Capsules

CAPSULE: THE THREE CABALLEROS (1944)

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DIRECTED BY: , Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, , Harold Young

FEATURING: Dora Luz, Aurora Miranda, voices of Clarence Nash, Jose Oliveira, Joaquin Garay, Sterling Holloway

PLOT: Three Caballeros is one of the “package features” that Walt Disney made during World War II, a compilation of short subjects (a la Fantasia) with a vaguely Latin American theme.

Still from The Three Caballeros (1944)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Because only the last 15 minutes or so of this 70-minute feature are truly weird. However, if this were a list of the 366 weirdest animated films ever made, this picture might make it.

COMMENTS: In Three Caballeros, Donald Duck and his friends—the Brazilian parrot Jose, the Mexican rooster Panchito, and the manic Aracuan bird—embark on a musical tour of South America that impressively combines live-action with animation. Along the way, they encounter Aurora Miranda (sister of Carmen) and engage in enough wild slapstick to shame the more anarchic Warner Bros. cartoon characters of the time (Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, etc.).

Despite having its own ride at EPCOT Center, Caballeros is one of Disney’s most obscure animated films, and with good reason: most of it is kind of dull. What does distinguish the movie, however, is its peculiar, almost Tex Avery-like tendency to turn Donald Duck into a downright lustful bird every time he encounters a Latin beauty (which happens a lot), and a bizarrely psychedelic third act that is a relentless assault of wild visual imagery a la the “Pink Elephants on Parade” segment from Dumbo. The last fifteen minutes of the picture practically turns it into Yellow Submarine, with exploding flowers and dancing, suggestive cacti (reminiscent of the giant swaying bananas in ’s 1943 musical The Gang’s All Here), just two factors in a non-stop crazy quilt of pre-psychedelia that refuses to stop until the avian trio has sung the film’s title song and Panchito has shot his guns in the air about 150 times. It’s exhausting (and, by Disney standards, extremely weird), yet clearly the highlight of the film. This makes The Three Caballeros worth seeing for die-hard fans of Disney and/or animation, but they should prepare to do a lot of fast-forwarding on their DVD remotes.

Otherwise, the rest of the film is harmless and/or forgettable, although Blue Sky Studio’s recent, music-filled Rio (about Brazilian parrots) may owe something to both this film and Disney’s similar 1943 packager Saludos Amigos. As alluded to before, this movie obviously has its fans within the Disney empire’s theme park division, as the Mouse has tried to keep all its characters alive in one way or another: Jose and Panchito can be spotted in the revamped “It’s a Small World” ride.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“I would not hesitate to call it the most surreal work ever produced by the Disney studios… in a film full of surrealist touches, Donald the sex fiend is easily the strangest part, though certainly one of the most memorable. (The fact that the animation looks a bit pasted on top of the live action footage just makes it all the weirder).”–Tim Brayton, Anatgony & Ecstasy (DVD)

Free Online Weird Movies, Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 10/30/2015

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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 – (AFI Silver Theater, Silver Springs, MD, Oct 30-31):

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922): Read the Certified Weird entry! The occult classic screens for Halloween, with live accompaniment by the Silent Orchestra. Fri. at 7:00 and 9:30 PM, and a Saturday matinee for the kiddies at 1:00 PM. Nosferatu at AFI Silver.

NEW ON DVD:

Flowers (2015): Six female victims of a serial killer find themselves trapped in a crawl space after their deaths. From the descriptions the film is genuine, purposeful exploitation-surrealism. Buy Flowers.

Get Mean (1975): Fantasy Spaghetti Western in which a Man with No Name fights Vikings and Moors in his effort to return a princess to her hometown. Video Junkie claims this under-the-radar oater “lives in its own little world of surreal weirdness…” Buy Get Mean [Blu-ray/DVD Combo].

Heart of Midnight (1988): Carol () inherits a nightclub called “the Midnight” from her “weird” uncle in this surreal psychological horror film. Largely forgotten but fondly remembered by a few; believe it or not, Yanni did the soundtrack. Buy Heart of Midnight.

Mulholland Drive (2001): Read the Certified Weird entry! There are a few people reading this site who like this movie and who may be mildly interested to know there is a new Criterion Collection edition out. Buy Mulholland Drive.

Phase IV (1974): Ants develop communal intelligence and wage war on humans in this “trippy” cult sci-fi movie, the only feature film from opening titles specialist Saul Bass. Controversy swirls around this Olive release, in that this Blu-ray presents the version that screened in theaters, one in which Bass’ surreal ending montage was excised by the studio. That footage had been recovered (if not restored), so fans of the film are (perhaps justifiably) upset that there is no “director’s cut” of this sometimes maligned film forthcoming. Buy Phase IV.

Rags (2011): The tagline of this movie about methamphetamine abuse calls it a “drug-fueled exploitation fairy-tale!” Made in 2011 but not released on DVD until now. Buy Rags.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Army of Darkness (1992): Read our review. Shout! Factory’s “Collectors Edition” Blu-ray of the Evil Dead franchise’s conclusion contains three different cuts of the film (!) on three Blu-rays, along with hours of special features. Buy Army Of Darkness [Collector’s Edition Blu-ray].

Breeders (1986): Alien rapists attack virgins in Manhattan. Made by a director of porn films, this awfully strange, awfully-acted movie ends memorably, with nude women crawling around in a pool of alien semen. Buy Breeders [Blu-ray].

The Fifth Element (1997): Read our review. ‘s whacked-out sci-fi cult epic gets the Blu-ray it deserves. Also available in a “cinema series” special edition with a commemorative booklet. Buy The Fifth Element [Blu-ray].

Get Mean (1975): See description in DVD above. Buy Get Mean [Blu-ray/DVD Combo].

Heart of Midnight (1988): See description in DVD above. Buy Heart of Midnight [Blu-ray].

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): Read our review. This new Blu features one recent interview along with extras recycled from earlier releases; the “Limited Edition Castle Catapult Gift Set” comes with all this, plus a cardboard castle and rubber farm animals and a few other physical goodies. Buy Monty Python and the Holy Grail [Blu-ray].

Mulholland Drive (2001): See description in DVD above. Buy Mulholland Drive [Blu-ray].

Phase IV (1974): See description in DVD above. Buy Phase IV [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986): Rather than attempting to top the strange intensity of the first movie in the series, Tobe Hooper went in a different direction and made Chainsaw‘s first sequel into an absurd self-parodying black comedy. If Dennis Hopper had gone more over-the-top in his first post-Blue Velvet role as a chainsaw-wielding Texas Ranger, this could have been a classic rather than a cool curiosity piece. The free viewing is courtesy of Paramount, who has added a select number of back-catalog titles to YouTube. Obviously this is R-rated stuff, so no one under 17, please. Watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

PEEPING TOM (1960)

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We Westerners hate and resist having our hypocrisy exposed. We get that trait honestly and through tradition, having inherited it from both our Puritan forefathers and Mother England. Both sides of the political and ideological spectrum sow vilification when someone, especially an insider, turns the lens on our own hypocrisy. That is true horror; and when an artist does so in film, purportedly the most accessible of mediums, the backlash can be catastrophic. Case in point: Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960). Released the same year as Psycho, Peeping Tom, which is not as overtly violent as ‘s classic, nevertheless opened to furiously scathing reviews from American and British critics: “It is the sickest and filthiest film I can remember seeing” (The Spectator). “The only satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom would be to shovel it up and flush it down the nearest sewer. Even then, the stench would remain” (Derek Hill, writing in The Tribune). Audiences reacted with even more hostility, and it took the French to set the record straight a few years later when Peeping Tom was received there to widespread acclaim and enthusiasm.

Peeping Tom committed an unforgivable sin in lensing the hypocritical voyeurism of both filmmakers and film goers (that Powell condemned even himself in the film did not earn him a pardon). Before 1960, Powell’s career was notable, extensive, and esteemed, which included numerous wartime and post-war collaborations with Emeric Pressburger: 1940’s The Thief of Bagdad, 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, Stairway To Heaven, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, Hour Of Glory, to 1951’s The Tales Of Hoffman. Backlash to Peeping Tom was cataclysmic, resulting in Powell being permanently blacklisted by both British and American film industries. He was reduced to working (sporadically) for television and producing only three feature films over the next twenty years. That work included a television treatment of Bela Bartok’s opera “BlueBeard’s Castle” in 1963 and 1969’s bitter, semi-autobiographical Age of Consent.

Predictably, the West eventually came around, and Peeping Tom has now been posthumously recognized here with a reappraisal led by , who famously championed it as one of the great achievements for both Powell and for cinema.

Still from Peeping Tom (1960)Peeping Tom opens with the first person perspective of Mark Lewis (the eerily blank and blonde Austrian Karlheinz Böhm, son of Fascist conductor Karl Böhm) covertly approaching a prostitute with a rolling 16MM camera hidden under his pervert’s trenchcoat. He throws an empty Kodak box into a trash receptacle , follows the courtasan up to a seedy hotel room, and films her undressing. Lewis zooms in for the extreme close-up on her face, twisted and frozen in fear, as he lunges toward her for the kill. Cut to Continue reading PEEPING TOM (1960) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE EDITOR (2014)

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DIRECTED BY:  ,

FEATURING: , Matthew Kennedy, Adam Brooks

PLOT: A revered but mentally unstable film editor, who once lost four of his fingers on the cutting room floor, gets caught up in a classic Italian murder plot; as he struggles to prove his innocence, the bodies pile up in increasingly inventive ways.

Still from The Editor (2014)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The Editor is driven by and dedicated to its famously bizarre source material (the giallo film), but this brand of weirdness is a bit too self-conscious to make the List.

COMMENTS: The issue with the parody genre, especially in recent years, is the huge gaps in quality. For every Airplane there is a Leonard Part 6, for every Naked Gun there is a Meet the Spartans; movies that, instead of being an adoring send up of the source material, come across as facetious efforts to piggyback on the success of current trends. Basically, it is a good idea to tread carefully going into any parody, regardless of whether you are a fan of whatever is being roasted at the time or not.

With The Editor, however, Canadian film collective Astron-6 have thankfully fashioned a stylish, occasionally hilarious and inventive satire that doesn’t simply regurgitate worn out jokes but instead uses the tropes of the giallo genre to produce a unique experience. Astron-6 first burst onto the scene with the Eighties science fiction experiment Manborg, an entertaining but shoddy foray into science fiction. The Editor feels like a much more polished piece of work, while retaining the surreal comedy of its predecessors—a natural progression. Dedication to the visuals and violence separate this film form being just another lame attempt at parody; they have managed to perfectly replicate the colorful vibrancy, recognizable camera movements, and even the overtly unstable dubbing of classic giallo films. Along with a pulsating electronic score, the authenticity is quite the achievement. But is this only going to be recognized by knowledgeable fans of the genre?

Every actor throws himself or herself into their roles (especially the inspector who takes the meaning of “psychosexual” to a new level), and the direction draws some genuinely creepy moments from a script focused heavily on dialogue. There is an element of repetitiveness as the film reaches its conclusion, however, and the comedy begins to be used as a crutch to keep the story afloat, while being too self-aware to keep the viewer interested. Like many of its satirical predecessors, The Editor falls short of greatness because it just doesn’t have a story to tell.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s not as much fun as it should be, and while you can certainly admire the skill of the filmmakers in adhering to giallo conventions, you need to be in a midnight-movie frame of mind to really appreciate this film.”–Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl (DVD)

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