Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 6/18/2010

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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 (WIDE RELEASE):

Jonah Hex (2010): Possibly the weirdest looking summer blockbuster (with the exception of Christoper Nolan’s Inception), this adaptation of a relatively obscure DC comics mixes the western and fantasy genres with action movie cliches.  The fact that certain sequences in the trailer look to be inspired by Django (and even Jodorowsky) is a plus, lack of buzz and no advance screenings combine to make a big minus. With Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, and ubiquitous eye candy Megan Fox.  A long shot for weirdness, but the summer doldrums are upon us. Jonah Hex official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Mary and Max (2009): This Australian claymation release about an unlikely online friendship between an eight-year old goth girl in Melbourne and a friendless middle-aged New Yorker with Asperger’s syndrome is currently languishing in our reader-suggested review queue. This DVD release helps its reviewability. Buy Mary and Max.

Mystery Train (1989):  This anthology of three short films set in Memphis is not particularly weird, though Elvis’ ghost does appear.  This Criterion Collection release is notable for Jim Jarmusch completists, however. Buy Mystery Train (Criterion Collection).

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Mary and Max (2009): See entry in DVD above. Buy Mary and Max [Blu-ray].

Mystery Train (1989): See entry in DVD above. Buy Mystery Train (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

NEW ON ITUNES:

Burning Inside (2010): Read our capsule review.  Priced at $4.99.  We’re not going to be tracking everything that’s released on ITunes, at least not until this format gets a much larger market share, but it is interesting to note this new distribution avenue for independent films. Buy Burning Inside at Itunes.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Samurai Princess (2009):  Another Japanese splatterpunk fantasy in the Meatball Machine vein.  In a weird mythical fantasy forest fusing feudal elements with modern anachronisms, a rape victim is turned into a “mecha” and infused with the eleven souls of her fellow victims to seek revenge.  A review of this one has been pending for quite a while (it’s also available on Netflix streaming, where I saw it); it’s not great, but fans of the genre will get the weird gore they’re looking for.   Shocked to see this show up on YouTube.  Watch Samurai Princess 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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE GREAT K & A TRAIN ROBBERY (1926)

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The Great K & A Train Robbery, and movies like it, are why God invented popcorn.  Tom Mix is detective Tom.  Tom has been hired by Cullen (Will Walling), the President of K & A Railroad, to put a stop to a series of robberies that has a put a hurt good to his business.  Unknown to Tom and Cullen, it is the president’s secretary, the dastardly mustachioed Holt (Carl Miller) that has been tipping off the robbers and is in cahoots with them.

Tom must disguise himself as a masked bandit.  Even Cullen does not know Tom’s secret identity!  This is a mile-a-second silent oater that’s certain to burn some brain cells, but it’s a helluva lot safer than illegal substances, and a lot more fun too.

The opening shot of Tom as he descends upside down a rope over a raging river in Royal George of Colorado is a thrill a second as he finally lands right onto the back of Tony the horse.  The scene sets the tone for the whole movie, which director Lewis Seiler keeps moving at a break-neck pace.

The corny dialogue is priceless too.  Tom tells his comedy relief assistant Deluxe Harry (played by Harry Grip), ” I’m trailin’ train robbers for Cullen, president of the K & A–but he doesn’t know it! I just learned his secretary is one of the crooks and that’s why I am keeping a secret identity!”

Still from The Great K&A Train Robbery (1926)

Of course, there is a beautiful girl, Madge (Dorothy Dwan) who is the daughter of Mr. Cullen.  She is resisting Daddy’s efforts to get her engaged to his man, Holt.  Never fear, Tom is going to save the day and get the girl.  Mr. Mix bounces off the walls.  Remarkably, he was 46 years old in this film.  Tom, doing all of his own stunts, prevents desperadoes from kidnapping the heroine by pulling her off a runaway carriage and on to his horse Tony, runs atop a locomotive, then hides from the bad guys underneath the speeding train, and all that within the first fifteen minutes.  Later,  Tom and Tony jump from a two story window into a pool below, Tom engages in fisticuffs aplenty atop the railroad cars in a dark tunnel,  and defeats the entire gang barehanded when he discovers the gang’s underground cavern (which looks like something out of the Phantom of the Opera’s lair).  Indiana Jones has nothing on this guy.

There is embarrassing stereotyped comedy relief with an African American K & A employee, named Snowball, but it’s mercifully brief.  Harry provides the bulk of the comedy relief, which is slightly less painful.

Still, it is a crammed 60 minutes. I resisted temptation and went with the buttered light popcorn. I probably should have indulged.

Reader Recommendations

READER RECOMMENDATION: HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)

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The second submission in the June review writing contest: by “SG Eric”.

DIRECTOR: Hal Ashby

FEATURING: Bud Cort,

PLOT: Twenty-something rich kid unfulfilled with his life stages fake suicides to peeve his uppity mother and ultimately finds meaning in life when he meets carefree 89-year-old Maude.

Still from Harold and Maude (1971)

WHY IT DESERVES TO MAKE THE LIST: The May-December romance theme is taken to the extreme by romantically entangling (yes, I mean sexually) a very young man with a very old lady.  Considered taboo by most people, the film makes a plea that the perversion is justified because these two odd souls truly do make a bona fide connection with each other, regardless of age or what society deems as acceptable.

COMMENTS:  First off, I’ll admit that I’m biased when it comes to this film. It has been my all-time favorite for about as long as I can remember. Excepting The Dark Crystal (which just frightened me) it was the first truly “weird” film I encountered as a child.  Like any other kid of my generation, I was enamored by the spectacle that was Star Wars.  Fantasy consumes a child’s existence, and there was no greater escape than those first three films.  I’m guessing around ’84 I first came upon Harold and Maude on HBO.  I was engrossed immediately.  Here was a movie that did not rely on fantasy to hold your attention.  Sure, there is some reality-based whimsy involved.  The humor is dark for sure, some may say morbid, but to a 10-year-old kid watching someone feigning multiple suicides comes off as hilarious.  At least it did for me at the time, and yes it still does.

I know this movie has a huge and dedicated cult following.  Without trying to sound completely snobbish, I hope it stays within that circle.  It deserves to be seen by those who like their cinema offbeat.  I find this movie to be so perfect that I cannot fathom anyone not enjoying it.

Now let’s talk about what makes this movie weird.  The May-December theme is basically a couple who is one-half old and one-half young.  It has been explored many times over in movies, usually in dreadful Hollywood romantic comedies.  Usually, it is the older man falling for the younger girl… yes, tracing a semi-origin to “Lolita,” one of the most popular novels written about the subject, which was made into a couple of “controversial” films.  There are exceptions of good films exploring this theme.  Ghost World (I agree a bit creepy for a couple) or Lost in Translation are good examples, but they never really surpassed plain ol’ sweetness.  What sets Harold and Maude apart, other than the gender-role age discrepancy being reversed, is that they give each other hope and a true purpose for life.

Harold’s mother ceaselessly tries to find a respectable mate through dating services.  Harold wants no part in this shallowness, and bizarre fake suicides are performed to ward each one off.  Upon meeting Maude at funeral services, for which neither one knows the deceased, they hit it off.  Maude takes part in several shenanigans that involuntarily involve Harold.  He starts to see this chaos/anarchy as a means for living and loving.  He tells his mother early on that he has found a companion in Maude and provides evidence with a picture of her.  I believe initially the affair was meant to once again irk his mother, but eventually unfolds to true and devout love.  Of course his mother is aghast and she stops at nothing to prevent the relationship.  Again, the results are nothing short of hilarious.

I have always been fascinated by two people who are linked together and it seems to be a complete mismatch.  The beauty of Harold and Maude is that they are not mismatched at all.  Only the age factor makes it seem that way.  I compare it to seeing a strange couple walking down the aisle of a store.  One is obese and the other is pencil-thin.  It makes you raise and eyebrow and think, “that’s weird.”  Is it?  If they are happy I salute them. Love truly knows no boundaries and it makes this life what it is.  Films like Harold and Maude can show you that love exists, in spades.  It may also tell you to take that spade and dig up that city tree and transplant it in the forest where it belongs.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a doggedly eccentric film which some will reject out of hand. Others will find it profoundly moving and life affirming.”–TV Guide

Reader Recommendations

READER RECOMMENDATION: SOCIETY(1989)

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Our first entry in the June review writing contest: submitted by J.S. Roberts.

DIRECTED BY: Brian Yuzna

FEATURING: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Patrice Jennings, David Wiley

PLOT: Teenage Bill Whitney (Warlock) ostensibly lives on easy street.  He lives with his filthy rich parents and hottie sister in posh Beverly Hills, plus he has a babe cheerleader girlfriend and is reasonably popular.  His future looks bright.  For Billy, all this makes him “uneasy”.  He tells his shrink that he thinks something very weird and possibly evil lurks under his upper-class society.  As he tries to scratch the surface to uncover what’s beneath, he soon finds something unlike anything ever.  In the history of society.

Still from Society (1989)

WHY IT DESERVES TO MAKE THE LIST: Simply, the bravura finale.  Society takes it’s time towards it but when it comes…watch out!  Surreal, disgusting, unique, and an absolute must see.  People melt, melt into each other, melt into…things . To continue would be giving away the film’s powerhouse trump card placed securely up it’s sleeve.  But I find the film’s overall tone to be the second weirdest aspect.  It plays out like a made-for-TV melodrama and keeps you intrigued enough to stick with it, then the “shunt” (ending). Powerful stuff, the shunt is.

COMMENTS: Society really is an (purposefully?) overlooked gem.  Perhaps it’s greatest shortcoming , and maybe the reason it doesn’t have a greater cult following, is that for most of it’s run time it plays like a queasy hybrid of “The Hills” and “The Twilight Zone.”  Bland, beautiful people with bland problems living in a sort-of alternate universe; Society is a not so subtle satire on the lifestyles of the rich and shameless.  Society is a rare, off-the-wall, and greatly satirical American film that offers a lot of food for thought.  Which is a good thing, because you’re not going to be hungry after.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“A bizarre fable that starts like a TV soap but soon darkens into a disturbing thriller… the ‘surrealistic make-up designs’… will stretch even the most inelastic mind.”–Time Out Film Guide

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE ADVENTURES OF SHARKBOY AND LAVAGIRL IN 3-D (2005)

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DIRECTED BY: Robert Rodriguez

FEATURING: George Lopez, Cayden Boyd, Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley

PLOT:  Dreamy young Max invents the imaginary superheroes Sharkboy and Lavagirl from Planet Drool to brighten his dull existence; when his dream journal is stolen by a schoolyard bully, Planet Drool is taken over by tyrants and his imaginary friends whisk him away to his disintegrating dream world to set things right.

Still from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D (2005)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The childishly imaginative The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D shows all the evidence of having been taken out of the hands of the original scenarist, 7 year old Racer Max Rodriguez, and script-doctored to fit into a kiddie film format that would be more comfortable for adults. The tale heads off in weird directions, obliterating the line between fantasy and reality as it meanders down a stream-of-consciousness style from superheroes to roller coasters to electrical plug villains to omniscient floating head robots. It’s a near-perfect exhibition of the hyperactive schizophrenia of a typical seven-year old. So far, so good; but then, someone—my money is on director Robert Rodriguez—imposed a standard three-act structure on the story, smoothed out the non-sequiturs, and tossed in a moral about realizing your dreams to placate stern, rational adults. Had they stuck to Racer’s original vision, Sharkboy and Lavagirl, as the first script actually written by a seven year old, might have turned out as one of the weirdest movies ever made.

COMMENTS: Sharks are not weird. Pomegranates are weird. I base this conclusion on the fact that the Armenian director Sergei Parajanov once chose to make a weird movie about pomegranates, but no one has ever made a weird movie about sharks. Sharks are b-movie heavies, excuses for bad special effects and senseless gratuitous violence. They serve the same cinematic purpose as other non-weird bad guy archetypes like giant spiders, psychotic killers in hockey-masks, and Paris Hilton.

Mega-sharks, on the other hand, may be weird, but I thought of them too late.

Robert Rodriguez, who alternates making weirdish adult cult movies like Grindhouse and Sin City with wacky children’s movies like the Spy Kids series, loves sharks, a love affair that began when Steven Spielberg’s Jaws premiered on his 7th birthday. For recreation, he goes scuba diving in shark-infested waters in a steel cage. He’s passed down his obsession with sharks to his son Racer, who, between the ages of six and seven, made up the character of Sharkboy in stories he told to amuse himself. In an attempt to recapture the spirit of youth and create a movie that would appeal to directly to kids with as little adult intervention as possible, the elder Rodriguez took Racer’s ideas, dialogue and plot sketches (as verbatim as he could while still making a reasonably coherent movie), cast professional talent in the key roles, and directed his son’s daydreams in front state of the art green-screen special effects as The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl.
Sharkathalon!
I say this to explain why a weird movie website is covering a semi-weird, shark-lite, non-horror movie for the b-movie roundtable SHARKATHALON!, “week-long tribute to everything that has to do with sharks and horror films” scheduled to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the release of Jaws. Fans of the toothy marine predators looking for tales of blood in the water, prepare for something completely different.

With those flimsy justifications out of the way, let’s jump into Racer’s kiddie shark pool, where the chum floating in the water isn’t chunks off a great white’s latest victim, but shreds of childhood dreams.

First off, forget 3-D. Part of the reason this film was originally panned is because the 3-D effects, which came along at the very tail end of the red-blue glasses era and just before the contemporary polarized glasses became standard, just didn’t measure up. The DVD comes with red-blue glasses and offers viewers the chance to torture themselves with them should they so wish, but most will be happy to stick to the standard flat-viewing experience.

The adventures begin with Sharkboy’s origin story: son of a marine biologist, separated from his father and lost in a CGI sea after a storm, adopted by talking sharks; naturally, his exposure to the sharky lifestyle results in him growing gills, fangs and fins  Lavagirl, the affirmative-action superheroine added to tap into the lucrative girl market, doesn’t get an origin story; she Continue reading CAPSULE: THE ADVENTURES OF SHARKBOY AND LAVAGIRL IN 3-D (2005) →

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