WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

Next week, you can expect to see a Director Retrospective on the legendary Russian director Rustam Khamdamov, an uncompromising artist with extremely bad luck.  His films are unavailable here in the west, and pretty much unavailable in his homeland as well; find out why.  We will also publish reviews of Guy Maddin‘s Cowards Bend the Knee and Robert Mulligan’s eerie but underseen twin horror film, The Other (1972).

As far as weird search terms used to find the site go, it was a surprisingly light week for perverted fetishists (although one guy did come here looking for that “gay porn frogman movie,” which we admit is probably fairly weird).   We did get hits from people searching for the following: a “bizarre movie about our lives,” some “weird movies names for weird people,” and  “simple weird experiments for the eyes.”

The reader-suggested review queue is growing fast.  It now looks like this: Cowards Bend the Knee (next week), Greasers Palace (substituted for Institute Benjamenta), Pan’s LabyrinthWaking 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, Basket Case, Suicide Club, O Lucky Man! , Harmony Korine‘s Trash Humpers (if it’s released), Takashi Miike‘s GozuTales of Ordinary Madness, and The Wayward Cloud.

SATURDAY SHORT: GORDON’S SURREAL SENIOR PROJECT FILM #2 (2008)

This week’s short was created by Gordon Inman eighteen months ago as his senior project film. As you will see, Gordon’s artistic interests don’t stop at film.  He is also a very talented musician.

There are some captivating images in this short, including a Popsicle melting in reverse and a rotting watermelon. Although this may not be the most remarkable short I’ve seen, it shows great promise for the future. Our best wishes to Gordon as he continues to explore and express himself through art.

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 10/23/2009

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):

Antichrist:  Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a grieving couple who retreat to a cabin in the woods where the encounter the Ultimate Evil, in what’s described as either arty torture porn or one of the best horror films of modern times.  Lars von Trier’s latest has divided critics straight down the middle: half think its unreedemable, pandering shock trash, while others think it’s a masterpiece. Von Triers, severely depressed when he wrote the movie, dedicates the film to Andrei Tarkovsky; Cannes preview audiences reportedly booed at the comparison. Antichrist official site.

Night and Day [Bam gua nat] (2008): It’s difficult to divine much information about this well-reviewed “metaphysical” movie about an aging Korean womanizer among expats in Pairs, but reviews suggest that director Sang-soo Hong plays fast and loose with reality and may play tricks with the audiences mind in this drama/character study. Currently playing in NYC only? Bam gua nat Official Site (in French, and not safe for work due to nudity).

Rembrandt’s J’accuse (2008): Not a weird film, but rather a serious documentary about a single Rembrandt painting (“The Nightwatch”), mentioned here because it’s the product of oft-weird artist/director Peter (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover) Greenaway.  Rembrandt’s J’accuse official site.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Easy Rider (1969): Not thoroughly weird, but when Fonda and Hopper drop acid in a New Orleans graveyard, the result is one of the better “trip” sequences in cinema. Buy Blu-ray from Amazon

Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971):  Gene Wilder is iconic as Wonka in one of the weirdest and most psychedelic children’s films ever made.  Everyone loves Oompah-loompahs. Buy Blu-ray 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.

OCTOBER 31ST FRINGE VIEWING LIST

Here’s an alternative seasonal viewing list for the weird, that goes beyond the usual vampire/zombie/demon/slasher fare (although some favorite characters make appearances).

1. Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle 3 (2002) . Only the third of Barney’s epic Cremaster Cycle, made over an eight year period, has made it’s way to any type of video release, which is criminally unfortunate. The Guggenheim Museum, who financed it, exhibits the Cycle and describes it as a  “a self-enclosed aesthetic system consisting of five feature-length films that explore the processes of creation.”  Trailers are available on the Cremaster website; www.cremaster.net. The third movie is available via Amazon and other outlets, albeit at expensive prices [Ed. Note: the version of Cremaster 3 that’s commercially available is not actually the full movie, but a 30 minute excerpt that’s still highly collectible as the only Cremaster footage released].  The Cremaster Cycle is complex, challenging, provocative and not for the attention span-challenged.

Still from Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002)2. Guy Maddin‘s Dracula-Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002). Guy’s Dracula ballet, choreographed to Mahler.  Just when you though nothing more could be done with this old, old story.  Of course, we are talking Mr. Maddin here.

3. Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf (1968). Bergman’s ode to German Expressionism has been labeled his sole horror film. Hour is a further continuation of frequent Bergman themes—the defeated artist, loss of God, nihilism—and stars Bergman regular Max Von Sydow.  Some find this dull and slow, others find it mesmerizing and nightmarish.

4. Roman Polanski‘s The Tenant (1976) returned this consummate craftsman back to the territory of Repulsion and remains one of his best films.  Polanski is now facing extradition charges for having sexual relations with a willing, underage girl thirty years Continue reading OCTOBER 31ST FRINGE VIEWING LIST

RECOMMENDED AS WEIRD: SHATTER DEAD (1994)

DIRECTED BY:  Scooter McCrae

FEATURING:  Stark Raven, Flora Fauna, Robert Wells and John Weiner

PLOT: In the near future, people can inexplicably no longer cease to exist. Death means rebirth into a dead body and the undead walk among us.  A young woman tries to survive as the increasing numbers of dead do their best to convince her to die willingly and join them.

actress Stark Raven
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LISTShatter Dead contains some strange allegories.  It opens with a lesbian Angel of Death impregnating a mortal woman, which somehow begins the undead phenomenon.  In this zombie film, the dead are not flesh eating monsters.  They merely want to reestablish society—and they want the living to voluntarily take part.

COMMENTSShatter Dead is a low budget zombie movie. It also happens to be one of the most imaginative and interesting zombie movies ever made.  It is certainly the most unconventional, while remaining basically serious. There are some attempts at surreal symbolism, but they are not gimmicky efforts to deliberately make the film look arty. The entire piece flows like a compelling dream, which while twisted, is so interesting that we are reluctant to awaken from it.

In this offbeat yarn, the zombies are  “regular” people who happen to be dead, and yet still think and function. The dilemma in this morbid version of reality is that one lives on as a corpse forever, permanently trapped in the physical condition in which one found oneself at the time of death. Many have committed suicide in order not to spend eternity old and feeble. Postmortem injuries, regrettably, are permanent.  If a zombie breaks an arm for example, it is the same as if you or I sustained a broken arm that won’t heal for eternity. This phenomenon figures prominently in the plot.

The alluring and mesmerizing Stark Raven (yes, it’s a stage name, and no, she’s not a Continue reading RECOMMENDED AS WEIRD: SHATTER DEAD (1994)

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