Pete discusses the 1990 comic book flop, trying (but failing) to keep the Dick jokes to an absolute minimum.
BEETLEBUGS (2024)
A beetle hires Nick Leng, Personal Investigator… for Creatures, to find her missing friend.
POD 366, EP. 82: ROGER MITCHELL OF “ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU” SPEAKS TO US
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Quick links/Discussed in this episode:
Buy “Zardoz Speaks To You! How a Classic Movie was Created, Died, and Was Born Again” by this week’s guest, Roger Mitchell
The Making of Zardoz Facebook page
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (2023): An Argentinian woman stages a fake miracle, but real miracles (or at least, inexplicable events) soon follow. The well-reviewed magical realist feature with comedy elements arrives on VOD this week. Buy or rent Chronicles of a Wandering Saint on Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu) or Apple+.
Crumb Catcher (2024): A newlywed couple are accosted by a couple of entrepreneurs intent on getting them to invest in their get-rich-quick device: a crumb catcher. “Absurd” and “odd” are some of the words turning up in reviews; the indie arrives on VOD this week. Buy or rent Crumb Catcher.
Megalopolis second trailer: Not sure if this is an “oops!” moment or part of a marketing scheme that has often stressed how bizarre this entire production was, but Lionsgate has withdrawn their second trailer for Francis Ford Coppola‘s Megalopolis after Variety pointed out that the (negative) critics’ quotes it presented for The Godfather and other films were made up. Roger Ebert himself called this trailer “one of the biggest embarrassments ever released by a major studio,” while Pauline Kael said the scandal “stinks like a wedge of stale Camembert fermented in sun for three days.” Of course, the controversial trailer itself will live forever on YouTube. Hollywood Reporter describes the fiasco’s aftermath.
The Other Laurens [L’autre Laurens] (2023): The official plot description reads, “A private detective [is] forced to face the ghosts of his past when his niece asks him to investigate her father’s death.” Sounds conventional, yet it catches our attention because Yellow Veil is releasing it, and one reviewer calls it “Lynchian” and “a strange film” while The Hollywood Reporter refers to “bits of dark comedy and weirdness.” The Other Laurens official site.
Undergods (2020): Read Giles Edwards’ festival review. A pair of corpse-collectors ride around a dystopian ruined city relating their strange dreams in this dreamy dystopian anthology film that finally arrives on a bare-bones Blu-ray four years after release. Buy Undergods.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
We may have a surprise guest (or guests) lined up for our next Pod 366, but in any case, Giles will be back with Greg to discuss the week’s news and releases. In other YouTube content, having cleared up a copyright misunderstanding that delayed its posting for more than a month, Pete Trbovich‘s Weird View Crew returns to cover Hollywood’s campy critical flop Dick Tracy (1990). In written reviews, Shane Wilson wisely takes John Huston‘s 1979 adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood out of the reader-suggested queue; Giles Edwards catches Crumb Catcher (see above); and Gregory J. Smalley ambles off to see Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (also above). Onward and weirdward!
CAPSULE: DOGMAN (2023)
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DIRECTED BY: Luc Besson
FEATURING: Caleb Landry Jones, Jojo T. Gibbs, Lincoln Powell
PLOT: A boy, imprisoned for years in a dog cage by his sadistic father, grows up understandably misanthropic, preferring the company of canines.
COMMENTS: Luc Besson began his career in greatness with a string of three cult hits—La Femme Nikkita (1990), The Professional (1994), and The Fifth Element (1997)—before settling into mediocrity in his later years with the overblown sci-fi spectacles Lucy (2014) and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017). After taking five years off from serious filmmaking to fight a rape charge—of which he was cleared in 2023—Besson fans might hope for a return to form with DogMan. This is not that, but it is a remarkably eccentric effort.
DogMan has one big asset that carries it over its rough patches: star Caleb Landry Jones, who throws himself into the role of dog Doug. Under interrogation, the unflappable Jones is unfailingly polite, calm, confident, weary, and only slightly menacing. The script requires him to repress his sadness when wooing a Broadway star, wield a sawed-off shotgun while wearing and evening dress and leg braces, and lip-sync Edith Piaf, all of which he does without a trace of irony. His relationship with his dozens of canine co-stars is remarkably matter-of-fact: he doesn’t dote on them like a pet owner, but treats them as comrades—while remaining the alpha and refusing to let them steal his scenes. Plus, he looks great in drag.
While Jones is steady, the script is another matter. A man who has a telepathic connection to super-intelligent dogs, I can buy. That’s magical realism. But when the police detain this man after an illegal warrantless vehicle search reveals nothing incriminating, just so a non-court-appointed psychiatrist can elicit a bunch of flashbacks? That’s lazy writing. The script is full of unanswered questions and depends on every character doing not what makes sense for their own interests, but whatever will advance the predetermined plot. In some ways, the story feels like it could have come out of a 19th century novel: man raised by dogs, seeking revenge, cursed with a romantic affliction (he can walk, but if he walks too much he might die). But it’s also all over the place: by turns, it’s a serious child abuse drama, a dimly-lit action thriller, a romance, a bizzaro heist movie, and even a sort of antihero-superhero flick, like 101 Dalmatians meets Joker. The lack of narrative rigor reinforces the idea that DogMan is really a gussied-up b-movie with art-house pretensions: a dramatic medium for delivering scenes like a mastiff munching on a gangster’s crotch. But, sloppy script and wavering tone aside, DogMan has just enough crazy energy and gonzo passion to save itself from being a disaster. Any movie with Jones as a wheelchair-bound, Shakespeare-quoting, asexual drag queen who communicates telepathically with dogs is likely to have at least a little oddball appeal.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
![DogMan [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41yPb4oNKLL._SL500_.jpg)
- Blu-ray
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ZEBRAMAN (2004)
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DIRECTED BY: Takashi Miike
FEATURING: Shô Aikawa, Kyôka Suzuki, Naoki Yasukôchi, Kôen Kondô, Ren Ôsugi
PLOT: An inept 3rd-grade teacher with heroic aspirations becomes Zebraman, a superhero from a cancelled 1978 television show.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Takashi Miike goes all in with Zebraman, pushing everything—buffoonery, low budget violence, conspiracy, and, erm, eye-catching costumery—to their extremes, while remaining family-friendly and building to an in-your-face zebraction climax which must be zeen to be zelieved.
COMMENTS: All told, Equus quagga is not an animal to take seriously. Its mane lacks the nobility found in fellow members of the genus; the striping confounds; and they spend their days nibbling grass, hoping not to get killed. These traits, however, lend themselves perfectly to Ichikawa (I’ll spare you his official “-san“), an ungainly overseer of third-graders with closet aspirations of middling superhero status. But before you look a gift-zebra in the mouth, consider the sources: director Takashi Miike, forger of god-level violence and oddities, and screenwriter Kankurô Kudô, whose flirtations with the absurd would culminate in the Mole Song shenanigans. Through their powers combined, we’ve got a lot of weird and wacky crammed into an ungainly combatant who’s out “Striping Evil!”
ZEBRA DOUBLE-KICK!
Recently attempting to explain the narrative to a pair of innocent bystanders, I quickly realized that the mounting ridiculousness mounted even more quickly than I had at first surmised. There is a secret Japanese government organization concerned about an alien infestation; its head agent is a suave ladykiller, suffering from a case of crabs. Speaking of crabs, there’s a serial killer on the loose, with crab headgear and brandishing a pair of 10-inch shears in each hand. Speaking of shears, there’s that third-grade teacher toiling away on a DIY Zebraman costume, working from his memory of a television show which was cancelled after seven episodes. Speaking of the television show, the new student at the school also knows about Zebraman, and kindles the would-be vigilante in his teacher. Speaking of vigilante, the school’s principal has formed a security group of school staff to guard against an unspecified danger which appears to be slowly overwhelming the city. (Spoiler Alert: it’s aliens! Little, green, bulbous, adorable aliens.)
ZEBRA CYCLONE!
The premise beggars belief, but Miike and Kudô go all in. Every player is on form, and Zebraman has almost a family drama or character study feel to it. The disillusioned super-agent wants a cause worth fighting for. The new kid, unable to walk after a mysterious incident, wants hope in the impossible. And the principal desperately seeks atonement for his sins. When Ichikawa emerges as Zebraman, he gets lost on his way to the new kid’s house, but hears a cry for help—and suddenly the powers he’s been mimicking (badly) become real. His hair springs up, unsolicited, and he leaves hoof-mark kicks in a dastardly crab-man. As he combats greater dangers, the government agents hone in on their extraterrestrial targets, eventually capturing one and bringing it back to their steam bath/observation lab.
ZEBRA BOMBER!
So much silliness, so much heart, so much drama, so many bad costumes, dumb songs, and gloopy aliens. Just when you expect your head to not explode, Miike pulls the trigger on the finale. The city is spared a neutron bomb drop, but at the cost of a magical display of bombastic action that will leave you shocked and moved. Zebraman somehow manages to achieve a silly charm greater even than its inspirational beast.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
![Zebraman: Ultimate Z-Pack [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/510hv+i8ftL._SL500_.jpg)
- Takashi Miike's Complete Zebraman Saga