One aspect of Phoebe Parsons’ work is its tendency to skip from different animation styles to live-action. “The Fantastic Adventures of Cloudman” is no exception. In its thirteen-minute length, no one animation style prevails. Even the live-action sequences are spiced up with fireworks, Styrofoam, paper-mache, and sometimes even animation, making them vary considerably.
CONTENT WARNING: This short contains brief drug use, and some mild violence.
A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
The Big Bang: Antonio Banderas stars as a hard-boiled private eye encountering seedy LA weirdos while searching for missing diamonds in a case that turns out to be more than it appears. Critics are branding it “Lynchian,” but they’re also denouncing director Tony Krantz (Sublime) as a surrealist hack; this looks like a big weird flop from Anchor Bay. Playing New York and Los Angeles this week, appearing on DVD and Blu-ray May 24. The Big Bang official site.
Hesher: A sociopathic arsonist and anarchist takes up residence in a family’s garage after the mother dies in a car accident; is he real, or just a symbol of discord? Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Devin Brcohu, Rainn Wilson, Piper Laurie and Natalie Portman (who also produced). Hesher official site.
True Legend: Kung-fu fantasy with elaborate, impossibly staged fight scenes pitting “Five Venom Fist” style against “Drunken Fist” style. From action choreographer Yuen Woo Ping (The Matrix, Kill Bill). Playing in NYC, Austin, TX., Honolulu and San Francisco all next week. True Legend official site.
SCREENINGS (Louisville, KY.; Wed. May 18, 10 PM):
Night of the Living Dead (1968): OK, so everyone knows George Romero’s seminal zombie apocalypse survival feature isn’t really weird, except to the squarest of the squares. We only mention it because the reclusive 366 himself will be putting in an appearance at the screening. 366 will only be putting in an appearance because they are offering him beer. Playing at Rave Motion Pictures Preston Crossings 16, Wednesday May 18, at 10 PM.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Dali 3D (est. Summer 2012): Salvador Dalí lies on his sickbed and dreams a movie where he travels through time with his wife Gala and meets Freud, Walt Disney, and the Mona Lisa, among others. Alan Cuming stars as Dalí and weird favorite Judy Davis plays Gala, with Phillipe (Howling II… Your Sister Is a Werewolf) Mora to direct. As per the title, to be filmed in eye-popping 3D. This Canadian effort will attempt to make it to the screen before a planned big budget biopic starring Antonio Banderas (which is also aiming for a 2012 release). This is not a joke, repeat, this is not a joke, but rather a glorious opportunity they better not screw up. Dali 3D official page.
NEW ON DVD:
Dahmer vs. Gacy (2011): The government is trying to create a super-killer using DNA from two notorious serial killers, but their experiments escape and terrorize the nation. Ninjas also figure into the plot. Could this be the ultimate bad taste horror/comedy premise? Buy Dahmer Vs. Gacy
Sledgehammer (1983): A novel spin on the 1980s slasher genre; the killer doesn’t slash his victims at all, but rather pounds on them with a large, heavy hammer. This shot-on-video feature is undoubtedly terrible, but the marketing team gets props for trying to play up its weirdness, calling it “85 minutes of fever-dream depravity” and a “nightmare-logic shocker.” Buy Sledgehammer
Slime City Massacre (2010): In a near-future NYC wasteland homeless people turn into slime creatures who are then possessed by the spirits of cultists who died by their own hands (or something like that). It’s a long-delayed sequel to 1988’s minor cult hit Slime City. Buy Slime City Massacre
The Violent Kind (2010): A movie about drug-dealing outlaw bikers and their encounter with the supernatural and weird colors in the sky. At Sundance, it was self-described as “gleeful, insane exploitation”; we’ve been keeping an eye out for the DVD release ever since. Buy The Violent Kind
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
The Lickerish Quartet (1970): This classy seventies softcore erotic feature from the stylish Radley Metzger features uncertain identities and surrealistic sex scenes, such as the one where a couple make love on a floor covered with dictionary entries. The Blu-ray comes hot on the heels of last week’s DVD release, but a word of warning: according to an Amazon reviewer the quality of the original print may not justify the hi-def presentation. Buy The Lickerish Quartet [Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Alice in Wonderland (1949): This British/French co-production mixes live action and puppetry, and like the 1933 “all star” version of Alice it benefits from some unintentionally creepy puppet designs. Looking at some of the stop-animation, we wouldn’t be shocked to find out Jan Svankmejer watched this version before creating his own Alice. Watch Alice in Wonderland (1949) free on YouTube.
Viy (1967): Read our capsule review. Mosfilm has very quietly put some subtitled Soviet classics on YouTube for free, including this unforgettable horror film about a young priest conducting a vigil over a witches casket. Watch Viy on YouTube for free.
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
Tod Browning‘s White Tiger (1923) finds the director revisiting intimate motifs and has an unusual connection to Edgar Allan Poe (Browning, who has often been referred to as the Poe of cinema, listed the classic author as his favorite). In 1836, Poe wrote an exposé of the touring “Mechanical Chess Player” Automaton. In the article Poe revealed that inside this mechanical chess player was a concealed, quite human, operator. Poe’s article was the seed for Browning’s film, which the director co-wrote with screenwriter Charles Kenyon.
White Tiger stars Browning regular Priscilla Dean, Raymond Griffith and Walter Beery. Griffith, who got his start with Mack Sennett, was once considered a rival to both Chaplin and Keaton. Due to a childhood injury to his vocal cords, Griffith was practically mute, quashing any chance he might have had for surviving into sound film. Most of Griffith’s films are lost, but the most celebrated, the Civil War comedy Hands Up (1926), survives, and is thought by some to be nearly as good as Keaton’s (somewhat overrated)The General from the same year. Although that comparison is highly debatable, Hands Up is a unique film and worth seeing. It is available from Grapevine Video, but otherwise it is hard to find.
Griffith’s screen persona was that of a debonair comedian, a la Max Linder, but Browning, of course, used him quite differently. Griffith plays Roy Donovan. Sylvia (Dean) is Roy’s sister, but they are separated at childhood when Hawkes (Beery) betrays their father, Mike Donovan (Alfred Allen), which results in Mike’s murder. Hawkes takes Sylvia with him. She believes her brother has also died and is unaware that Hawkes was her father’s Judas.
Years later, Sylvia is a professional pickpocket under the guardianship of Hawkes, who now goes by the new identity of Count Donelli. Sylvia stakes out her victims at the London Wax Museum. There she meets The Kid, who, unknown to her, is her long lost brother, Roy. Roy has his own nefarious gig; the Mechanical Chess Player. When Sylvia introduces the Kid to her “father,” Count Donelli, the three form an unholy alliance, which leads them and the Mechanical Chess Player to a new land of opportunity in America.
Roy develops incestuous feelings for Sylvia (of course, he is still unaware that she is his sibling), which leads to jealousy when Sylvia falls for goody two shoe Dick Longworth (Matt Moore). Tension between the unholy three builds with the arrival of Dick. After a jewelry heist in a mansion, utilizing the Mechanical Chess Player, the trio hole up at a claustrophobic cabin in the mountains. The final quarter of the film casts a Poe-like eye on imagined (and real) enemies. Mistrust between the trio is sowed and much coffee is downed, in an effort to stay awake and keep an eye on each other and the hidden jewelry.
The truth about Hawk’s betrayal of Sylvia’s real father comes out, as does the revelation that the Kid is none other than her brother. The Oedipal killing of a (surrogate) father, mistrust among a trio of criminals, theft of jewels, false identities, the double cross, staged gimmickry, deception (which the spectator audience is privy to), latent incest, followed by jealousy for a righteous rival, a claustrophobic getaway retreat, and a finale in which one of the criminals deeds goes unpunished are familiar Browning themes. Poe’s deceptive Mechanical Chess Player is a bizarre, added quirk.
According to several Browning biographers, acquaintances of the director and his wife, Alice, would often be forced to lock up the jewelry when the two came to visit because the Brownings had a notorious reputation for swiping any stones they could get their hands on. At least Tod Browning’s empathy for the criminal mindset was an honest one.
“Maelstrom, from my humble point of view, was inspired as follows: we all have an amazing built-in system of personal and social defense: we interpret the world and construct for ourselves an image of it, which comforts us and eases our conscience, and we do this instinctively. For me, Maelstrom is a playful call to be responsible and to be careful. Some of my friends found this definition childish and tried to convince me that Maelstrom was, instead, a dark and serious drama about a woman emerging from chaos and mythomania. Others consider it a luminous noir fable of a voyage to the limits of reality and myth. That’s ridiculous. Don’t believe a word they say.”–Denis Villeneuve, Director’s Note to Maelstrom
DIRECTED BY: Denis Villeneuve
FEATURING: Marie-Josée Croze, Jean-Nicolas Verreault, Pierre Lebeau (voice)
PLOT: A fish about to be chopped up and made into seafood explains that, with his last breaths, he would like to tell a “pretty story” about a young woman “on a long voyage toward reality.” We then meet Bibi, undergoing an abortion; later that day, she will lose her position in the family business, then leave the scene of the accident after striking a pedestrian while driving drunk. In the guilt-ridden weeks that follow, she tracks down the man she struck to find out who he was and what happened to him.
BACKGROUND:
” (coincidentally, this makes the eighth of the titles Crouse chose that we’ve independently reviewed).INDELIBLE IMAGE: The grotesque, philosophical fish who croaks out the tale between gasps while waiting for the fishmonger (sharpening his blade on a stone and looking like an executioner) to finish him off.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The story is narrated by a dying fish. If you need more than that, there’s the confusing, impressionistic, nonlinear timeline (that replays certain scenes); some incredible plot and thematic coincidences; and the stylishly stoned scenes of Bibi drowning her woes in booze and pills. But I keep coming back to the fact that the story is narrated by a (surprisingly reflective) dying fish. Talk about cod philosophy!
Trailer for Maesltrom
COMMENTS: “You’ll get nightmares from eating stale octopus,” Bibi’s friend warns her Continue reading 87. MAELSTROM (2000)
DIRECTED BY: Todd Rohal
FEATURING: Steve Little, Robert Longstreet
PLOT: A goofy priest who seems more concerned with funny stories and YouTube videos than Jesus Christ sets out on a canoe trip with his childhood icon Robbie, a musician who dated his sister in high school. As they paddle down the river, more details about their history are revealed, and things get really weird when they meet fellow travelers posing as characters from Huckleberry Finn.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: It starts off as a funny, somewhat quirky canoe trip, relying on dialogue and a few offbeat stories to entertain its audience. But then it gets weird. Really weird. I’d say the last 20 minutes are weird enough to make up for the comparative normalcy of the preceding 50.
COMMENTS: When the effervescent Father Billy first meets up with his middle school idol at a roadside diner, he accidentally drops his bible (which he gets autographed by musicians) in a diarrhea-filled toilet bowl. This sets the stage for a story that is deceptively average on the surface, but delightfully deranged underneath, finally showing its true colors during the final sequence. Their journey is peppered with some strange side-stories, from a heat-packing granny to a suicidal businessman who can’t die, along with some effectively ominous filming techniques and a heavy metal soundtrack that humorously clashes with the bucolic river landscape. While there are flashes of weirdness throughout, nothing truly prepares the viewer for the big Weird payoff at the end, which I will not spoil for you.
Father Billy is a well-meaning goofball with an oblivious, clingy personality, and it’s never actually clear why he would become a priest—an occupation that takes remarkable dedication and sacrifice—in the first place. He seems perfectly content to sit around listening to 80’s metal and drinking milk. His dips into unpriestly behavior (lying to his superior, drinking beer, etc) coincide with dire circumstances that should be enough to completely shake his faith. Steve Little puts in an offbeat performance, making Father Billy just slightly creepy enough for viewers to question exactly what is going on here. In contrast, Longstreet’s portrayal of Robbie is so open and believable, he stands as a pillar of ordinariness and often represents the audience’s own reactions to Billy’s off-putting characteristics.
The Catechism Cataclysm is a difficult film to encapsulate. It’s a mish-mash of high school reunion-esque reflection, Catholic introspection, fascinating urban legend storytelling, and off-the-walls absurdity that winds its way into an enjoyable, funny, decidedly memorable experience. Overall, it’s an impressive show of irreverence and eccentricity from a director with a foundation in mumblecore.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: