In this short a teenage girl copes with the preventable death of her father. Although ethics and war don’t necessarily go hand in hand, “Salma” demonstrates the importance of creating weapons that do not put the lives of innocent civilians in jeopardy long after the conflict is over.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 3/11/2011
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 DEVELOPMENT:
Rocks in My Pockets: A feature length animated comedy film about depression from Signe Baumane. 23 of 90 minutes are currently animated. The official site is here, and they are also seeking donations on IndieGoGo.
Rocks in My Pockets (an excerpt) from Signe Baumane on Vimeo.
NEW ON DVD:
Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret of Marijuana (1971): A stretch for weird, but certainly an oddity: a vintage pro-pot exploitation documentary, spiced up with ample sex scenes. If you thought what Refeer Madness needed was more naked hippies, than this is the movie for you. Featuring an early appearance by John Holmes and containing hardcore porn inserts. Distributor Impulse is advertising this version as containing all the naughty bits expunged from earlier prints, but don’t blame us if Amazon took them out. Buy Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret of Marijuana
“Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XX”: The twentieth box set from the cult TV movie-mocking series brings us the Season 1 sci-fi disaster Project Moonbase; Master Ninja I & II, comprising four episodes of the van-heavy failed TV show starring Lee van Cleef and Timothy van Patten; and the recast Russian fairy tale The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (the only feature in the set that might play weird on its own). Not surreal per se, but generally of interest to weirdos like us. Buy “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Vol. XX”
Son of Terror (2008): A schizophrenic artist gets involved in a case involving a serial killer preying on the homeless, and nothing is as it seems. Poorly reviewed, but do independent horror/slasher movies made in Seattle ever get good reviews? Buy Son of Terror
Transgression [La transgressione] (1988): Italian sexploitation film about a student who takes drugs and hallucinates a meeting with an erotic goddess. Amazon sold out of this title less than a week after release, but maybe they only ordered one copy? More units are on the way as we speak. Buy Transgression
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Excalibur (1981): Not thoroughly weird, but this Arthurian epic has its bizarre moments that may send chills up your spine—such as a young Mordred laughing through his golden mask as he leads Percival into a forest where knights in armor hang from the trees. At times it’s hard to believe this was made by the same director who made Zardoz; other times, the similarity is perfectly obvious. Buy Excalibur [Blu-ray]
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984): Early environmental-apocalypse anime from the renowned Hayao Miyazaki. Disney has been slowly leaking out their entire catalog of Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli titles onto Blu-ray over the past few years. Buy Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
NEW ON VIDEO-ON-DEMAND:
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (2004): We’ve still never seen one of Spanish director Carlos Atanes’ films (except for the short “The Marvellous World of the Cucu Bird,” which can be watched online), but we’re aware of him because he’s one of the few filmmakers who proudly describes his movies as “weird.” FAQ is an underground movie about a matriarchal dystopian future; you can watch the first two minutes for free on Amazon. Rent or download FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Dead Leaves (2004): Two odd-looking amnesiacs (one with a TV for a head) are sent to a lunar prison in this sci-fi/anime/comedy. This one is currently in our reader-suggested review queue, so this is your big chance to see it for free before we cover it! Watch Dead Leaves 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.
OBSOLESCENCE (2011) & LETHAL OBSESSION (2010): THE POTENTIAL AND FAILURE OF INDEPENDENT FILM
Jakob Bilinski‘s last film, Shade of Grey (2009) was a well-crafted feature, compellingly approached, yet flawed by inexperienced acting in key roles. Bilinski has returned to the short film format with Obsolescence (2011), having considerably improved his craftsmanship, first and foremost in the acting. That is beneficial, because Obsolescence turns out as Bilinski’s best effort to date.
The seed of the idea for this psychological science fiction was inspired by Bilinski’s wife, Mackenzie. It was shot in L.A. on a minuscule budget with a two day shooting schedule and a meager cast of four. Far more often than not, guerrilla film-making methods such as these only lead to an execrable experience, but Bilinski is a conceptual artist who molds his gem with intelligence and style.
“Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there.”–Otomo No Yakamochi. This introductory quote aptly dissipates shortly before the opening view of an empyrean horizon, its composition dismantled by Bilinski’s feverish, frenzied camera—a sign of things to come. Nick (Scott Ganyo) is bathed in a bucolic landscape, but the deceptive harmony fails to mask a twitch.
Tess (Rosalind Rubin) is strapped to a chair in a desolate location. She is being held hostage by Nick. In lesser hands this would have been the predictable setup for an adolescent excuse to show a torture fest, but Bilinski and the superb Rubin invest kinetic, tense excitement into the conflict. Nick has poisoned Tess. Her salvation lies in information that Nick requires regarding the death of his wife, Annie (Jen Lilley). Rubin hypnotically conveys fear, frustration, and futile effort as she witnesses humanity slipping away from her captor, who is engulfed in grief. Nick’s ability to empathize trickles away like water into sewage. He is more fascinated than compassionate when the poison begin to take hold of Tess. Wracked with pain, Tess’ Continue reading OBSOLESCENCE (2011) & LETHAL OBSESSION (2010): THE POTENTIAL AND FAILURE OF INDEPENDENT FILM
CAPSULE: THE PEANUT BUTTER SOLUTION (1985)
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The Peanut Butter Solution has been promoted onto the List of Apocryphally Weird movies. Please read and comment on that entry. Comments here are closed.
DIRECTED BY: Michael Rubbo
FEATURING: Mathew Mackay, Michel Maillot, Siluck Saysanasy, Alison Darcy, Michael Hogan
PLOT: A boy loses his hair from a fright, but some grateful ghosts give him a secret recipe for regrowing it; complications ensure when he doesn’t follow the formula exactly.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s weird—scarringly weird—to kids, but this follicular fairy tale is unlikely to have the same effect on grown-ups.
COMMENTS: The most noteworthy thing about The Peanut Butter Solution isn’t any of the weird stuff that happens onscreen; it’s the amazingly consistent reflections of adults who recall seeing it as a child. Anytime this movie is mentioned anywhere on the Net, you will see some variation of the same response: “I saw this as a kid! I tried describing the plot to someone who hadn’t seen it and they thought I was making it up! I was beginning to think I dreamed it!”
Almost uniformly, these adult survivors of The Peanut Butter Solution mention that the movie gave them nightmares. I don’t think many adults will find this film that creepy when seeing it for the first time, but it’s easy to see why it freaked out so many kids. Leaving the weird and the scary moments to one side, just consider the number of childhood anxieties this film touches on: fear of being made fun of by other kids for being different. First encounters with death. A scary neighborhood house (where a couple of local winos burnt to death). An absent parent. Fear of oncoming puberty. The suspicion that authority figures aren’t just criticizing you for your own good; they really do have it out for you. Abduction. Even the Brothers Grimm were never this macabre. (There is a real modern fairy tale quality to the story, which we’re reminded of when the resourceful kids try to use a trail of sugar to track down the bad guys.)
A movie that dealt with these themes in a straightforward way would likely upset tykes, but Peanut Butter Solution adds nightmarish imagery: a kid who’s gone totally bald (particularly frightening to a youngster who’s vaguely aware of childhood leukemia and chemotherapy). A nameless horror in an attic of an old house. Hobo ghosts. A boy smearing a mixture of peanut butter, rotten eggs and dead flies on his head. Hair that grows so fast it gets snagged in trees as he walks to school. Fur flowing out of a kid’s pants leg. A child imprisoned in an elevated box with his hair hooked up to a loom. Paintings that you can walk into.
All of these strange sights are delivered with the matter-of-factness of a dream. When young Micheal’s hair starts growing centimeters per minute, his father and sister are amazed, but not alarmed by this violation of the laws of nature. Despite the fact that his tresses lengthen visibly as he sits in class, a teacher implies Michael’s lying: hair only grows a half an inch per month, it’s a scientific fact. When Michael and dozens of schoolmates are abducted, the boy’s family is concerned, but not terrified or bereaved. Even children have to realize that there’s something off and unnatural about people’s reactions in the movie; young Micheal is terrified and depressed by the fact that his body is in revolt against him, but none of his adult protectors share his alarm or identify with his sadness.
Kids won’t pick up on the pedestrian acting and the flubbed attempts at comedy, though these factors will likely annoy adults. But even for a grown-up, the script is interesting and unpredictable enough to overcome the workmanlike thesping (and even to make you overlook the vapid, oh-so-80s synth-pop score). With its deep imagination and grasp of childhood psychology, I could imagine The Peanut Butter Solution working more effectively as a picture book than as a movie; the Signor would be a far scarier villain in the mind’s eye than he is onscreen, and the surreal situations would make illustrators salivate.
Despite the legions of adults who remember The Peanut Butter Solution from their youth, the film has never been available on DVD. (VHS copies are not hard to come by). I have a theory as to why this is: a pre-fame Celine Dion sings two (frankly lame) songs on the soundtrack, and I suspect her camp is unwilling to clear their rights without a hefty down payment first. Whenever a film is unavailable due to rights squabbles, it’s a tragedy, but there may be a silver lining here: at least the movie won’t give a whole new generation of kids nightmares.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by “James,” who said “I saw it as a child and was freaked out and I’ve seen it recently and it’s just as weird…check it out!” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
CAPSULE: ALIEN VS. NINJA (2010)
DIRECTED BY: Seiji Chiba
FEATURING: Mansinori Mimoto, Mika Hijii, Donpei Tsuchihira, Shuji Kashiwabara
PLOT: Aliens land in feudal Japan, and a band of ninjas must defeat them.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s a lightweight action movie with some b-movie absurdity; a fun and frivolous flick for an evening’s entertainment, but not approaching the level of weirdness required for Listing.
COMMENTS: Inventive swordplay and thrilling (if ridiculous) action choreography narrowly defeat cheap CGI and corny rubber alien suits in Alien vs. Ninja, reaffirming our faith in humanity over technology. In the prologue that begins the film, CGI ninjas leap from a towering pagoda, launching themselves at ridiculous speeds and flying hundreds of feet in the air; the effect doesn’t look superhuman so much as amateurishly fake. By contrast, in the first action scene ninja freak Yamata slices up a dozen opponents, whirling about and deploying four different blades, tossing one into the air and using another to sling it into its target when it falls; both scenes are impossible, but the second one is an exciting and convincing illusion. The ninja effects generally beat the alien effects; the extraterrestrials, while imaginatively designed (they have extra orifices hiding some nasty little tricks), are obviously played by a man in a rubber suit, and their immobile facial features seem way behind the times. They look like they came from a planet where life evolved along the lines of a 1980s or 1990s Roger Corman movie, which could be a plus or a minus depending on your tastes in cheesy monsters. There is some of the expected gore—a head squashed in an explosion of blood, and so on—but this actioner doesn’t follow the splatterpunk ethos, where showers of blood and organs are the “money shots” and main reason for the flick to exist. The plot is serviceable: it’s a formula action flick, but a few minor points may catch you by surprise, and tributes to the classic Alien movies supply some additional interest. The four main ninja characters are only briefly sketched, but that’s just fine, since the movie drags whenever they take a stab at fleshing them out. The cowardly older ninja, played for broad comic relief by a mugging Donpei Tsuchihira, can’t get off the screen fast enough for most Westerners’ tastes. Although it’s the action scenes, directed by Yûji Shimomura, that elevate Alien vs. Ninja from pure junk to acceptable entertainment, it’s the few flourishes of typically Japanese absurd humor that make it of tangential interest to weirdophiles. It’s ludicrous that one ninja can deflect a throwing star hurled by another one in mid-flight or that a man could land on his feet unharmed after plummeting to earth from above the treetops, but what’s weird is that when ninjas are turned into zombies by alien parasites, the only language they can use are curse words—in contemporary English. Even stranger is the one-on-one melee between sexy Mika Hijii (in skintight black latex ninja-wear with specially molded boob armor, yum) and an alien who seems to have cross-species mating more on his mind than victory in combat. This battle is the funniest, most memorable and most bizarre of Alien vs. Ninja‘s set pieces; fortunately, Mika has “mighty strength” to help protect her from horny, handsy space monsters. Mildly weird, with good action sequences and some silly chuckles, Ninja vs. Alien is not just a solid choice if you want to see martial arts masters duke it out ninjato to tentacle with beings from another planet—it’s your only choice.
Alien vs. Ninja is the first offering from Sushi Typhoon, a new B-movie subsidiary of venerable Nikkatsu studios (best known around these parts for their battle to get weird director Seijun Suzuki blacklisted after he delivered the sublime but “incomprehensible” Branded to Kill).
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: