366 Exclusive, Shorts

366 EXLUSIVE: HALLOW’S DANCE

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We are pleased to debut James Mannan and Robbin Panet’s short film “Hallow’s Dance” on the web.  Although there is a mild Halloween theme to the film, Hallow’s Dance should not be confused with a horror film.  It is in fact a drama, with the only horror being moral horror at the treatment of Frank/Mom.  Co-directed by Robbin Panet and James Mannan, it co-stars 366 scribe Alfred Eaker along with Jason Hignite, Chelsea Rogers, and Terry Dellinger.  It contains very mild scenes of suggestive sexuality.  The weird part is the short, experimental dream sequence which ends the film, which is shot in black and white with streaming beams of light, accompanied by a catchy organ tune.  The short runs approximately 14 minutes.

At the producers’ request, this film will not be released to YouTube or other video hosting sites, and will be available here for one month only.

[Our license to display “Hallow’s Dance” has expired. We will inform you if this film is released, on DVD or otherwise, in the future.]

Miscellanea

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

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A couple of announcements: today is your last day to view the experimental short film 9 (not related to the Shane Acker animated feature).  Tomorrow we will remove it, but it will be replaced with another 366 Exclusive short film.

In other news, thanks to Cameron, we now have our own 366 Weird Movies YouTube page, although it’s still in development.  You won’t find much there that you wouldn’t find here, but that could change in the future.

Expect to see reviews of Larry Cohen’s wacky genre mix God Told Me To [AKA Demon] (1976) next week, along with a review of Harry Kümel’s nearly forgotten Malpertuis, and a surprise or two.

For the weirdest search term used to locate the site last week, we’ll go with “Who wrote the diary? Why did Robin decided to write a diary?”  But an honorable mention goes to “Using the following steps write an hour by hour diary of a festival,” since two people apparently used this exact same term to find the site, probably for the same homework assignment.

We know we’ve been derelict in logging in reader reviews, and promise to be better about it—starting next week.  The ever-growing reader-suggested review queue looks like this: Cowards Bend the Knee (substituted for the unavailable Angel’s Egg), Greasers Palace (substituted for Institute Benjamenta), Pan’s Labyrinth, Ex Drummer, Waking Life, Survive Style 5+, The Dark Backward, 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, and Basket Case.

Saturday Short, Shorts

OOIOO – “UMO”

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OOIOO is an all-female avant-garde music group from Japan. Their style is very hard to describe, because it varies so much. Many of their songs have a soothing, majestic feel to them, while this song is strongly tribal based. One thing is for certain, they can move a crowd. Their strong rhythm section compels their listeners to dance.

Directed by Shoji Goto, this psychedelic video focuses on the concept of communication with nature. If drum circles in the forest are your thing, you should most definitely watch this video. If they’re not… well, it doesn’t hurt to give it a try.

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR 10/9/09

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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.

Another very weak week for the weird, with nothing odd in theaters (unless you live in NYC), and no bizarre DVD releases (although there is a very welcome addition to the Blu-ray ranks).

SCREENINGS (NEW YORK CITY, ANGELIKAS FILM CENTER)

Bronson (2008):  Story about a violent British bank robber who is locked up in solitary confinement for 30 years; in prison, he transforms himself into the mythical persona “Charles Bronson.”  Loosely based on the true story of one of Britain’s most violent criminals, more than one critic has compared it to A Clockwork Orange (if for no other reason, then for its mixture of extreme violence and classical music).  Already on DVD in the UK, but it does not appear to be available in Region 1 yet.  Bronson official site.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Audition (1999) (Collector’s Edition): Perhaps Japanese shockmeister Takeshi Miike’s greatest achievement, this tale of a lonely businessman who gets more than he asked for when he looks for love by staging auditions for a fake movie has a climax that’s both shatteringly surreal and blood-curdlingly gory and extreme.  This 2-disc Blu-ray release contains full commentary by Miike (the DVD release only had commentary during the key sequence) explaining the film along with screenwriter Daisuke Tengan, and more than 90 minutes of new interviews with cast and crew on Disc 2. Buy from Amazon.

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 WILD AND ZANY WORLD OF TODD M. COE

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Todd M. Coe is one of those secret finds that is all too tempting to keep secret.

Todd M CoeTodd’s animated shorts evoke the decade of the 1970’s, which  he is hopelessly in love with.  Drive-in commercials, exploitation, cheesy horror, 70’s adult  posters, variety show television specials, low budget spaghetti westerns, robots, the rock group Kiss, Aaron Spelling cop shows, feathered hair, plaid bell bottoms, and, of course animation are all manna from pop culture heaven for him.

Todd could undoubtedly add a few thousand items from that decade to the list, such as one of his favorites (and the delightfully of it’s period) Paul Lynde Halloween Special ,with Donnie and Marie Osmond, Mrs. Brady, Witchie Poo and Billy Barty all trading groan worthy barbs with the inimitable and much missed Mr. Lynde. Todd discussed this perennial favorite in a series of emails and his enthusiasm was admittedly infectious.

Todd is a post-modern, eclectic “slapstick surrealist”.  His four shorts can be seen on both youtube (his channel is called school pizza) and on his website—http://www.toddmcoe.com/—where you can also view his numerous illustrations, drawings and paintings.

Todd pours his obvious love of subject into all of his amazingly detailed work and, boy does he pour it on, like a good oozing heap of Aunt Jemima syrup.

Taking a tour through Todd’s website is an inspiration. After a near fatal overdose from the increasingly bland overkill of Tim Burton’s monotonous school of animation, or even more monotonous, bland Japanese Animation, Todd’s work is a much needed breath of fresh red, white and blue air.

Don’t be surprised to find yourself humming the Love American Style and SchoolHouse Rock’s Conjunction Junction theme songs as you take the Todd M. Coe ride.

I certainly did, and now I’m really fighting the urge to throw in a video of the Banana Splits, locating my 45 record of Styx’s Mr. Roboto, re-read my Green Lantern comics, fall in love with the Farrah posterall over again (God bless that angel’s soul), take a whack at the etch a sketch, and pour myself a big bowl of Crisp cereal. I doubt I win that fight.

Thank you much Mr. Coe.

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