Saturday Short, Shorts

SATURDAY SHORT: BULB (2008)

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David Collins may not have a lot of material posted on video-sharing websites like YouTube and Vimeo, but the few shorts and trailers he does have out have certainly attracted our attention. Collins has the creativity to be a part of something big. For now, however, it appears that Dave will have to continue maxing out his credit cards for each humble release.

Bulb – Short Film from David Collins on Vimeo.

For more on David’s past, present, and upcoming work visit his personal site www.ssplayground.com

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 9/10/2010

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A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

There’s nothing of even moderate weird interest debuting in theaters this week. Maybe we should all go outside and enjoy the last days of fading summer.  Or, stay inside and enjoy the bonanza of cult Blu-ray releases this week (along with the releases mentioned below, there’s also a hi-def version of the iconic sci-fi Forbidden Planet being released this week… it may be time for you Blu-ray holdouts to get your hands on a player).

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Mars Attacks! (1996): Tim Burton‘s silly but star-studded tribute to 50s alien invasion movies gets its Blu-ray debut. Buy Mars Attacks! [Blu-ray].

Stardust (2007): This epic fantasy/romance with unicorns and falling stars, based on a Neil (Coraline) Gaiman novel, starred Claire Danes, Ian McClellan and Robert De Niro, yet made little impact at the box office.  I’ll confess to being one of the many who missed it, but its reputation is growing on home video; its weirdness is still in doubt, though. Buy Stardust [Blu-ray].

THX 1138 (1971):  Made a long time ago in a stylistic galaxy far away from the shock and awe of Star Wars, George Lucas’ somewhat avant-garde debut was a dystopian fable set in a narcotic future where everyone sports a number rather than a name, shaves their heads, and dresses in white in a white walled, whitewashed world.  Starring Robert Duval and Donald Pleasance, and cult fave Sid Haig even puts in an appearance.  The Blu-ray release contains numerous extras including Lucas commentary, but all of them appeared on the previous 2-disc DVD special edition. Buy THX 1138 [Blu-ray].

Tommy (1975): Ken Russell directed this adaptation of the Who’s rock opera about a “deaf, dumb and blind kid” who becomes a pinball messiah in between his crazed biopics of Mahler and Liszt.  It’s a candidate for the List, so we may be getting around to reviewing this one sooner rather than later.  The only downside is that this is a bare-bones Blu-ray, lacking the Russell commentary and other extras that graced previous DVD editions.  Buy Tommy [Blu-ray].

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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

DESPERATE LIVING (1977)

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NOTE: Female Trouble has been added to the List of the 366 Weirdest Movies Ever Made. Please read the official Certified Weird entry.

If Female Trouble (1975) is John Waters‘ greatest narrative film, then Desperate Living (1977) is his inimitable descent into a surreal, kitsch abyss that few could imagine. Desperate Living is Waters’ personal, alternative universe to the parallel world of Busby Berkeley.  Seen today, Berkeley’s films are a surreal wet dream, a perverse man’s big budget fairy tales.  Waters filmed his perverse anti-fairy tale on a meager budget three years after Female Troubles, although he had substantially more money here than on his previous films. Budget or no, Desperate Living is just as grandiose and epic as anything Berkeley ever produced.

Star Divine was not available due to other commitments so Waters tapped Mink Stole, who more than makes up for the loss (additionally, Waters regular David Lochary died of an overdose shortly before filming).   The film opens with a bang in the form of a brilliant, in-your-face, unhinged preamble from Stole as Peggy, the most delightful sociopath to ever grace the annuls of independent cinema.  Peggy discovers her filthy sodomite whelps playing doctor’s office and goes berserk.  To make matter worse, Peggy’s bore of a husband, Bosley (George Stover) catches Grizelda, their 400 pound maid (Jean Hill), nipping at the jack so he decides to fire her.  Enough is enough, so Grizelda conks Bosley over the head and then suffocates him by sitting on his face.

Still from Desperate Living (1977)Grizelda tells Peggy,  “I am now your sister in crime, bitch!” Peggy, avoiding the same fate as Bosley, goes along with her former maid. The coupling of Peggy and Grizelda is comically deranged, literally climaxing with Grizelda forcing Peggy to give her oral sex as she screams out, ‘Eat it! Eat it!”

The two are on the run, and Peggy is disturbed by the surrounding beauty of nature: “You know I hate nature!  Look at those disgusting trees, stealing my oxygen.  Oh, I can’t stand this scenery Continue reading DESPERATE LIVING (1977) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: GETTING ANY? [MINNA YATTERUKA!] (1994)

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DIRECTED BY: Takeshi Kitano

FEATURING: Dankan, Takeshi “Beat” Kitano

PLOT: A horny loser tries his best to get laid. He decides his main goal is to have sex in a car

Still from Getting Any? (1994)

and when that doesn’t work, he embarks on various escapades to gain money or notoriety; he even goes as far as becoming invisible to get some action.   Absurd situations and mistaken identities lead to one disaster after another.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It is slapstick comedy Japanese-style. While much Japanese humor leans toward absurdity, this film misses the mark completely. The ending comes off as slightly weird, yet the pointless and unfunny comedy bits which lead up to the finale make the ending just another misguided joke that falls flat (or in this case, splat).

COMMENTS: For as many movies I have seen in my life, I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never seen the classic films by acclaimed director Takeshi “Beat” Kitano.  Films such as Hana-Bi, Sonatine and Violent Cop are all considered masterpieces in the yakuza films genre. Getting Any? is a straight-up slapstick comedy farce and is probably not the best place to start in exploring Kitano’s works.  His yakuza films are noted for their subtle use of deadpan acting and humor nestled snugly within the violent action.  If that is the case, Getting Any? acts as the polar opposite.  The humor is in your face with infinite gags and subtlety is thrown out the window with some goofy sound effect.  It is nonsensical, amateurish, juvenile and above all else… not funny.  The film satirizes iconic Japanese pop culture such as the Zatoichi films, Lone Wolf and Cub and even Godzilla pictures.  It also takes a stab at Western pop culture, although the references (Michael Jackson and Ghostbusters) were relevant 10 years prior to the release of this film.

The lead character Asao (Dankan) is a middle-aged man desperate to find just one woman to have sex with him.  He is a perpetual daydreamer who constantly fantasizes about an alter-ego who is always lucky in this department. In Asao’s mind, there must be a surefire way to get women to easily bare their breasts and succumb to his sexual advances.  His first inclination is to get a car because that seems like the most opportune place to do the deed. Continue reading CAPSULE: GETTING ANY? [MINNA YATTERUKA!] (1994) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: THANKSKILLING (2009)

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DIRECTED BY: Jordan Downey

FEATURING: Lindsey Anderson, Lance Predmore

PLOT: A killer turkey stalks a jock, a fat hillbilly, a nerd, a naughty babe, and a nice babe in this

Still from ThanksKilling (2009)

hour-long homemade horror-comedy.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST:  A few of the gags in this holiday slasher spoof push the boundaries of silliness so far that they approach the weird, but in the end this light snack of a killer turkey flick is an honorable time-killer, nothing more.

COMMENTS:  For a junk food film that wears its extreme dumbness as a badge of honor, ThanksKilling makes several smart moves.  The first is keeping the running time to a trim 66 minutes; more fat might have made it hard to swallow.  The second is starting off the movie with a prologue set in “the Olden Days” featuring an wisecracking, axe-wielding turkey puppet stalking an inexplicably topless Pilgrim woman; you immediately understand the level of filmmaking you’re about to be exposed to.  (Don’t get too excited about that topless Pilgrim woman; the movie blows its entire nudity budget in the first five minutes, and hooking the target audience early probably counts as the movie’s third smart move).  Along with the expected parodies of slasher movie cliches and the bad puns from the monster (“now that’s what I call ‘fowl’ play!”), the insanity includes psychedelic poultry point-of-view shots, an animated origin flashback, turkey rape (animal lovers calm down: it’s the bird that does the violating), and a glowing radioactive butterball monster for the final course.  The best, weirdest and funniest sequence involves the turkey successfully posing as the heroine’s father by killing pop and wearing dad’s skinned face over his wattle.  You already know if you’re the intended audience for this movie and if you’re not; if you are, you’ll find it a decent way to spend an hour.  The fun the crew had making this comes through on film; it’s so dumb and carefree you’ll think it was actually made by drunken frat boys over Thanksgiving break.

ThanksKilling is evidence that at least one person in the world—director Jordan Downey—bought a copy of Lloyd Kaufman‘s Make Your Own Damn Movie! and actually followed its advice.  In fact, Downey out-Tromas Troma here by making his entire movie for a mere $3500, about what Lloyd spends on a single Ron Jeremy cameo these days.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Filmed for about three-thousand-dollars, to say the final results are bizarre and random would be an understatement.”–Chris Hartley, The Video Graveyard (DVD)

Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!