2015

June 5, 2015 admin Leave a comment

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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Patch Town (2014): The story of what happens to those “Cabbage Patch” dolls when they grow up; they become factory workers, creating more dolls for their cruel overlords in an endless cycle of toy exploitation. The Dissolve warns that “anybody unable to get on its weirdo wavelength may grow fatigued by the film’s many flights of fancy“; we suspect our readers are just the sort to get on its weirdo wavelength. Patch Town official site.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014): A series of bleak, absurdist sketches, framed around a pair of novelty salesman. Roy Andersson‘s other two films in this unofficial trilogy, Songs from the Second Floor and You, the Living, were both Certified Weird, so we have high hopes for this one. Opening in NYC with selected showings across this great land through the summer. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT (PRE-PRODUCTION):

“Night on Bald Mountain” project: The Hollywood Reporter and Variety are reporting that Disney Studios plans to make a live-action version of the demonic “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence from Fantasia. No word on whether Chernabog will be defeated by “Ave Maria”-chanting monks. Given Disney’s spate of live-action reimaginings of animated features (Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Cinderella), it’s hard to imagine this will wind up weird in any way, but the idea is odd and it’s worth noting. We’ll keep our antennae up. Read more at Variety.

NEW ON DVD:

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015): Read our review. This kids’ movie turned out to be much weirder than expected, thanks in part to an Illuminati-connected cosmic dolphin. Buy The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

Spring (2014): A disaffected American flees to Europe where he strikes up a romance with an Italian woman who harbors a deep secret. From the guys behind Resolution comes another under-the-radar horror that Colin Colvert called “a landmark of irresistible weirdness.” Buy Spring.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

“Dziga Vertov: The Man with the Movie Camera and Other Newly-Restored Works”: Read our review of Man with the Movie Camera. Historically significant experimental films from the dawn of Soviet cinema. Buy “Dziga Vertov: The Man with the Movie Camera and Other Newly-Restored Works” [Blu-ray]

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015): See description in DVD above. This three disc combo included a DVD and Blu-ray 3d. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water [Blu-ray/DVD/Blu-ray 3D].

Spring (2014): See description in DVD above. Buy Spring [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Visioneers (2008): Read Pamela De Graff’s review. Corporate satire starring a young Zach Galifianakis, about a near-future where people literally explode from stress. Watch Visioneers 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.

Canonically Weird (The List)

205. FANTASIA (1940)

June 4, 2015 Alfred Eaker 4 Comments

“…action controlled by a musical pattern has great charm in the realm of unreality.”–Walt Disney on Fantasia

Must See

DIRECTED BY: Norman Ferguson, James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe, Jr. Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen

FEATURING: Leopold Stokowksi and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Deems Taylor, Walt Disney (voice of Mickey Mouse)

PLOT: An orchestra files in to a concert hall, followed by classical music critic Deems Taylor, who introduces the film and describes the different purposes of classical music. The first musical selection, Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D-minor,” illustrates “absolute” music, and consists of a series of abstract images combined with views of the orchestra in silhouette. The six animated musical sequences that follow compose the bulk of the movie, following the adventures of fairies, Mickey Mouse, dinosaurs, centaurs, hippo ballerinas, and demons set to the music of Tchaikovsky, Dukas, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Ponchielli, Mussorgsky, and Schubert, all introduced by Taylor.

Still from Fantasia (1940)
<br /> BACKGROUND:

The meeting of conductor Leopold Stokowski and animation god Walt Disney, in 1937 at Chasen’s restaurant, is the stuff of legend. Disney was starstruck with the conductor’s celebrity, mysterious accent, and fierce mane. The seed of an idea for a “concert film” sprang from the meeting. At this time Disney had only produced and released one previous feature: Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937). The idea of an animated feature had seemed risky and radical, with the naysayers predicting bankruptcy. The profits and critical acclaim from Snow White forever silenced those doomsday prophets. Now, Disney was ready to take another risk. 1940 saw the release of Disney’s second and third feature films. Artistically, it paid off as Pinocchio (1940) and Fantasia are, to date, Disney’s two greatest films, released only nine months apart. The former was a critical box office hit. The latter did not make money for nearly twenty years.
Fantasia was an expansion of Disney’s “Silly Symphonies” series of musical shorts (which were set to original music commissioned by Disney studios rather than classical masterpieces). The “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment, starring Mickey Mouse, was originally made as a Silly Symphony but cost over $100,000 to animate, and Disney realized the only way to recoup that budget was to make it part of a feature.
Fantasia was (mostly, despite some notable howls of derision) well-received by critics and audiences on release. It failed to turn a profit because of its enormous budget, difficulties in distribution (new sound systems had to be installed in any theater that wanted to play it, so it was rolled out piecemeal as a roadshow feature), and the fact the the onset of WWII cut off the foreign markets. Disney studios continued to re-release the film every five to ten years up until 1990, however. By the late 1960s, spurred by its discovery and embrace by the psychedelic generation, Fantasia had become both a beloved classic and a cash cow.
Bits from the original “Pastoral Symphony” sequence were later erased due to their depictions of black centaurs, who were caricatured and depicted as servants to the white centaurs.
Disney had planned more editions of Fantasia (one of which included a collaboration with Salvador Dali), but its initial failure laid such plans to rest until sixty year later, when Walt Disney Productions released Fantasia 2000. Fantasia 2000 had fleeting moments of brilliance, but was mostly a disappointing sequel; too clean, too crisp, lacking the risk-taking intensity and provocativeness of the original.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: In an entire film of indelible images, alligators swooning over and dancing with hippos may have been the “eureka, it’s weird!” moment for the film’s 1960s acidhead crowd. We concur.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Dancing mushrooms; Stravinsky dinosaurs; alligator/hippo romance

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Pinocchio may have had boys turning into jackasses, and Dumbo (1941) had it’s mind boggling “pink elephants on parade,” but Walt Disney’s Fantasia is chock-full of progressive strangeness and an ardent embrace of art for the sake of art. It’s Walt’s weirdest.

1956 re-release trailer for Fantasia (including part of the scene later deleted from prints due to charges of racism)

COMMENTS: Over a thirty year period I have seen Fantasia (1940) Continue reading 205. FANTASIA (1940) →

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: VAMPIRE’S KISS (1988)

June 3, 2015 Gregory J. Smalley (366weirdmovies) 1 Comment

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Robert Bierman

FEATURING: Nicolas Cage, Maria Conchita Alonso, Jennifer Beals, Elizabeth Ashley, Kasi Lemmons

PLOT: An abusive literary agent believes he is turning into a vampire.

Still from Vampire's Kiss (1988)
<br /> WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: This may be Nicolas Cage’s strangest performance. Let me repeat that. Cage has starred as an Elvis-obsessed lowlife in David Lynch movie, as the twin alter-egos of Charlie Kaufman in a Spike Jonze movie, as a woman-punching detective in the ridiculous Wicker Man remake, as a heroin-addicted New Orleans cop in a Werner Herzog movie, and this may be his strangest performance.

COMMENTS: “That mescaline… that’s strange stuff.” Maybe—just maybe—that explains Nicolas Cage’s scenery-chewing, furniture-smashing, cockroach-eating performance in Vampire’s Kiss. It doesn’t explain Peter Loew’s behavior, however. The emotionally battered Alva (a sympathetically depressed Maria Conchita Alonso) gets more to the point: “this guy is very weird.” Loew is a weird guy indeed. It all starts with his from-nowhere accent, which is not European, New England Brahmin, or even “Mid-Atlantic English,” the made-up dialect spouted by Golden Age Hollywood actors like Katherine Hepburn (though that one comes closest). The accent is insane, but it does reveal Loew’s character: this is the kind of guy who would affect an aristocratic dialect in order to give himself airs, but get it wrong—and stick with it, not caring a bit whether it was accurate or not. When such an arrogant and flamboyant character goes crazy, you can bet that the results will be fiery. Cage holds nothing back. He shouts, slurs his words, breaks stuff, eats bugs, screams obscenities, vomits, puts his hand on his hip and prances like a mad Mick Jagger, rants, and makes insane faces with his huge, unblinking eyes. His furious recitation of the alphabet, which plays like a Sesame Street sketch delivered by a drunk guest star with anger management issues, is itself worth the price of admission.

If you’re wondering why this movie seems weird, even without Cage, reflect that it was written by Joseph Minion, who also brought us 1985’s crazyfest After Hours. With a serious psychology manifesting itself through campy fireworks, the picture’s style is halfway between an art film and a B-movie; it exists in a tonal limbo. There are a number of odd features, even putting aside the performance art mimes who hang out outside of Loew’s apartment. Note that Loew is surrounded by women; girlfriends, pick-ups, office secretaries, his female therapist. His only significant relationships are with women, a surprising number of whom wear black garter belts. Might Peter have issues with the opposite sex? (You think?) How did Loew become such a casual sadist, and why does he obsess about vampires in particular? Why does simple act of “misfiling” irritate him so profoundly? (Seems like a metaphor, doesn’t it?) It’s no surprise that so many key sequences take place in the psychiatrist’s office. With all its unexplained, clashing symbols and preoccupations, the movie itself begs for psychoanalysis.

Cage was not a neophyte actor trying to make an impression at the very beginning of his career here. He was coming off a role as the romantic lead in the mainstream hit Moonstruck. Vampire’s Kiss, along with his equally mannered performance as a hick burglar with Shakespearean diction in the Coen Brothers‘ Raising Arizona, gained him the reputation as the greatest ham of his generation.

Although fondly remembered by fans, Vampire’s Kiss has always had a hard time finding a home on DVD. It has never been released in it own, but in 2007 MGM paired it with the insultingly bad early Jim Carrey comedy Once Bitten on the “Totally Awesome 80s” double feature DVD. In 2015 Scream Factory released Kiss on Blu-ray together with the Neil Jordan comedy High Spirits. Both editions include a commentary track from Cage and director Robert Bierman.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… requires a style as darkly comic and deft as its bizarre premise. Instead, the film is dominated and destroyed by Mr. Cage’s chaotic, self-indulgent performance. He gives Peter the kind of sporadic, exaggerated mannerisms that should never live outside of acting-class exercises.”–Caryn James, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: R100 (2013)

June 2, 2015 Gregory J. Smalley (366weirdmovies) 2 Comments

DIRECTED BY: Hitoshi Matsumoto

FEATURING: Nao Ohmori, Lindsay Hayward

PLOT: A Japanese furniture salesman pays a secret bondage society so that dominatrixes will attack him at random times in public, but things go too far when they start showing up at his work and home.

Still from R100 (2013)
<br /> WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: By the end, after a relatively conventional beginning, R100 has gone from a one-joke lashing to full-fledged absurdist pummeling. This black sex comedy is demented enough to make the List, but we do wonder whether one of Matsumoto’s other movies might better represent his weird movie legacy.

COMMENTS:The first half of R100 is rather ordinary. Relatively so: most people would consider a movie where a man’s date kicks him in the face at dinner, and where a dominatrix stands beside him and smashes each course of sushi the mortified chef places before him, very strange indeed. R100 begins its life almost as a drama, doling out hints of backstory about our masochistic salaryman, who struggles as a single parent of a young boy with a wife in a coma. The movie eschews the chance to explore his psychology, however; we never gain any insight as to how ritualized pain and humiliation helps him deal with his problems. Instead, R100 spirals off into crazier and crazier directions, as the dominatrix attacks he’s contracted for intensify, start to interrupt his normal life, and threaten the one thing he loves more than a good beating from a merciless leather-clad mistress: his child.

The public attacks on our hero get repetitive, as if R100 doesn’t know how it wants to develop its premise. Then, in the middle of the film, Matsumoto springs a number of oddities and radical tone shifts. There are metamovie interludes which explain the movie’s title: we are watching the work of a 100-year-old director who considers this material inappropriate for anyone younger than himself (thus R100—restricted to those over 100 years of age). The main narrative takes a turn into B-movie territory when our hero is forced to turn against the bondage club after an botched session with the “Queen of Saliva.” You know the movie is completely off the rails by the time the ridiculous “Queen of Gobbling” shows up (and when the film’s producers debate cutting her out of the movie). The climax, which features our formerly meek hero lobbing grenades at an army of dominatrices commanded by a foul-mouthed blond Amazon stuffed into a tight rubber teddy, seems like it could have been choreographed by a team consisting of John Waters, David Lynch and Mel Brooks. And the coda takes the weirdness to the next generation.

The way R100 starts out off-kilter and slides into greater and greater absurdity will thrill many who view the film as a simple comedy. It’s enjoyable enough on that level, but there were hints of depth in the character and themes that were never explored, and this is something of a missed opportunity. Masochism is easily stated as a philosophy—from pain comes pleasure—but it’s nearly impossible for an outsider to comprehend this most counterintuitive of fetishes. Maybe that’s why Matsumoto depicts it as an incomprehensible enigma. Or maybe you just have to reach the century mark to get it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…connoisseurs of weird, twisted sex comedy will revel in its transgressive, audacious mischief.“–Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star-Tribune (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by purplefig, who said it was “weird in that wonderfully insightful weird way only japanese cinema can deliver..” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

366 Underground, Free Online Weird Movies

366 UNDERGROUND: NIGHT AND A SWITCHBLADE

June 1, 2015 El Rob Hubbard Leave a comment

DIRECTED BY: Ben Finer

FEATURING: Lloyd Todd Eddings, Katya Quinn-Judge, Jason Bragg Stanley, Alexandra Miniard, Nikita Vishnevskiy, William Pike, Casey Robinson, Matthew A. Leabo, Anthony Napoletano, Johnathan Meola, Saori Tsukada, Aleksander Garin

PLOT: The new kid in town, Sandie Po, is already a Rebel Without a Cause. He’s butted heads with the local gang of toughs, some of whom wear animal masks. He’s made a friend, gone to the local sock hop and met a girl, and stabbed a cop. On the lam, he heads for the woods, wherein very strange, cryptic, sexual events bewitch everyone who enters.

COMMENTS: Night and a Switchblade‘s log line describes it as “a bizarro-noir, teen rebel movie about deviant youth and the lurid mysteries haunting a nocturnal American landscape.” Add “highly influenced by David Lynch” to that, and it pretty much pegs the film. Unfortunately, in this case imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery.

The film attempts to go for a 1950’s patina to depict small-town American life, mixed with dark contemporary elements (see Blue Velvet, “Twin Peaks”), but the characterizations aren’t up to the task. It doesn’t help that the dialog is pretty much variations of the f-word thrown in at random. It f—-n’ may have f—-n’ seemed a f—-n’ good f—-n’ idea at the f—-n’ time, but f–k; that f—–n’ s–t just gets f—-n’ tiresome when it’s f—-n’ used all the f—-n’ time, YOU GET IT YOU F–K??!! F–K!!

Unless you’re f—–n’ Dennis Hopper. Otherwise, just f—-n’ leave that f—-n’ s–t the f–k alone.

vlcsnap-2015-05-06-21h35m25s666 Also, when the surreal weirdness starts to kick in, it seems to be just empty weirdness for weirdness’ sake, so insular and obtuse, it remains a mystery. I know this accusation has been thrown towards Lynch’s work; however, I’d argue that Lynch’s symbolism, bizarre as it can get, at least has some sort of meaning behind it. That’s why he can make your flesh crawl with Frank Booth’s gas huffing and Bob’s appearing anywhere. There’s always something recognizable in Lynch. Admittedly, most of the stuff in Switchblade is pretty cool looking, and you can appreciate the effort and craft that’s been put in it, but it didn’t move me. My first viewing of the film, I bailed out after an hour, and that was more than generous. I did go back to finish out the film, but I was still completely unmoved.

The movie is substantially better when everyone keeps their mouth shut and doesn’t say a word. There is some talent on display here. Technically, it’s a very accomplished film: Blake Williams’ cinematography, Scott Rad Brown’s art direction, the costume design by Bevan Dunbar and Karen Boyer, and the shoegaze music from Color War (who appear in the film as the sock hop band Violet and the Vettes).

For me, the Lynch-inspiration/imitation just killed what could have been a great film on its own terms – visually, it’s wonderful, but I found it lacking anything substantial behind its weirdness, and it probably should have been cut into several short films instead of a feature. If you’re still intrigued enough to look for it—and it is currently up for free at the official site, remember: enter at your own risk!

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366 Weird Movies