“The script was original, it had this carny/circus thing which I’ve always associated with Hollywood. Let’s face it, it’s a freakshow out here, it’s a circus, we’re all on the merry-go-round. And this cartoonish, kind of weird sensibility this film had, it was almost like a weird childhood memory of these local television shows I remember watching as a kid…”–Bill Paxton on why he was attracted to the script of The Dark Backward
PLOT: Marty Malt is a garbageman and aspiring stand-up comic with no talent and no confidence. One day, a third arm begins to spontaneously grow out of his back. Although his act hasn’t improved, the gimmick is enough so that greasy agent Jackie Chrome takes interest in him and his accordion-playing, garbage-eating buddy Gus.
BACKGROUND:
The Dark Backward was the first script written by Adam Rifkin, who was only 19 years old at the time. He would direct the film six years later at age 25.
The title was selected by opening the complete works of Shakespeare to a random page (the quote comes from “The Tempest,” Act I, Scene II: “How is it/That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else/In the dark backward and abysm of time?”
James Caan reportedly agreed to appear in the film only after an insistent Rifkin called him at the Playboy Mansion.
Judd Nelson auditioned for the role by performing Marty Malt’s comedy routines, in disguise, at open-mike nights in Los Angeles.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: Probably, one of the many images of Marty’s third arm, whether he displays it to the audience by mechanically spinning around after delivering another lame joke, or as doctor James Caan examines the embryonic fingers sprouting from the his back. Individual viewers’ mileage may vary, however; you may be indelibly grossed out by the orgy with three morbidly obese women, or by Gus’ nauseating midnight snack of rotting chicken.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The premise alone—the world’s worst stand-up comic becomes a success after he sprouts a third arm from his back—immediately qualifies as weird. For better and worse, director Rifkin doesn’t shy away from going whole hog into grotesquerie, churning out a first feature that looks like a technically polished version of an early John Waters film.
Apologies first: last week, I said the Dark Backward review would appear, but real life intervened and we couldn’t get it out. Expect to see it appear early next week. Other reviews that are planned, but may or may not appear next week: our long-anticipated Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind treatment, John Hand’s low-budget sci-fi followup to Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare, Scars of Youth (2008), and, just for giggles, Beyond Re-Animator.
For our weirdest search term used to locate the site last week, we’ll go with someone’s attempt to track down info on a very obscure film sub-genre: “ElectroMagnetic Field comedy movies.”
The reader-suggested review queue looks like this: Survive Style 5+ (looking for a copy); The Dark Backward (next week–this time, I swear!); The Short Films of David Lynch; Santa Sangre; Dead Man; Inland Empire; Monday (assuming I can find an English language version); The Abominable Dr. Phibes; Barton Fink; What? (Diary of Forbidden Dreams); Meatball Machine; Xtro; Basket Case; Suicide Club; O Lucky Man!; Trash Humpers (when/if released); Gozu; Tales of Ordinary Madness; The Wayward Cloud; Kwaidan; Six-String Samurai; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Altered States; Memento; Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (possibly jumping in line to come out next week); Gothic; The Attic Expeditions; After Last Season; Getting Any?; Performance; Being John Malkovich; The Apple; Southland Tales; Arizona Dream; Spider (2002); Songs From The Second Floor; Singapore Sling; Alice [Neco z Alenky]; Necromania (1971, Ed Wood); Hour of the Wolf; MirrorMask; Possession; Suspiria; Mary and Max; Wild Zero; 4; Nothing (2003); The Peanut Butter Solution; Ninja Scroll; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Danger: Diabolik; Faust; Sublime; Battle Royale; Pink Floyd: The Wall;Escanaba In Da Moonlight; Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter; Zardoz; The Films of Suzan Pitt; and Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]. Wow!
David Firth, creator of our first Saturday Short “Crooked Rot”, receives his second appearance on our site with the eighth episode of his bizarre comedy series, Salad Fingers. (If you haven’t seen the previous seven, don’t worry. There’s no background information you’ll need in order to understand this one.) Whether you laugh so hard you puke, or curl up in the fetal position during this clip, one thing is certain, David is a master of weird.
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):
Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated (2009): An intriguing, though badly underpromoted, idea. Shades of Waking Life, a team of animators animated scenes from the public domain classic Night of the Living Dead in varying styles encompassing “everything from puppet theater to CGI, hand drawn animation to flash, and oil paintings to tattoos.” It will surely come out on DVD someday, but for now it seems to be popping up in sporadic screenings (though the only one I’ve heard of was in Alaska). Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated official site. [UPDATE: per project organizer Mike Schneider (see comment), readers are encouraged to contact their “local independent theater or favorite tv/ web horror host to contact screening@notldr.com” to arrange a screening of the movie. This is a not-for-profit project, which helps explain why they are trying to promote it solely through word of mouth.]
Saint John of Las Vegas: This quirky road trip story about a retired blackjack player turned insurance fraud investigator returning to Las Vegas has some surreal interludes, but even the presence of Steve Buscemi and Sarah Silverman hasn’t stopped critics from savagely beating it and leaving the remains for dead in the desert (a stunningly bad 5% on Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer). Saint John of Las Vegas official site.
FILM FESTIVALS:
Sundance (Park City, Utah, Jan 21-31): Sundance snuck up on us this year! No wonder: the indie fest is not really a friend to innovation and experimentalism so much as it is to environmentalism, leftist politics in general, and insomnia-curing documentaries. Nonetheless, there are some weird and potentially weird films screening this year:
Armless – comedy about a married suburban man he finally gathers the courage to live out his lifelong dream: having his arms amputated
Cane Toads: The Conquest – a sequel to Mark Lewis’ 1998 cult documentary about the “invasion” of cane toads in Australia—this go-round, in 3-D!
Enter the Void – fresh from an unsuccessful run at Cannes and primed for an unsuccessful run at Sundance, this story of an immigrant Tokyo drug dealer/addict who survives a hail of gunfire as a hallucinating ghost is described by director Gaspar (Irréversible) Noé as a “psychedelic melodrama.”
Memories of Overdevelopment [Memorias del desarrollo] – Collage-style story of a Cuban exile in the United States. The overwritten press release claims it is, among other things, “a surreal foray into memory and the unconscious.”
ODDSAC – A 53-minute “visual album” matching experimental visuals to the equally experimental music of Animal Collective. Visuals and audio are both definitely trippy.
Pepperminta – Swiss story of a literally colorful young woman who throws swaths of psychedelic dye and groovy fantasy over the mundane world outside her door. Sundance includes a multimedia installation revealingly titled Lobe of Lung: The Saliva Ooze Away to the Underground that allows the viewer to “lounge inside the film”.
The Temptation of St. Tony [Püha Tõnu kiusamine] – Black and white, surrealist Estonian film about a mid-level manager who begins to question the value of virtue; the scenario seems to be inspired equally by the story of St. Anthony and Dante’s “Inferno.” For our purposes, the most promising entry at Sundance, and the film we’ll be keeping an eye on.
Vegetarian – Korean film about a young woman who has dreams that cause her to become disgusted by meat. Hard to get a fix on what it’s going to be like.
The Violent Kind – a movie about drug-dealing outlaw bikers and their encounter with the supernatural and weird colors in the sky. Self-described “gleeful, insane exploitation”; Twitch called it “the pinnacle of the WTF?! genre.” Another one to watch for.
NEW ON DVD:
Goodbye Gemini (1970): A very obscure British psychothriller about a pair of fraternal twins (with the usual eerie bond) who are introduced into the swinging subculture of mod 1960’s London. Buy Goodbye Gemini.
Little Ashes (2009): Read our capsule review. Dry and gossipy biopic about the rumored love affair between Salvador Dalí and poet Federico García. Buy Little Ashes.
Paris, Texas (1984): Not necessarily weird, but Wim Wender’s starkly beautiful movie about a man found wandering in the desert who starts to reconnect with the life he left behind has an odd and dreamlike tone that becomes hypnotic at times. Highly recommended; a great add by the Criterion Collection. Buy Paris, Texas (Criterion Collection).
Troma’s War (Tromasterpiece Edition) (1988): Several Tromaville citizens crash land on a Caribbean island and are soon caught up in a third world war. If you’ve seen one Troma movie, you’ve pretty much seen them all. No idea how this “Tromasterpiece” edition differs from the previous release. Buy Troma’s War (Tromasterpiece Edition).
Background: reader Funkadelic has gone above and beyond the call of duty in making suggestions/recommendations for inclusion on the site, both in the feature and short film categories. Not that I want to encourage readers to compete to outdo him and try to get their own dedicated posts, but I thought I could clean up the suggestion thread a bit by moving his numerous recommendations to their own post. Please enjoy; Funky’s tastes are in line with ours, his enthusiasm is infectious, and everything here comes pre-recommended.
Links go to trailers or short clips, or in the case of shorts to the complete films.
FUNAKDELIC says: “I can’t help the enthusiasm in discovering this site. It fits my taste like an iridescent, window-to-another-world glove with elongated fingers.”
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