hundreds of suggestions listed below can’t possibly make it, or even receive a fair hearing. These movies are currently listed in order of submission, but at this point we are ignoring that order and reaching deeper into the queue for the few films we feel, for one reason or another, merit coverage. With that out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long -and-still-growing reader-suggested review queue now stands: Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Condom; Sir Henry at Rawlinson End; Moebius Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Only 30 movies left to Certify Weird…

Having finished with his Batman TV miniseries, Alfred Eaker turns his attention to the latest offbeat iteration of the Caped Crusader: the 2018 superhero/anime crossover Batman Ninja. Sticking with recent releases, G. Smalley will discuss the new-on-video-on-demand psychological horror Inheritance, while Ryan Aarset surveys the incendiary Heredity. Then, Giles Edwards re-works entry on the stop-motion nightmare “Street of Crocodiles” (regular readers can probably guess why).

Now is the time when we highlight the weirdest search terms that brought visitors to this site (with our usual disclaimer that this survey is a shadow of what it once was thanks to privacy filters blocking search terms). First, we have to mention the search for “billy cook saddles.” These are real things, but they have absolutely no relevance to us whatsoever—what’s weird about it is the thought that some searcher looking for horsewear passed over all the relevant Google results on the first page, and decided to visit a weird movie site instead. More typical of the type of searches we see nowadays is “i’m looking for a horror movie that was made in the 80s it have indians in it and have an alien having sex with a woman”. A bizarre request by normal people’s standards, sure, but we’ve gotten used to seeing weirder. Since we have nothing better to spotlight, we’ll go with the moderately amusing “movie with bad guy getting punched in the face with a puppet” as our Weirdest Search Term of the Week. But try to do better in the future, Googlers!

Before reprinting the ridiculously-long -and-still-growing reader-suggested review queue, let’s point out something that may seem obvious in retrospect: with only 30 movies left to Certify Weird, all of the hundreds of suggestions listed below can’t possibly make it, or even receive a fair hearing. These movies are currently listed in order of submission, but at this point we are ignoring that order and reaching deeper into the queue for the few films we feel, for one reason or another, merit coverage. So, Genius Party has been sitting in the first position for quite a while; but as it’s an anthology film that’s not easily accessible in the U.S., we keep passing it over—and will probably continue to. In other words, you can’t trust this queue for insights into what will be reviewed in the immediate future. That’s bad if you are rooting for something near the front of the queue to see its day in 366 court, but good if you’re a fan of a film buried deeper in the list.

With that out of the way, here’s how the ridiculously-long -and-still-growing reader-suggested review queue now stands: Genius Party; The Idiots; “Premium” (depending on availability); Spermula; Killer Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →