Anyone who might be interested in reviewing ultra low-budget movies in return for screeners, please see the “ad” below (or click here if you’re really lazy). We’ve had a couple of nibbles in our search for a dedicated microbudget reviewer, but we’ll hold the position open for at least a week or two.

Next week we’re planning reviews of the web-released amateur surrealist feature, The Casserole Masters (we’ll be embedding the movie along with info on the choice “chapter stops” to skip to, so be sure to tune in for that!) We’ll also take a look Smash Cut, the new slahser spoof/H. G. Lewis tribute from the auteur behind Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, and we’ll be taking a second look at Jim Jarmusch‘s weird western Dead Man (long-time readers will guess what a “second look” indicates).  Alfred will check in with another installment in his Tod Browning series, covering The Thirteenth Chair (Browning’s first sound film, with a pre-Dracula Bela Lugosi replacing Lon Chaney as Browning’s leading man).

For the past seven days, plenty of perfectly strange candidates streamed through our server logs vying for the title of “Weirdest Search Term of the Week.”  In the “okay, now we know you’re putting us on” category comes “spanish young imprisoned male breastfeeding movie.”  That’s your last mention, guy; we won’t be recognizing any more searches for imprisoned male breastfeeding movies of various national cinemas.   We have to give “movie foreskin surrealist” at least an honorable mention, but we were even more impressed by the ambiguity of the search for “paprika crotch,” since we don’t know whether the searcher was looking for  Satoshi Kon fan service or info on a new social disease.  Turning to the classic test of utter incoherence to select the winner this week, however, we find that “clown gasmask movie pharmacy” beats out the field.  Congratulations to the winner for stringing together four totally incongruous nouns!

Here’s how the reader-suggested review queue currently stacks up (many more titles after the break, as usual): The Casserole Masters (next week); Perfume: The Story of a Murderer;  Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (this appears to be unavailable at present, actually); The Nines; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel (2004); Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Sorry, the position below has been filled.  Anyone who likes may still write a reader review for the site, but we won’t be offering screeners at this time.  Thanks to all who applied!

366 World Industries is looking for someone to review movies—specifically, low-budget movies. Increased solicitation of our reviewing services by struggling filmmakers suggests to us it may be worthwhile to have someone on staff whose sole job it is to review low-budget screeners.

The ideal candidate will be able to write, preferably in the English language. The candidate must understand that accepting a screener copy of a movie is a commitment to watch and write about that movie. The candidate understands that these movies are by low-budget filmmakers and are highly likely to suck, with a few minor gems thrown in every now and then. The candidate should be aware that the movies will be a mix of arty, sometimes pretentious experimental films and gritty, sometimes offensive, exploitation movies. The candidate is encouraged to develop his or her own reviewing style, but we are not looking for someone who either A) praises everything unconditionally in hopes of seeing their names in print on a DVD cover, or B) views this assignment as an opportunity to sharpen their wit at the expense of the artists involved.

The review schedule is variable, but will not be more than one movie a week, and probably less than one a month.

Sole payment is in screener copies. Current contributors are welcome to apply.

Please use the contact form to apply. Use “screener review position” as the subject. If you have a writing sample, be prepared to submit it; if you are new to movie reviewing you should do a sample review of an appropriate low-budget movie first. We will answer any questions you have.

There is currently no time frame to fill this position. EDIT: Due to postal rates, we’d prefer applicants from the U.S.A.

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.

Nothing of interest coming to theaters this week.

FILM FESTIVALS: TRIBECA (New York City, April 20-May 1):

The eighth annual running of the Manhattan-based festival co-founded by Robert De Niro.  Tribeca Film, the distribution arm of Tribeca Enterprises, released 2009’s Certified Weird The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, so you know these guys aren’t afraid to go weird.  We list the features we think hold at least a little bizarre promise below:

• Beyond the Black Rainbow: Surrealist sci-fi supposedly in the 2001 vein about a mute woman trying to escape from a mysterious enclave.
• Bombay Beach: Footage of three residents of the decaying Salton Sea region—a bipolar boy, a high school athlete fleeing gang violence, and a retired oil-rig worker—is mixed with musical montages from Beirut and Bob Dylan to create what the makers describe as a “slightly surreal documentary experience.”
• Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame: A mystery/action epic set in a fantastical steampunk China; some say this is a return to form for director Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time in China, Zu Warriors)
• Grey Matter [Matière Grise]: An African filmmaker is advised to make an upbeat film instead of his war atrocity opus, “Cycle of the Cockroach;” when he goes ahead with his original plan, he finds scenes from his script manifesting themselves in reality.  This is the first movie we’ve ever heard of from a Rwandan director; it’s nice to imagine they’re starting their national film industry off weird.
• Hideaways: Fantasy/fable about a teen who flees to the woods in an attempt to escape an inherited curse: he seems to be something of an accidental angel of death.
• The Miner’s Hymns: 52-minute experimental film mixing old black-and-white footage of British coal miners with contemporary color footage, scored to a new avant-garde composition by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.
• The Troll Hunter [Trolljegeren] – We mentioned this one in our Sundance column: it’s a Norwegian “found footage” film about a man who literally hunts trolls for the government. It’s weirdness is questionable, but it appears to be a crowd-pleaser.
• Underwater Love – a “pink musical” (!) about a woman who falls in love with a water spirit; lensed by big-time cinematographer Christopher Doyle, with “outrageous” sex scenes

Tribeca Film Festival Home page.

NEW ON DVD:

Heartless:  Philip Ridley (writer/director of the Certified Weird The Reflecting Skin) is back after a fourteen year hiatus from filmmaking with this arthouse horror starring Jim (Across the Universe) Sturgess as a photographer with a disfiguring birthmark who makes a Faustian bargain in a hellish modern London. Ridley’s return would be notable even if the film wasn’t being well-reviewed; as it is, it won “Best Independent Feature” at the Toronto After Dark festival. Buy Heartless.

The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made (2005):  An axe-wielding maniac interrupts a card game, and the survivors are thrown into a stream-of-consciousness nightmare of horror movie cliches.  This frequently blasphemous amateur film (featuring Jesus pleasuring himself in a way only He could) from Bill Zebub (shouldn’t that be Bill Z. Bub?) was previously released in 2005; Zebub also remade the movie in 2008, but this is presumably an upgraded version of the original. Buy The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Tokyo Gore Police (2008):  The notorious, crazed gore-fest set in a future Tokyo where self-mutilation is a fad and private police hunt “engineers” who modify human bodies to turn genitalia into deadly bio-weapons.  One Blu-ray disc, although reports say that the back cover claims the package contains two discs (because they recycled the art from the DVD version).   Buy Tokyo Gore Police [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Bad Taste (1987): Peter Jackson’s aptly named first movie is a gory comedy about aliens using the Earth as a fast food franchise. This is sitting deep in the reader-suggested review queue at the moment. Watch Bad Taste free on YouTube.

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.