It’s Christmas Day, and we’re in the spirit of giving. This year we’re giving the gift every blogger wants—free traffic and backlinks—to WeirdChristmas.com (no relation). This site is light on weird Christmas movie content, but hosts a podcast describing weird Christmas traditions around the world (including a survey of Christmas pickles and the skinny on Frau Perchta, Krampus’ eviler cousin who rips out bad children’s guts and replaces them with garbage). There’s also a selection of weird Christmas music, and their specialty: weird Christmas postcards from the Victorian era. We’ve reprinted our favorites below, but if you like them be sure to give WeirdChristmas.com a seasonal visit. Then come back to us tomorrow for more weird movie reviews and news.
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DIRECTED BY: Tom Hooper
FEATURING: Francesca Hayward, Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, Judi Dench, Ian McKellan… (Indeed, the cast list is so talent-heavy you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting someone with an entertainment award.)
PLOT: Meow.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE APOCRYPHA LIST: Not only did “they” pull the trigger on this one, they emptied all six of the chambers. From the opening nonsense of cat-people-cats spouting the word “jellicle” like it was going out of style, up through to the finale where I swear they send off one of their own to her death, the cataclysm just wouldn’t stop.
COMMENTS: As might be expected of a man of my disposition, I am the owner of cats–two, to be precise. One of them featured in a review of mine some months ago. The other has joined me on a number of occasions while I watched other assignments. So perhaps it was this that led me to volunteer my time and sanity, and sit through a musical that I had mostly knew about from the context of a classic Upright Citizens Brigade sketch. But the transformation I underwent during the movie was comparable to that which bunches of A-list actors and celebrities went through to become Cats.
I could discuss the finer points of the plot here, but I’ll spare you my narrative discourse. If you know anything about Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s iconic work, you’ll know there isn’t really a story. It’s merely a showcase for descriptions of various “types” of cats found about London. (This geographic limitation may explain why the particular archetypes of my own cats weren’t explained to me in song form.) Moreso, you knew whether or not you were the kind of person who’d want to see Cats by the time the first hints of its production sprang up.
And why was this movie made? In a way, I think that it had to be. Some critics complain ad nauseum that everything these days is a remake, sequel, or adaptation, but this has been the norm since the earliest days of cinema. As to how the producers got all these big names on board, I do not know; but then, perhaps you have to agree to performing in Cats if you are asked. However, I can say that I didn’t leave the cinema thinking any less of any of the parties involved, and was actually quite pleased with Idris Elba’s performance as the only two+ dimensional character of the bunch.
I was in a something of a manic state during the drive home as I reflected what I had just gone through. About fifty-five minutes into the movie, I glanced at my watch for the first time and nearly recoiled in terror. After all the song and dance I had watched these “jellicles”[note]Someone please tell me what that word is and how it pertains to cat-human-cats.[/note] go through, I was only half-way through. Around that time I noticed two things: first, there was an intermittent but persistent clicking coming from one of the right-hand speakers; second, the latter half went by far more quickly than the first. I don’t know if it’s a testament to the powers of Eliot + Webber + Hooper, or testament to brain damage I suffered five-and-a-half years ago, but I actually started to care about these things. The end of times, to be sure.
So to the other staff at 366, I apologize for putting us on the hook for this. To everyone else: Happy Christmas, Io Saturnalia, and Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cathulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
TheHawkline Monster (202?): For decades, Hal Ashby, and later Tim Burton, sought to adapt Richard Brautigan’s “The Hawkline Monster,” a “Gothic Western” novel about gunslingers sent on a mission to kill a monster that lives in Miss Hawkline’s basement. Regency Pictures has now acquired the rights and is giving it another go. The big news is that Yorgos Lanthimos is in negotiations to direct. Even though The Favorite was a huge step backwards (in terms of weirdness) for the Greek director, this one could be promising. More information at Variety.
IN DEVELOPMENT: POST-PRODUCTION:
Sister Tempest (2020): Joe Badon strikes again with another crowdfunded surrealist epic. This one is a psychological thriller-type tale taking place in a dreamspace equally inspired by Jodorowsky and Zardoz. We can 100% guarantee this will be weird; it’s now looking for $6,000 in post-production funds. Sister Tempest at Indiegogo.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO:
“Boogiepop Phantom”: Mind-bending 12-episode anime about a mysterious angel of death. The series was written by Satoshi Kon collaborator Sadayuki Murai and recommended to us by 366 reader Chie. On Blu-ray from a distributor called “Right Stuf.” Buy “Boogiepop Phantom”.
Long Day’s Journey into Night (2018): Read our review. Gan Bi‘s Tarkovskian drama about a man’s dreamlike search for a lost woman has been available on DVD and VOD (and Kanopy); here it is on Blu-ray (with a second 3D Blu-ray disk so you can see it as originally filmed—if you have the equipment). Will not ship by Christmas. Buy Long Day’s Journey into Night.
NEW ON NETFLIX:
“Twice Upon a Time” [“Il était une seconde fois”] (2019): A man finds a mysterious box that allows him to travel back in time to a date before his girlfriend broke up with him. Uncertain weirdness, but “TV Guide” suggests this is a “Charlie Kaufman-esque conceit,” so this four-episode French miniseries many be worth taking a flier on. “Twice Upon a Time” on Netflix.
CERTIFIED WEIRD (AND OTHER) REPERTORY SCREENINGS:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). We’ll only list irregularly scheduled one-time screenings of this audience-participation classic below. You can use this page to find a regular weekly screening near you.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE: We’ll have a slight slate for the upcoming holiday week: all we promise is a review of the odd Colombian teen-soldier drama Monos, although we may throw something else your way as a surprise gift. We’ll be taking some time off as we prep for a year-end festivities the following week. So keep Christmas weird and enjoy your day(s) off. Onward and weirdward!
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that we have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
PLOT: A man searches for a woman from his past, who may be nothing but a dream.
COMMENTS: Bi Gan creates shots of intricate logic inside narratives of unfathomable illogic. Technically speaking, Long Day’s Journey into Night (which has nothing to do with Eugene O’Neill’s play) is another feat of long-take virtuosity; think of films like Russian Ark or Birdman (which it approaches, but does not exceed). Scored to Chinese blues and shot on slick neon streets, the film serves up its slow, dreamy story with an intoxicating noirish melancholy.
The first half of Long Journey jumps back and forth in time, and possibly between reality and fantasy. Bi deliberately withholds narrative information: for example, the protagonist, Luo Hongwu, begins describing his search for one “Zuo Hongyuan” before telling us who he is or why he wants to find him. Repeated motifs—karaoke singing, a disreputable old friend named Wildcat, pomelo fruit, a green book, a spinning house—float around, hints of plot that tantalize more than they explain. The result is like the fractured storytelling of Mulholland Drive, but more subdued and dramatic, and with the key to untangling the story (if there is one) buried even deeper inside the labyrinthine narrative. It’s an exercise in how close you can toe the line of incoherence and still have a structure that functions in the same way as a plot.
The second half begins when Luo visits a movie theater to pass time. The line between the film’s two chapters clearly marked when he puts his 3-D glasses on, and the film pops out into its extra dimension. What follows is the most explicitly surreal parts of the film; Luo has drifted off, and meets a boy who may be his never-born son and a woman who just may be the one he has been seeking. The camerawork will astound you.
Long Day’s Journey into Night is the ultra-rare art-house film released to theaters in 3-D (although only the second half is in that format). At home, I watched it in regular old 2-D (although it is available on a 3-D Blu-ray for those few with enhanced players). I doubt I missed out on much. It feels like a little bit of a gimmick; the main justifications are to create a clear dividing point between the movie’s hemispheres, and to make you feel like you are going on a journey with the protagonist. In China, Journey was marketed as a big-deal blockbuster romance and released to theaters on New Year’s Day, China’s preeminent holiday. This counts as a master prank in my book.
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