A puppet sheriff investigates a missing-puppets case in this music video for jazz saxophonist Tamoaki Baba’s single “Prime.” Thanks to reader Brett Cranford for bringing this to our attention.
Category Archives: Reader Recommendations
READER RECOMMENDATION: THE MANIPULATOR (1971)
Reader Recommendation from James Auburn
AKA BJ Presents; B.J. Lang Presents
“…a motion picture so haunted… it will never be shown!” – B.J. Lang Presents trailer
DIRECTED BY: Yabo Yablonsky
FEATURING: Mickey Rooney, Luana Anders, Keenan Wynn
PLOT: The film takes place almost entirely on a dusty soundstage. B.J. Lang (Rooney) has kidnapped a woman he refers to as Carlotta (Luana Anders of “Easy Rider”) and has tied her to a wheelchair. Lang spends nearly 90 minutes tormenting Carlotta, screaming at her, forcing her to recite lines to an imaginary movie, and spooning baby food into her mouth, among other indignities.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: This acid-damaged wannabe-arthouse film has stupefied even jaded psychotronic film freaks. Every “hip” avant-garde editing gimmick in the psychedelic-era toolbox is utilized: strobe lights, fish-eye lens, solarization, freeze-frames, quick-cut frames of random images, flashbacks/flash-forwards, slow-motion/fast-motion, etc. The viewing experience feels like a 90-minute long, 104-degree-fever hallucination that makes you question your own sanity. The uncomfortably cathartic performances from its two leads seem like a blend of acting-workshop exercises and heavy existential therapy put on film. Through extended monologues, the central character explores his own inner turmoil and waxes philosophical about life and show business, and as he wallows in his own insanity, the movie itself follows suit.
COMMENTS: Yes, one of the most demented movies you’ve ever seen starred Mickey Rooney—and he gives a psychotic tour-de-force performance that must be seen to be disbelieved.
In the opening scene, B.J. Lang enters the soundstage, as if to begin a routine day of work, passing cobwebbed props and backdrops; he sits down, and starts talking excitedly to thin air. Lang establishes himself as either a movie director who has gone insane, or an insane man who fancies himself a movie director; it’s never quite clear which. He runs a take of an imaginary movie scene while barking orders at mannequins and a film crew that exists only in his addled head. This opening segment culminates in a nightmarish two-minute freakout sequence with Lang screaming at two nude white-bodypainted figures (his parents? sure, why not) who cruelly laugh at him, over a screeching electronic racket. Suddenly: silence. Closeup: Lang is drenched in sweat, exhausted, as are our eardrums and sensibilities. What’s your threshold for cinematic insanity? You’ll know in the first ten minutes of The Manipulator.
We then discover Carlotta, tied to the wheelchair. Evidently she’s been there against her will for some time. For a long stretch, her only line is “I’m hungry, Mr. Lang!” She repeats it, again and again, with every different inflection she can muster (Lang spoon-feeds her a few Continue reading READER RECOMMENDATION: THE MANIPULATOR (1971)
READER RECOMMENDATION: THE CREMASTER CYCLE
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Reader review by Enar Clarke
“The Cremaster cycle defers any definitive conclusion.”–from the synopsis of “Cremaster 5”
DIRECTED BY: Matthew Barney
FEATURING: Ursula Andress, Norman Mailer, Aimee Mullins, Richard Serra, Matthew Barney
PLOT: Over the course of five films, through a series of loosely interconnected stories in various film genres, characters metaphorically portray the drama of sexual differentiation in the human reproductive system during the early stages of fetal development.
COMMENTS: As has been remarked on this site before, the Cremaster Cycle, directed by and starring visual artist Matthew Barney, is a nigh-legendary series of films. The Cycle tends to be screened once approximately every ten years, hence its mystique. Aside from a highly-priced limited edition run of DVDs, only a 30-minute cut of Cremaster 3 (The Order) is readily available on disc. The films were originally elements of an art installation that also included drawings, photographs, and sculptures; for this reason, they are usually screened by contemporary art museums.
With that in mind, the question readers of this site are probably asking is, are these films weird enough to be worth the effort of trying to see them?
This isn’t an easy question to answer. The five films in the Cremaster Cycle are undoubtedly weird, an endless progression of strange and inscrutable imagery that can honestly be as boring as it is compelling. Each film has at least two settings and sets of characters, but only the most threadbare of plots. Barney’s minimalist website provides the basic details, which can be useful for interpreting the subject matter. To avoid spoilers, I would recommend reading the cast lists prior to viewing, and saving the synopses for afterwards. All of the films, except Cremaster 2, are dialogue-free, and until the credits roll, it can be impossible to identify who, or what, the characters are supposed to be.
Like the best weird movies, the Cycle has divided both critics and viewers. New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman famously declared Barney “the most important artist of his generation.” Film scholar J. Hoberman, in his book “Film After Film,” dismissed the Cremaster Cycle as “an overwrought 57th street yard sale.” Viewers on IMDB have variously described the films as “flamboyant,” “bizarre,” “campy,” “grotesque,” and most commonly, “pretentious.” Directors Barney has been compared to include Kenneth Anger, David Cronenberg, Peter Greenaway, Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Sergei Parajanov, and Ken Russell—all of whose work is represented on the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies. Fans of these directors are just as likely to detest the Cycle, however, as they are to Continue reading READER RECOMMENDATION: THE CREMASTER CYCLE
READER RECOMMENDATION: FREDDIE GOT FINGERED (2001)
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Reader recommendation by June Culpepper
DIRECTED BY: Tom Green
FEATURING: Tom Green, Harland Williams, Marisa Coughlan, Rip Torn
PLOT: Gord Brody (Tom Green), a slacker with a dream of becoming a cartoonist, goes to California to get his cartoon made.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Panned by critics to this day, this film is a Godard-esque prank on both the film industry and the audience, more of a nightmarish combination of Sweet Movie, Adaptation, and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie than another Jack and Jill.
COMMENTS: Tom Green did not want to make a movie. After his meteoric rise from Canadian public television to MTV fame with “The Tom Green Show” (a late night talk show that combined gross-out stunts with surrealist humor, predating “The Eric Andre Show” by two decades), Hollywood most certainly took notice. “We don’t understand him, but the kids seem to love him,” the execs probably said. “Let’s give him 15 million dollars.” After handing him the check, Tom went back to a shack in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, and came out nine months later with Freddy Got Fingered.
Freddy Got Fingered works as a sort of deconstruction of the gross-out comedy schlock of the era, taking every trope of these sorts of films and stretching them to their absolute limit, to the point where the audience is left to wonder why they liked these gags at all. The angry father who disapproves of his son’s wild dreams is played by Rip Torn, a screaming warthog in a human skinsuit. The love interest, who in most of these films is just there to satisfy the lead’s sexual needs, is a wheelchair-bound Marisa Coughlan, who is obsessed with rocketry and fellatio. Green takes the essential pillars of gross-out comedies and breaks them down to the point where you can never build them up again.
Freddie Got Fingered also has a meta-cinema tinge to it, almost as if the film itself is the joke. The movie, in a weird way, is about the movie itself being made. Gord, who is obviously a stand-in for Green himself, has a meteoric rise to fame, in a way that almost feels out of his control. He then blows all of his money on pointless nonsense (the movie itself). In his own words, “Easy come, easy go.”
This film is an over-the-top combination of meta-cinema, surrealism, punk spirit, and weird gross-out moments that caught me so off-guard that I don’t even want to spoil them. Tom Green got to make his perfect film, and weirdos making their magnum opuses are what this site is all about.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by “Frank,” who said ” I feel the farcical, insanity of Freddy Got Fingered is at least worth a look.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
READER REVIEW: MY “THE DUNE” REVIEW
Reader recommendation (of sorts) by Daniel Ableev. Begins in medias res.
Apparently not, because Frank Heibert’s worm-building classic is somewhat of an epic, at least judging by the number of the pages involved (I haven’t actually read the scan template in question). Therefore it does not seem beneficial to wish for a reduction of such an extensive, grandiose, downright monstrous larger-than narrative to a three-minute flick. Of course this is a rather original artistic approach, but whether Villeneuve will be able to convince die-hard fans, as opposed to Davin Lynch‘s infamous attempt, remains to be seen (or doubted). In any case, there is not much room for strong storytelling or relationships in Dennis’s new work. After his already remarkably short thrillers “The Prisoner” and “The Sicario”, the undoubtedly talented Frenchman has now finally penetrated the heart of the avant-garde. Hectic cuts and cryptic off-screen dialogues turn the badly fragmented Deconstructor into an intensely dense deity in dire need of getting used to. Guest appearances by Dave Bautista and Jason Mamoa, both of whom seem to have stiffened their “-a”, and the fact that Oscar Isaacs is unwilling to leave the sci-fi genre would be even more commendable if he didn’t keep forgetting something (cf. shaving). As for the main character, the naive linnet’s Canadian-sounding surname provides a valuable clue—but what for? Viewers, severely maimed and crippled into question marks made of flesh and blood, have been for years in search of time to be lost, yet what they’ve managed to find is not more than three effing minutes of film material. Understandably they start pushing for answers without even having formulated the slightest of questions: Why does the crowd-pleasing worm twister at the end insists on being called The Big Lebowski? Why are those neo-Nazis, gracefully lowered on nylon threads, planning an eye-2-butter conversion intervention of sorts? And wouldn’t it be way more efficient to stretch the film so that the rather lavish CSI can finally come onto its own? Fun Fact: Hans Zimmer will undoubtedly go down as one of the most oven shots in film and cinema history, the simple reason for that being that Villeneuve had only time for one single song which wasn’t even composed, let alone Zimmer-ed.
We now realize: The spice melange lies in its brevity and the giant lies in its duneability, as does the perforated hoaxbox of sorts that has found more than one way into a fishnet. Uncanny Ville directs out of his hole, and a collection of grotesque vistas emerges: While Ed Wood himself keeps some of his favorite UFOs suspended, ambitious hyper-flies buzz along the sandtime continuum and animatronic sun rays accelerate the frementation process. Always dependent on artificial respiration, the indigenous Cyanos flee into Tremorpaul’s imperceptibly, yet all the more tightly pinched kneecap-jerking fantasies. Conclusion: “Independence Day” meets “Langoliers” with PS5 graphics and a threat extension of swords.
1 out of 5 stars