WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 12/10/2015

Our weekly 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 at the official site links.

SCREENINGS – (Cinefamily, Los Angeles, Fri. Dec 11, 10 PM):

Belladonna of Sadness (1973): Read Alex Kittle’s capsule from Fantastic Fest. A rare screening of Japan’s lost psychedelic erotic acid trip anime about medieval witchcraft. This L.A. premier is the centerpiece of an “Animation Breakdown” mini-festival at the ‘family. Belladonna of Sadness at Cinefamily.

SCREENINGS – (Lincoln Center, New York City, Dec. 11-22):

“Lynch/Rivette”: The idea behind the Lincoln Center’s new series is to pair a film by French New Wave director Jacques Rivette with a thematically similar one from . We get The Duchess of Langais together with Blue Velvet; Joan the Maid and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me; L’amour Fou and Wild at Heart; Paris Belongs to Us and Eraserhead; Lost Highway and Duelle; Story of Marie and Julien and INLAND EMPIRE; and, in the must-see double feature, the rarely screened Celine and Julie Go Boating paired with Lynch’s most popular movie, Mulholland Drive. The movies will be individually screened throughout the next two weeks, as well. What a Christmas gift to New York cinephiles! Check out the following link for showtimes. “Lynch/Rivette” at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

NEW ON DVD:

Thundercrack! (1975): A rare underground film with hardcore sex scenes, or a hardcore sex film with cult movie sensibilities, the scenario involves an old dark house and an amorous guy in a gorilla suit. Overheated, trashy dialogue supplied by Sins of the Fleshapoids scribe George Kuchar. First time ever on DVD. Buy Thundercrack!

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987): Seven deformed children with antisocial attributes help a friendless kid deal with bullies. Little people in horrifying latex masks supplied by Uncanny Valley Design Co. portray the disgusting “kids” (with names like “Valerie Vomit”) in this notorious PG-rated gross-out flop. Buy The Garbage Pail Kids Movie [Blu-ray].

Thundercrack! (1975): See description in DVD above. The Blu-ray contains the bonus documentary It Came from Kuchar and a DVD packed with extras, and is actually cheaper at this writing than the standalone DVD. Buy Thundercrack! [Blu-ray].

NEPOTISM CORNER:

“The Projection Booth Phase IV Podcast”: Our own El Rob Hubbard is one of the three experts discussing poster-designer and credit-sequence specialist Saul Bass’ only feature film, Phase IV, wherein ants mobilize and threaten the human race. The original film ended with a surreal 2001-style montage that was severely edited by the studio for the theatrical release. Rob discusses the excised footage and more with podcast host Mike White and fellow guest Josh Hadley. The Projection Booth Phase IV Podcast.

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Ninja III: The Domination (1984): A deceased ninja possesses the body of an aerobics instructor and forces her to carry out revenge killings. Only in the 80s! Watch Ninja III: The Domination free on YouTube.

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.

RUSS MEYER’S UP! (1976)

followed up on the relative success of 1975’s Supervixens with Up! From a script based on Roger Ebert’s original story, Meyer produced his most surreal live-action, X-rated cartoon. There is no tangible plot, but rather loosely connected vignettes.

Up! opens with a sadomasochistic scene of Adolf Schwartz (Edward Schaaf) being tortured, and pleasured, by three female prostitutes, each belonging to a different ethnic group: the Ethiopian Chief (Elaine Collins), the Oriental Limehouse (Su Ling) and Pocahontas (Foxy Lae). Of course, the Native American requires a Captain Smith, who she get in puritan pilgrim Paul (Robert McLane, with a foot-long prosthetic penis). Candy Samples also appears, under a mask, to breast slap Adolf, who is actually the aged Adolf Hitler, having apparently faked his 1944 suicide. He’s living in a Bavarian castle (his mailbox has a red flag) until a mysterious black-gloved assassin drops a piranha in the Fuhrer’s bathtub to the strains of the Horst-Wessel-Lied. Although obviously justified, Adolf’s death is actually a disappointment: within the dank dungeon, Schaff is the most animated sex participant, expressively enjoying his carnality. The remaining cast members all engage with the outdoor, sunny California countryside, but under a spell of kinetic blankness, like sex machines gone wild. That is intentional. It is essential to be aware of this film’s time period. The country was still under the spell and success of the hardcore XXX film Deep Throat (1972). It influenced the entire sexploitation industry and Up! is a venomous, satirical rejection of the hardcore phenomenon. Paradoxically, Up! is also an attempt to appease changing tastes.

appears (nude, except for leather boots) as “the Greek Chorus”: a mythological goddess come down to pleasure our eyes and inform us that Adolf’s death was “a murder most foul.” Throughout the rest of the film, Natividad sits atop phallic trees, prances through the landscape, and quotes dabs of Shakespeare mixed with nonsensical phrases such as “the kamikaze of cunnilingus” and “the black sperm of revenge” while Sweet L’il Alice (Janet Woods) engages in interracial dildo sex with Gwendoline (Linda Sue Ragsdale).

Cue the second opening (apparently, the first was a kind of overture): Margo Winchester (busty Raven de la Croix, in an amusing Mae West impersonation) is hitching a ride not far from the castle when the vile redneck Leonard Box (Larry Dean) chases her into a lake and brutally rapes her. In retaliation, she kills him, but copper Homer Johnson (Monty Bane) threatens to arrest her. Naturally, they retreat to a mountain cabin where she repeatedly pleasures Johnson’s johnson (another foot long prosthetic) and avoids incarceration.

Natividad returns sporadically to try to guide us through the dizziness (thankfully, she fails) and consistently reminds us that “a murder most foul,” has been committed (as if we care, unless you’re a mournful Meyer with a Nazi fetish).

Johnson’s johnson gets pleasured by more busty babes, including “Chesty Young Thing” Marianne Marks, on her knees. Winchester (after trying out numerous studs) decides to get a job at Paul and Alice’s diner as a dancing waitress, where her cleavage makes her a local sensation. Unfortunately, her gyrating arouses backwoodsman Rafe (Bob Schott) who rapes her on a table to a cheering crowd of sex-starved hayseeds (Meyer himself, billed as “Hitchcock,” is among the rabble). Rafe gets carried away and gets axed by Homer (remember him?), but survives long enough to reciprocate. Gallons of deep cadmium red and ploopy sound effects ramp up this mean-spirited, chainsaw to the crotch of a cartoon, which occasionally seems a precursor to Sam Raimi.

Before things get too out of hand, Natividad splashes through the tulips, crying again, “a murder most foul has been committed.” Winchester already knows, because she is an undercover detective. Both Paul and the bi-sexual Alice lust after Winchester, prompting a duel (return of the dildo) and, finally, uncovering the identity of Hitler’s assassin. The finale, shot and edited like future music videos, is a frenzied marathon of sex and violence run amok.

Still from Up! (1976)References to Citizen Kane (1941), Psycho (1960), and John Ford’s cavalry westerns abound. It is surprising that Up! is not better known. De la Croix  is femme fatale comparable to Tura Satana (both break the backs of lesser men). Woods and Natividad fill out the remaining trio of magnetic leads. Natividad went onto have a long personal relationship with Meyer, until her entry into hardcore sex films prompted a breakup (although they remained friends until his death). Up! may be Meyer’s most pronounced rebellion against the status quo, and is a definitely List Contender.

CAPSULE: “MASTERWORKS OF AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE EXPERIMENTAL FILM 1920-1970”

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: James Agee, , Bruce Baillie, Stan Brakhage, James Broughton, Rudy Burckhardt, Mary Ellen Bute, Joseph Cornell, Jim Davis, , Marcel Duchamp (as Rrose Selavy), Emlen Etting, Oskar Fischinger, Robert Florey, Amy Greenfield, Alexander Hammid, Hilary Harris, Hy Hirsh, Ian Hugo, Lawrence Janiak, Lawrence Jordan, Francis Lee, Fernand Léger, Owen Land, Helen Levitt, Jay Leyda, Janice Loeb, Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, Dudley Murphy, Ted Nemeth, Tom Palazzolo, Bruce Posner, Charles Sheeler, Phil Solomon, Ralph Steiner, Paul Strand, Francis Thompson, Slavko Vorkpich, J.S. Watson Jr., Melville Webber

FEATURING: Too many actors (many amateurs) to list

PLOT: A collection of influential short experimental films spanning five decades.

Still from Our Lady of the Sphere (1969)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: To be clear, one of the individual films featured in this compilation (Meshes of the Afternoon) has already made the List. Many of the others are noteworthy, but we deem none quite List-worthy. As a collection, these discs are recommended for weird movie fans and adventurous cinephiles. This is a must-own, cornerstone release for dedicated experimental film devotees.

COMMENTS: Released by silent movie specialists Flicker Alley and curated by director/film historian Bruce Posner, “Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film” is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin—although we might quibble about whether every one of these films is actually a “masterwork,” they are all, at the very least, representative of a major figure or category of experimental film. These shorts, spread out over two DVDs or Blu-rays, are  rich and challenging, and may be best experienced in small nibbles, one or two at a time, contemplated over a span of several evenings, accompanied by a fine sipping beverage.

The films are arranged chronologically and although they span the full range of artistic expression, they often fall into several distinct types or subgenres. One of the earliest forms is the “city symphony” (à la 1929’s Man With a Movie Camera), of which the very first film in this collection, “Manhatta,” is an example. In a city symphony the director simply takes his camera into an urban environment (in American film usually New York City) and films what he sees, later arranging the footage into a montage that paints a portrait of the town. There are five or six examples of the form here, and although this can be one of the dullest of formats, Francis Thompson’s 1958 eyebending opus “N.Y., N.Y.,” shot with an array of distorting lenses of the director’s own design, is a notably thrilling exception. Other film types you may notice are the figure study, where the lens focuses on the human body in motion (“9 Variations on a Dance Theme,” “transport,” Maya Deren’s “Meditation on Violence”) and purely abstract films (“1941,” which uses broken light bulbs and wet paint, or Stan Brakage’s “scratch on the emulsion” experiments).

An especially noteworthy subset of these experiments is the music Continue reading CAPSULE: “MASTERWORKS OF AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE EXPERIMENTAL FILM 1920-1970”

CAPSULE: PATCH TOWN (2014)

DIRECTED BY: Craig Goodwill

FEATURING: Rob Ramsay, , Suresh John, Zoie Palmer, Stephanie Pitsiladis, Ken Hall

PLOT: Jon works on an assembly line pulling fetal dolls from out of cabbages, but his dim memories of a loving mother lead him to venture out into the wider world searching for answers to the riddle of his past.

Still from Patch Town (2015)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The promising idea is like something a young would dream up, but the execution is like something an old Tim Burton would deliver.

COMMENTS: Patch Town starts from a finely macabre premise—what if “Cabbage Patch” dolls were really alive, and after their owners outgrew and abandoned them they had their memories wiped and were retired to harvest more of their kind in an industrial hellhole run by totalitarian overseers? Unfortunately, by the end of the movie, this bent premise has been straightened out. When ex-toy Jon ventures out of his dystopia and becomes a fish-out-of-water in modern Manhattan, Patch Town becomes more Elf than Brazil. Sloppy plot points, obvious jokes, soft rock balladry, predictable beats, and sickly-sweet sentimentality undermine every novel idea the script invents. The film’s mixed-bag nature is evident from the earliest frames. Eerie shots of silhouetted storks flying in front of smokestacks show a flair for realizing storybook nightmares, but they also indicate Patch Town‘s mixed-up mythology: what is the role of storks in a world where babies are born from cabbages?

Patch Town is also a musical, which adds to its kitchen-sink credentials, but the movie would have benefited from channeling its musical energies into comedy instead. Lyrics are thrown out at almost random points, with little production behind them: characters mostly just walk and sometimes share their thoughts in song. The comedy fares little better. Cherubic Rob Ramsay is likable and physically perfect for the role, especially with his dollike mop of hair, but his antics busts minimal guts. Although his shtick is mostly limited to a funny accent, Suresh John’s Sly seems intended to be the spotlight comic relief character. Instead, it’s Ken Hall’s sadistically practical henchman who comes off the best (he declines to eat children because “you have to have boundaries”).

Patch Town is so good-spirited that it’s as hard to hate as a chubby-faced doll. The movie’s dystopian opening suggests that it’s going to subvert sentimental kids’ films, but ultimately it sides with the cute. If you read the premise and thought you were in for some bitter fun, you will be disappointed by the sugar rush. Patch Town was extended into a feature from a 26-minute short; the original was probably the perfect length, since the full-length film has about 26 minutes of good ideas.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

Patch Town’s frequently lands pretty far to the left of the dial, and anybody unable to get on its weirdo wavelength may grow fatigued by the film’s many flights of fancy.”–Charles Bramesco, The Dissolve (contemporaneous)

LIST CANDIDATE: LOST RIVER (2014)

Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Christina Hendricks, Iain De Caestecker, Saiorse Ronan, Matt Smith, Ben Mendlesohn, , Reda Kateb,

PLOT: An urban fantasy/fairy tale set in an unspecified city in decline (which looks a lot like Detroit) where single mom Billy and her sons Frankie and Bones attempt to keep their home despite all obstacles and enemies: for Billy, a bank manager/underground club impresario, and for Bones, the neighborhood gang kingpin, Bully.

Lost River (2014)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Gosling calls Lost River (originally titled How to Catch a Monster) a dark fairy tale, inspired by both the 80’s fantasy films he watched growing up and by a stay in Detroit while acting in The Ides of March. It’s a very unorthodox melding, like lo-fi magic realism set against a documentary background. Some might feel it exploitative, which could account for the polarized reaction the film received.

COMMENTS I guess it’s a gauge of where we’re at in film culture when something like Lost River can arise from sunken depths to befuddle everyone. People were expecting a disaster of epic proportion, judging from its reception at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and the outright hostile reviews during its very brief theatrical run/VOD in the U.S. From that reaction, one would think that Lost River would be better paired with other recent cult “darlings” like The Room or Birdemic.

lost-river-film-ryan-gosling-700x425Happily, Lost River is nowhere near those icons of ineptitude, which makes the reaction to it even more of a curiosity.  Critics seemed to take it personally that a Hollywood Star would actually choose to make his directorial debut an artistic endeavor rather than some flashy franchise production. It is evident that Gosling isn’t at all shy about his influences—he was paying close attention while he was working with and —but I would think that would be something to be encouraged by, rather than excoriated.

Apparently surrealism and dream imagery are only to be attempted when the director is a less well-known name. Either that, or most reviewers felt very uncomfortable with the approach in conjunction with the Detroit setting. There are several scenes with non-actors which briefly push the tone into docudrama, which is completely jarring with the “urban fairy tale” atmosphere Gosling is attempting to create.

lost river artGosling’s direction is very assured, aided by the lensing of Benoit Debie (Enter the Void) and the music of Johnny Jewel, which provide the proper atmosphere. Performances are pretty good all around: Hendricks, DeCaestecker and Ronan are fine, though it’s mainly the supporting characters that make an impression, such as Mendes, Mendlesohn and especially Matt Smith’s villainous turn, which is as far away from his Doctor Who as possible. One caveat: it seems a waste to get Barbara Steele and give her nothing to do. She’s more of a presence than a full character.

Whatever you might think of Lost River, I highly encourage you to search it out and make up your own mind.

Available on Blu-Ray and DVD with no additional features.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Indulgent and movie-like, Lost River is Gosling’s weird, let’s-do-this-thing folly.”–Brad Wheeler, The Globe and Mail (contemporaneous)

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