Received this question via email from someone looking for the name of a particular film:
“Starts in Heaven. God is going to destroy the world. Instead He sends an angel down. Angel takes the form of a dog then water then wind … ‘Angel’ helps a young film maker. Helps him make a film but it is not a commercial success. Final scene is the film is projected onto a sheet in the Notre Dame in Paris.
I have been searching for three years for the answer!”
It doesn’t ring a bell with me, and a preliminary search of IMDB keywords didn’t turn anything up. Does anyone recognize the title?
Also, if you have any weird movie mysteries of your own you want solved, post them in the “Comments” section and we’ll see what we can do.
UPDATE: Jordan of the B-Movie Film Vault says this plot seems familiar but he can’t place it. He asks whether it could be one of the “Left Behind” movies (or something from that genre).
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):
After.Life: Looks like another psychothriller about a dead person who doesn’t know she’s dead, although this one tips its hat in the plot synopsis. Christina Ricci wakes up on a slab in funeral parlor director Liam Neeson’s mortuary; she insists she’s alive, he tells her she’s in passage to the afterlife (or the after.life, I guess). Critics have been cruel; Ricci’s nude scenes may be the main draw. After.Life official site.
It Came from Kuchar (2009): Documentary on the works of the undeservedly obscure Kuchar twins, the 1960s trash-underground filmmaking pioneers who made Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965) among other titles that should be covered here. Buck Henry, John Waters, Atom Egoyan and Guy Maddin are among the hip celebrities attesting to their influence in the doc. Screening at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City this week; playing San Francisco and Berkeley the week after. Be on the lookout for a DVD release this summer. It Came from Kuchar official site.
Women Without Men (2009): Iranian magical realist story about four women who find respite from chaos and men in a magical garden during the 1953 coup that installed the Shah. Playing in the L.A. area only, unknown if there will be any future dates. No official site.
SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 12):
The Battle of the Sexes: Animated!: It’s girls vs. boys as the audience gets a chance to vote on which gender is better at making short animated (non-porno) sex films. Featuring films from five male directors (Bill Plympton, John Goras, PES, Duncan Beedie and Ondrej Rudavsky) and five females (Signe Baumane, Lisa Yu, Saray Dominguez and Joanna Quinn). The bout is scheduled for Monday, April 12 at 9 PM at the IFC Center; more information here.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Paprika: The sort-of good good news: MTV is reporting that director Wolfgang Petersen (The Neverending Story) has high hopes for a treatment of a live-action version of the surreal anime film Paprika (currently languishing in our reader-suggested review queue). The very, very bad news: Petersen is quoted as saying that he hopes to make this version “more accessible for a wide audience… more of a film for a mainstream audience.” Bad Wolfgang! Bad director!
NEW ON DVD:
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009): The concept, at least, is totally crazy: the great Werner Herzog remakes Abel Ferrara’s singular, bleak Bad Lieutenant, but as a self-aware action parody, with Nicolas Cage going wild (maybe channeling Klaus Hinski?) as the titular drug-crazed cop. We missed this in its eyeblink theatrical release and look forward to catching it on video. Buy Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
Jade Warrior [Jadesoturi] (2006): A Finnish/Chinese (!) co-produced fantasy about a Nordic blacksmith who relives a past life as a Chinese warrior. Reportedly quite confusing, though good. “Mystery Science Theater” fans may be pleased to hear that the plot prominently features a “sampo,” so this may be your chance to finally find out what a “sampo” is. Buy Jade Warrior.
Little Hercules (2009): Little Hercules travels from Mt. Olympus to Los Angeles in this apparent remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger flop Hercules in New York (1970). Surprisingly, this was a flop too, despite the remarkable cast: Judd Nelson, Robin Givens, Elliot Gould (as Socrates!), top-billed Hulk Hogan (as Zeus!), and three of Hulk Hogan’s offspring. Rated a 1.9 on IMDB, which would be low enough to put it in the bottom 100 movies if it had enough votes. Buy Little Hercules (at your own risk; 366 Weird Movies and it’s affiliates accept no responsibility for any emotional scars resulting from the viewing of Little Hercules).
Taxidermia (2005): Three interwoven stories about three generations of Hungarian men: a WWII veteran grandfather, a would-be athlete father, and a taxidermist son—surrealy woven together by weird director György (Hukkle) Pálfi. This is currently sitting in our reader-suggested review queue; we’ve been awaiting this Region 1 DVD debut for some time now. Buy Taxidermia.
Dreamscape (1984): Forgotten would-be blockbuster about a psychic who agrees to a job entering people’s nightmares to try and fix them. Starring Dennis Quaid, with Max von Sydow; the multiple dream sequences are supposed to be pretty good. Buy Dreamscape [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.
No Man’s Law is about as odd and obscure as it gets. Produced by Hal Roach, it stars Rex, King of the Wild Horses, Oliver Hardy (as a vile villain), James Finlayson,and Barbara Kent. Directed by some guy named Fred Jackman.
Oliver Hardy is one-eyed, grizzled, no good fugitive cuss Sharkey Nye, prospecting for gold with good guy partner Spider O’ Day, played by Theodore Von Eltz. James Finlayson, of many Laurel & Hardy shorts, has cute Barbara Kent for a daughter and he is prospecting too but he’s not very good at it. Rex, the horse, surveying his territory, does not take a liking to Ollie. When Ollie gets a wee bit too close to a skinny-dipping Barbara, Rex steps in, chasing off Ollie.
Rex knows trouble is afoot and Ollie proves Rex right by plotting to kill Finlayson. It’s murderous slapstick business as Ollie tries first to kill Finlayson, then tries to rape Barbara repeatedly, then kill Theodore. Every time, Rex steps in just in time to save the day, finally in time to kill off Ollie.
That’s about all there is to the plot, and No Man’s Law would not be remarkable at all if it weren’t for Roach’s trademark slapstick style being channeled into Oliver Hardy attempting to kill and rape his co-stars. Top-billed Rex is barely in it, showing up only when necessary. Kent is certainly doing her best Mabel Normand. For once, Finlayson has a somewhat sympathetic part, and Ollie gets no sympathy whatsoever.
The slapstick business comes when Ollie tries to kill Finlayson by causing a cave-in at a mine and then by pushing him off a cliff. More slapstick follows when Ollie gets into a fight with Eltz, plays cards with him (while Finlayson crawls under the table in his PJs), fights him again over a gun, shoots him (just a wound), and chases Barbara around the house trying to rape her. It all wraps up nicely when then Ollie is in in hot flight from the rampaging Rex, who finally kills him. All is supposedly good. but after seeing sweet childhood hero Ollie slime it up for an hour, I just wanted to go take a shower.
Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu; AKA Gamera vs. Viras
DIRECTED BY: Noriaki Yuasa
FEATURING: Toru Takasuka, Carl Craig
PLOT: Finding that Gamera is the only thing standing between them and the conquest of Earth, aliens attempt to enslave the flying turtle through mind control but are foiled by a pair of precocious boy scouts.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Kaiju (Japanese giant rubber suited monster) flicks are, collectively, a moderately weird class of movies. And Gamera, with his implausible biomechanics—the turtle’s shell must be protecting a belly full of jet fuel necessary to power his flame breath and the four rockets that spout fire when he retracts his legs—is one of the strangest of a strange menagerie of giant lizards, birds and moths. But the weirdness in this one resides strictly on a light entertainment, comic book/pop culture plane, suitable for a goofy afternoon matinee but not for a spot on the List of the Best Weird Movies ever made.
COMMENTS: Destroy All Planets is a kid’s movie, for sure. Both adults and aliens in this movie are constantly punked by short-pantsed tykes, electronics prodigies who sabotage mini-subs and alien spacecraft with equal ease. Adults should be able to mine a reasonable amount of mindless enjoyment from this flick, though, whether it comes from pure nostalgia or from a simple appreciation of the child’s-eye absurdity of a world where giant turtles befriend kids while protecting the Earth from alien invasions. Although cheap, the set and costume design is colorful and inventive. The aliens have a consistent beehive theme, from their yellow and black striped bumblebee spacecraft to their honeycomb shaped instrument panels to the hive mentality of the alien drones who keep the ship running. Plenty of psychedelic-era special effects are deployed, like kaleidoscopic viewfinders and crayola-on-the-negative ray-gun blasts. The kaiju clashes are nice and violent, if longish, with monsters spouting a nice variety of blood colors when gashed. (Longtime followers of the series will feel cheated, however, when they realize that most of the carnage is recycled footage from the turtle’s previous adventures). Gamera pulls off his patented spinning pinwheel move in the climax, after being impaled in his soft underbelly by the head of his squidlike opponent! There are also plenty of head scratching moments to keep fans of illogical plot devices entertained, as when the U.N. Security Council unanimously votes to surrender to the aliens rather than sacrificing the lives of the two hostage brats. To top things off we have surprisingly hilarious alien decapitations and an arm that comes flying off when lassoed. Destroy All Planets may not be good, even among its type, but it’s rarely boring.
Everyone should probably see at least one Gamera movie in their film watching career. Since almost half the running time of this fourth entry in the series is composed of flashbacks and recycled footage from the turtle’s previous three outings, this may be an excellent place to start. After watching Gamera stomp Barugon, Gaos, and half of Tokyo in scenes from the previous movies, you’ll feel right up to speed on the titanic terrapin’s exploits immediately.
FEATURING: Kayla Tabish, Travis Maynard, Chris Fuller (as Lewis Brogan), Jacob Reynolds
PLOT: Bad poetry interrupts episodes in the lives of three teens or twenty-somethings at about the time of the 1997 St. Petersburg, Florida race riots.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s only fitfully weird, but consistently dull and pretentious. Life on this planet is full of hardships and disappointments; no one should voluntarily compound their woes by watching Loren Cass.
COMMENTS: A voice says “after the 1997…” A solo trumpet launches a doomed search for a melody. A boy wakes up on the floor of a mechanic’s garage. Another boy, with a shaved head, piercings and tattoos, presumably a skinhead, wakes up on a couch and goes outside to lie in the middle of the street. A cute blonde girl wakes up next to a black male. The boy from the garage picks up the skinhead. The girl takes her own car. The three drive to school. The parking lot is full but the hallways inside are empty. We get a nice look at the urinals. Someone loads a gun. We see the urinals from a different angle. An older man takes a shot of whiskey. The two boys are next to last to leave the parking lot. At a stoplight a black guy jumps out of a van and punches the punk kid with through an open window. They have a fight. The screen goes blank and a street poet tells us St. Petersburg is “a dirty dirty town by a dirty dirty sea.” What’s going on here? The cute blonde works at a diner where no one ever orders anything. She has car trouble and takes it to the young mechanic. He fixes it and they go to dinner together. She shovels gray cubes of meat into her mouth. He doesn’t eat. They barely talk but look at each other a lot. They are in love. What’s going on here? Other things happen. They aren’t interesting, either. Some kids drink beer and say the F-word a lot until the Man comes and hassles them. The skinhead’s hobby is to ride the bus at night. We look at his face. He looks alienated. Snippets of bad beatnik poetry and drunken ramblings play on the soundtrack. There is a punk concert. The skinhead falls asleep on the bus and dreams he’s a victim of spontaneous human combustion. Years ago an embattled politician committed suicide at a press conference. The footage is in the public domain so anyone can insert it into their movie at random. The mechanic and the cute girl have sex. The skinhead scratches “Loren Cass” onto his arm with a hypodermic needle he finds in a dumpster. He swallows a handful of pills in a desperate attempt to get out of the movie. He vomits them up. The movie won’t let him out that easily. He wakes up the next morning and looks into the camera. He looks disaffected. The trumpet player still hasn’t found a melody. The credits roll. What just went on here? The Variety critic stayed awake and alert long enough to write that he had just seen “a starkly radical film debut of uncommon power and artistic principle.” Seriously, what is going on here?
The events are set around the times of the St. Petersburg race riots, which we know because we see newsreel footage of the aftermath and hear audio clips of a rabble-rousing black preacher. The movie supplies no context to suggest whether these incidents take place before, after, or during the riots. But the subtext makes the film political and important. Use of the tragically real footage of Pennsylvania Treasurer Budd Dwyer blowing his brains out on camera either says something insightful about fiscal corruption in the Keystone state in the 1980s, or is completely indefensible.
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(at your own risk; 366 Weird Movies and it’s affiliates accept no responsibility for any emotional scars resulting from the viewing of Little Hercules).
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