An office worker suffers increasingly gruesome visions of his own death.
POD 366, EP. 94: ALL THE WEIRD MOVIES BE OURS, 2
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Quick links/Discussed in this episode:
“All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, Vol. 2”: Another astounding collection of rarities, including two Canonically Weird movies in the set: the surreal stop-motion fairy tale Blood Tea and Red String (2006) and the bleak Estonian pagan fable November (2017). Pre-order All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror, Vol. 2.”
Dream Team (2024): A spoof of softcore cable TV erotica of the 1990s, with a plot involving psychic coral. The promotional material proudly proclaims it is “beautifully weird,” I Saw the TV Glow‘s Jane Schoenbrun is a producer, and it debuts at NYC’s Metrograph this week (distribution plans past that are unclear at this time). Dream Team official site.
Ghost Cat Anzu (2024): Read Giles Edwards’ Apocrypha Candidate review. From GKids, so this kid-friendly, Spirited Away-adjacent anime fantasy will be getting decent theatrical distribution. Ghost Cat Anzu U.S. distributor site.
“Golden Harvest Volume 1: Supernatural Shockers”: A misleadingly titled box set from Shout! Factory: with Hong Kong New Wave features Sex and Zen; Erotic Ghost Story I, II, & III; Dr. Vampire; and Robotrix, this should have been titled “Sexy Supernatural Shockers.” All are Cat III features full of nudity and violence, including Sex and Zen‘s infamous “organ” transplant scene. Buy “Golden Harvest Volume 1: Supernatural Shockers.”
Häxan (1922): Read the Canonically Weird review! Radiance out-criterions the Criterion collection with this lavish limited edition of the witchcraft documentary that contains four different cuts of the film in addition to its many other extras. The Amazon listing says that it is an all-region Blu-ray. Buy Häxan.
Maniac (1934): Read the Canonically Weird entry for Maniac! In conjunction with Something Weird, Kino releases the maniacal 1934 shocker with a commentary track and some rare Dwain Esper shorts as “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture Vol. 17.” The cats eat the rats, the rats eat the cats, and you get the Blu-ray. Buy Maniac.
Megalopolis (2024): Read Gregory J. Smalley, Giles Edwards, and El Rob Hubbard’s Apocrypha Candidate review. We’ve talked for a year now about Francis Ford Coppola‘s glorious folly, and now it’s rentable (at premium pricing) on VOD for those who missed it in theaters. We also have a Pod 366 episode (with featured extra Nadia Robertson) almost entirely dedicated to this one. Rent Megalopolis.
Pedro Páramo (2024): Adaptation of a classical magical realist novel about a dusty Mexican town where the living may be the dead, this is the directing debut of award-winning cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Pedro Páramo on Netflix.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
Next week’s guests on Pod 366 will be Bradley Kornish and Dan Pullen of Movies from Hell (a reciprocal appearance after Giles and Greg guested on their podcast back in early October.) In written reviews, Shane Wilson goes outside the reader-suggestion queue for a second look at Beau Is Afraid (you can probably guess what that means); Giles Edwards addresses the dreaminess of Dream Team (see above); and Gregory J. Smalley plans to knock our both a new release and a reader suggestion with the Pharrell Williams Lego autobiography Piece by Piece. Onward and weirdward!
CAPSULE: NUDE TUESDAY (2022)
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DIRECTED BY: Armagan Ballantyne
FEATURING: Jackie van Beek, Damon Herriman, Jemaine Clement, Ian Zaro
PLOT: A middle-aged European couple goes to a New Age sex resort in an attempt to rekindle their passion.
COMMENTS: Although it’s a romantic comedy, Nude Tuesday is also, more importantly, an experimental film. Unfortunately, in this case, the experiment amounts to nothing more than a gimmick. The idea is that the actors rehearsed the script in English and then, when it came time to turn the cameras on, delivered the lines in vaguely Scandinavian-sounding gibberish. Two sets of writers who were unfamiliar with the original script then watched the film and provided subtitles. (The one created by Julia Davis is the default track in the US region; one presumes the alternate track from Ronny Chieng and Cecilia Paquola is also available on the Blu-ray, although I can’t find confirmation).
Woody Allen once infamously re-dubbed a Japanese spy film to change the story to the search for an egg salad recipe. But it quickly becomes apparent that Nude Tuesday‘s constrained scenario doesn’t lend itself to such a dramatic reinvention, and nor will the writer try for the sort of meta-comedy (e.g. a narrator recapping the plot, fourth-wall break addresses to the audience) that Allen occasionally fell back on to liven things up. Without that, the result is that there is almost literally no line the dubber can write that couldn’t have been written in the usual way. In creating the new dialogue, Davis faces a lot of constraints: who’s in the scene, the length of the spoken lines, contextual requirements (is the character naked? Bleeding? Chasing a goat?) This means that the dialogue is always a slave to the demands of the scene as it’s been set up, and Davis has little actual freedom besides word choice. (She can, for example, make a preening Bjorn say the absurd line “I’m an eagle pimp with a bit of a grudge,” though a regular scriptwriter could have inserted that line anyway). Every reaction is so strictly dictated by the demands of the dialogueless script and the actor’s performances that there’s almost no margin for surprise; I can only think of one gag Davis was able to set up that wasn’t strictly dictated by the situation (a joke regarding the bean supermarket aisle). To be fair, there’s also the fact that the finale is constructed somewhat ambiguously, so that there could be multiple outcomes (I wasn’t overly fond of the one chosen here.)
So, while it may have been a stimulating writing exercise for the dubbers, there’s no possible payoff for the audience. What we’re left with is an offbeat-yet-predictable sex comedy. The main attraction is Clemens, playing yet another narcissistic jerk deserving of a hearty comeuppance. The sex retreat’s rituals can be amusing, with orgasmic breathing exercises, strange loungewear and banana hammocks, lots of awkward overplayed sensuality, and of course, nude Tuesday. And the script throws in a mushroom trip for funsies. But none of it is anything you wouldn’t expect to see in a relatively competent indie sex comedy. It’s a bit like being sold a ticket into something that was promised to be a freaskshow, and passing through the curtain to find one lonely dwarf and a bearded lady who just needs a quick pass-over with an epilady.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
![Nude Tuesday AMAZON EXCLUSIVE [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41+B8mdylHL._SL500_.jpg)
- Amazon Exclusive!
- Contains an Amazon exclusive postcard.
- Behind the Scenes of Nude Tuesday
CAPSULE: SLINGSHOT (2024)
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DIRECTED BY: Mikael Håfström
FEATURING: Casey Affleck, Emily Beecham, Laurence Fishburne, Tomer Capone
PLOT: Nearing Jupiter’s orbit, John develops growing concerns about the structural integrity of his craft and the mental well-being of its crew.
COMMENTS: Laurence Fishburne is obviously enjoying himself. Tomer Capone looks on the verge of a mental breakdown. Emily Beecham is either too wily—or not wily enough. And Casey Affleck, well, it’s kind of hard to say. Some critics have described his performance in unenthusiastic terms, with phrases like “phoned-in” bandied about. However, Affleck’s turn as John the astronaut, a man on a deep space mission kicked in and out of induced hibernation, rang true to me. John’s reactions, and perceptions, are muted, to be sure; but I can’t imagine a better frame of mind for his isolated ordeal.
Early on in the film, we are provided a good enough reason for this trip to Europa, a planet-sized moon orbiting Jupiter whose gravitational pull is to be utilized as a “slingshot” to send the exploration craft (dubbed “Odyssey”—’cause why not?—and frankly, the kind of name I can see a big-tech consortium thinking as both classy and clever) to the methane-rich moon in question. However, there’s a strange malfunction early on. Is it an impact? …Sabotage? John’s captain, Franks (Fishburne, delightful), is adamant that they crew should trust the vessel’s sensors when they say there’s nothing to worry about. The onboard astrophysics expert, Nash (Capone, frazzled), is immediately certain the team is heading toward their death. And John kind of just floats between the two views, while occasionally seeing and hearing hallucinations about the girl he left behind.
Slingshot is firmly along the indie lines of Moon, but with three closely knit characters growing more and more anxious. The vessel design takes inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey (and writing that just now, I notice it also drew the shuttle’s moniker from that film), so everything looks like whizzy, astro-chic IKEA. The sharp delineation of the craft makes for a nice contrast to the fuzziness of the narrative. Director Mikael Håfström begins the story mid-voyage, catching the audience up with extensive use of flashbacks. (I had mixed feelings about this, as the film might have played better with scanter backstory; that said, plenty of viewers are less forgiving of ambiguity.) Tensions rise, orders are disobeyed, and—trapped on some glorified tin some hundreds of millions of miles from home—we mysteriously find a firearm’s been thrown in the mix.
So we have here a chamber drama with an unreliable narrator and the pleasure of three very different actors having the screws turned on them. It’s a small movie with simple pleasures, and a triple-shot of plot twists wrapping up the low key adventure. Disagreeing with other reviews, I think Casey Affleck should be commended for his subdued performance. To reference another Kubrick film, he’s much like Barry Lyndon in this way: he will take the good and bad developments with equal magnanimity, never batting an eye because: he’s there. And this is happening. We should all aspire to be so calm when our habitat is mysteriously smashed and those in charge menace our survival with deadly weapons.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: FEAR X (2003)
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DIRECTED BY: Nicolas Winding Refn
FEATURING: John Turturro, James Remar, Deborah Kay Unger
PLOT: A mall security guard travels cross-country in an effort to find the man who killed his pregnant wife.
COMMENTS: Mall cops get no respect. And if you’re judging them by the standards of heroic crimefighters, well, they don’t deserve any. As officers without portfolio, the most they can hope to do is serve as glorified hall monitors. But that actually highlights their most essential skill. They are watchers, ever on the lookout for wrongdoing. It’s a talent that is both passive and invasive.
From what we can see, Harry Caine (Turturro) is good at his job. He readily spots small-time crooks on the prowl, he’s got a billfold crammed full of mugshots to help him pick out known miscreants, and a bottomless well of patience. So it’s his peculiar curse that his wife’s murder took place at the very place he works, giving him access to grainy video footage of the crime to obsess over. And it’s an equally striking coincidence that an inspection of the house across the street produces a critical clue that might just lead Harry to the killer. For someone with the ability to look closely, finding the answer is surely just a matter of time.
The first half of Fear X (a meaningless title that might as well be gibberish) is a portrait of obsession at a low-but-steady simmer, and it’s intriguing to watch Turturro play quiet and insular. The milieu is familiar; in a sparse apartment, he pores over a wall of photographs that is only missing red yarn to connect them. But there’s a gutting hollowness to his pain. He’s not interested in revenge, he insists. He just wants to know why.
Act II shifts the action from suburban Wisconsin to rural Montana (the film was shot in and around Winnipeg), but in truth, the location is an entirely different movie. Once he arrives in the small town in the Big Country (with its five-story motel), he enters a world filled with intricate mysteries out of a John Le Carré novel, long red hallways that would be at home in “Twin Peaks”, and images of roiling seas of blood crashing outside an elevator that are positively Kubrickian. It’s as stark a transition as Dorothy’s arrival in Oz, and while Turturro tries to maintain his internal devastation, he’s ultimately forced to confront the progression of strange occurrences, culminating in a circular argument with the likely assailant. That proves to be Fear X’s undoing, because while there’s nothing wrong with a film that leaves its mysteries unexplained, there’s something very unsatisfying about a story that suggests it’s foolish to look for answers in the first place. Turturro gets the exact opposite of what he wants—revenge without understanding—and as he tosses his meticulously accumulated pile of clues into the wind, there’s more than a whiff of condescension about his belief that he could ever hope to figure it all out.
In some respects, Fear X is an embarrassment of riches. In his first film on North American soil, Refn not only benefits from Turturro in the starring role, but he also enlists the services of Brian Eno to contribute to the score, Larry Smith (Stanley Kubrick’s cinematographer for The Shining) behind the camera, and a co-scriptwriter in the form of novelist Hubert Selby, Jr. (of Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream notoriety) turning in some of his last work. It’s a lot of talent thrown at a story that doesn’t really add up to much. It begins as a showcase for Turturro, then becomes a platform for Refn to show off his appreciation for the avant-garde masters. And if all you want to do is passively watch, it’s interesting. But we are not all mall cops. Sometimes, audience members are looking for a little more respect.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by burner. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
- Factory sealed DVD