Miscellanea

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

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On a personal note, I’ll be on vacation for most of next week.  But that doesn’t mean the site won’t be updated; we’re still going to supply you guys with a full week of weird movies.  You can look forward to a review of the unjustly hated kiddie fantasy The Adventures of Sharkboy andf Lavagirl in 3D, from Robert (Sin City) Rodriguez, as the odd-movie-out entry in Radiation Scarred Review’s SHARKATHALON! blogathon.  We’ll also be unveiling two reader submissions for June’s review writing contest: recommendations for Brian Yuzna‘s Society (1989) and Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971).  Alfred will also be around to review another B-Western, The Great K & A Train Robbery (1926), on Thursday.  So I don’t think I’ll  be missed too much.

By the way, there’s still plenty of time to enter the June review writing contest and win 2 DVDs… details here.

It’s another only slightly absurd week in weird search term used to locate the site.  We’ll go with “naked happening during making movie” as the one that caught our eye out of a weak field.

The exponentially-expanding reader suggested review queue, reprinted for your convenience:  Trash Humpers (we’re waiting for the DVD release); Kwaidan; Six-String Samurai; Andy Warhol’s Trash; Altered States; Memento; Nightmare Before Christmas/Vincent/Frankenweenie; The Science of Sleep; 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]; Necromentia; 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; Toto the Hero [Toto le Héros]; Paprika; The Holy Mountain; Brazil; The Casserole Masters; Dark Crystal; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets; The Nines; 964 Pinocchio; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel; Tetsuo; Dead Ringers; Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; Dead Leaves; The Seventh Seal; Primer; Maniac (1934); Hausu; A Boy and His Dog; 200 Motels; Walkabout; Private Parts (1972); Possession; Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ; The Bride of Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Uzumaki [Spiral]; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small; Bunny & the Bull; “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney” (assuming I can find it); Cinema 16: European Short Films; Freaked; Session 9; Schizopolis; Strings; Dellamorte Dellamore [AKA Cemetery Man]; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; The Addiction; Liquid Sky; The Quiet; Shock Treatment; Tuvalu; “Zombie Jesus” (if we can locate it); 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; May; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; Little Otik; Final Programme; Careful; Sweet Movie; The Triplets of Belleville; “Foutaises” (short); Johnny Suede; “Jam” (TV, UK, 2000), The Tale of the Floating World, Un Chien Andalou, Bloodsucking Freaks; Fellini Satyricon; Three Crowns of the Sailor; 8 1/2; Death Race 2000; Dororo; Lost Highway; Valerie and Her Week of Wonders; Dogville; and Julien Donkey-boy; Amelie; The Ten; The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao; 1; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Tokyo Gore Police; At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul; The Trial [Le procès) (1962); Marquis; Hell Comes to Frogtown; Hellzapoppin’; Seom [The Isle]; Allegro Non Troppo; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; Lust in the Dust; Celine and Julie Go Boating; “Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life;” The Magic Christian; Black Cat, White Cat; The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T; Abnormal: The Sinema of Nick Zedd; Robot Monster; Nightdreams; and 3 Women. Wow, just wow.

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 6/11/2010

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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.

Well, the summer blockbuster season is upon us, which means that there will be even less chance for weird or unusual films to get a major release.  If your dead set on seeing something in a theater this week, you may want to check out Winter’s Bone, a “hillbilly noir” that, while not weird, is drawing almost universal praise and early Oscar buzz for star Jennifer Lawrence.  Here’s the official site .

NEW ON DVD:

Long Pigs (2007): Fake documentary about a camera crew documenting the life of a cannibalistic serial killer. Sound familiar? Buy Long Pigs.

Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) (2009): Heads up, casual Monty Python fans! (Hardcore fans will have already pre-ordered this). Not the Messiah is a comic oratorio (riffing off Handel’s “Messiah”) that retells the story of the famous not-messiah Brian through newly written songs (and some old favorites). From a Royal Albert Hall concert, starring Eric Idle with guest appearances by the surviving Pythons (including Terry Gilliam, but minus John Cleese). Buy Not the Messiah.

Shutter Island (2010): Read our capsule review. Atmospheric psychothriller from Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Buy Shutter Island.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Shutter Island (2010): See entry in DVD above. Buy Shutter Island [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE

Baby Geniuses (1999): OK, so it’s an incredibly stupid comedy, not a weird movie, but we mention it for those bad movie lovers who enjoy torturing themselves. This movie about talking babies who disco-dance and deliver karate chops made Roger Ebert cry. With embarrassed Christopher Lloyd and Kathleen Turner. Followed by the even worse Superbabies: Baby Geniuses II (2004). You couldn’t pay me to watch it, but you can watch it for free! Watch Baby Geniuses 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

EDGAR G. ULMER’S THE BLACK CAT (1934)

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The Black Cat has been promoted onto the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies ever made. Please make comments general comments about the film on the official Certified Weird entry.

Edgar G. Ulmer has a cult reputation, particularly in France. The late British film critic, Leslie Halliwell, believed that reputation to be wholly undeserved, since most of Ulmer’s films ranged from B to Z status. Ulmer did not begin that way when, in 1934, he was handed “complete freedom” in an A (A-) production, teaming, for the first time, Universal Studio’s reigning horror stars Bela Lugosi and in the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired The Black Cat. The resulting film, and Ulmer’s affair with his employer’s wife, quickly ended a promising top-notch studio career almost as quickly as it began.

This first Karloff/Lugosi teaming was also their best. That is because of their eight collaborations this was their only joint-starring project directed by a visionary auteur. In The Black Cat Lugosi was cast as protagonist Dr. Vitus Werdegast, and Karloff as antagonist Hjalmer Poelzig. In the original, uncut film, Lugosi’s hero does some less than heroic things. Enough of Vitus’ sinister quality remains that Lugosi gives us a hero we are never quite comfortable with. Under Ulmer’s direction, Lugosi’s performance is superb, an extreme rarity for this actor. As good as Lugosi is, Karloff is even better and, as unpopular as it may be to say now, Karloff was always a far better actor than his co-star.

Ulmer’s “complete freedom” came to a screeching halt when universal execs saw the filmed footage and script. Lugosi’s hero rapes the heroine, the heroine occasionally turns into a black cat, and Karloff’s Poelzig is skinned alive and last seen crawling on the floor with his skin hanging from his body as Lugosi’s mad hero laughs hysterically. All of these scenes were cut from the film and, par the course at that time, were destroyed. There are conflicting accounts as to whether the scenes were shot and then burned, or merely scripted and axed.
Still from The Black Cat (1934)
Regardless, what remains of The Black Cat is a flawed, baroque masterpiece, intoxicating to watch and simultaneously frustrating, especially in light of Ulmer’s original intent. Lugosi’s Hungarian psychiatrist Vitus is traveling by train, and he is on a journey of revenge and retaliation. Vitus meets two newlyweds—American novelist Peter Alison and his wife Joan (played by David Manners and Jaqueline Wells)—who are as bland a 30s couple as one is likely to find. Lugosi sees something in the young woman Joan and touches her hair as she sleeps. The Hays Code be damned, it’s an erotic, Continue reading EDGAR G. ULMER’S THE BLACK CAT (1934) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE SECRET OF KELLS (2009)

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Must See

DIRECTED BY: Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey

FEATURING: Voices of Evan McGuire, Christen Mooney, Brendan Gleeson, Mick Lally

PLOT: In Ireland in the Dark Ages, Brendan chafes under the rule of his stern uncle, an
abbot obsessed with building a wall around the monastery to repel Viking invaders; the boy’s apprenticeship into the art of creating illuminated manuscripts gives him the courage to leave the safety of the village and enter the faerie-haunted forest that surrounds it.

Still from The Secret of Kells (2009)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s original, artistically superior and nearly dreamlike, but it lacks that defiant sense of “otherness” needed to carry it from the realm of the offbeat to the truly weird.

COMMENTS:  If Walt Disney hired a group of 9th century Irish monks to oversee the work of the animators who created Fantasia, the completed project might look something like The Secret of Kells.  (In fact, the animators weren’t Disney veterans, but some of the same folks who pulled off The Triplets of Belleville).  Both the story and the animation style of Secret were inspired by the historical Book of Kells, one of the most beautiful illuminated manuscripts in the history of Christendom.  Just as in the movie, books like Kells kept the light of knowledge and civilization burning during the Dark Ages, and invading barbarian hordes intent on plunder did threaten to quench that flame. (The movie is impeccably researched and filled with sly little details: even the white cat Pangur Bán is a historical figure).  Brendan’s quest to preserve and complete the Book places his story in an epic context, and it raises interesting implications about the way pagan and Christian beliefs melded to form a common culture, but the real tale here is the mythological Hero’s Journey, as Joseph Campbell defined it: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”  Brendan, the novice, ventures from the walls of the monastery into the mystical forest, where he encounters the faerie spirit Aisling: he defeats the sleeping pagan god Crom Cruach, symbolically becomes a man, and returns to Kells as the conquering hero who completes the Book and keeps civilization alive.  (Curiously, Christianity is never explicitly mentioned in the script; presumably, the omission is an attempt to universalize the tale).  The simple and familiar structure is a brilliant choice to tell this story, because it allows you to settle in and let the amazing imagery float through your eye and into your mind.  The color scheme is jewel-like, like the eye-popping miracle inks the monks go to great lengths to acquire for the Book.  Like the illustrations on the margins of an illuminated manuscript, elaborate curlicue motifs and baroque Celtic knots appears everywhere in the film—look for them drifting about in fog, falling in snowflakes, or hidden in the foliage of the forest.  Sometimes the edges of the frame will be decorated with these figures, like the margins in the real Book of Kells: but here, they acquire another dimension, swirling and dancing about, sometimes invading the frame like spinning Celtic amoebae.  The human figures, in contrast, are abstract, stylized and geometric. Abbot Cellach’s stature in the community is revealed in his freakish height; the bodies of the wolves are assembled out of sharp toothy triangles; the Vikings are brute cinderblock shadows with horns.  The styles merge to create a unique, otherworldly visual experience that simultaneously recalls the artwork of medieval monks and classic storybooks. The synthesis is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.  It’s a picture-perfect, visionary universe in which to set a tale trumpeting art and imagination as the essence of civilization, the only power strong enough to defeat the forces of darkness and barbarism.

No one denies the films visual authority; the sole criticisms revolve around the supposition that it’s light on plot.  I’m not so sure: the movie encompasses the story of a young boy who becomes a man and an artist, and it has fox-spirits, ancient pagan gods, mystical forests, spells, historical allegories, a flawed authority figure, moral dilemmas, Viking assaults… really, all its missing is a wisecracking anthropomorphic sidekick and a chase scene.  And I don’t miss those.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“On the visual level, the film is on a higher plane… The climactic sequence in which the Vikings finally attack might scare small fry if it weren’t so surreally, almost mathematically beautiful.”–Ty Burr, The Boston Globe (contemporaneous)

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