In just a few hours, the telecast of the Oscars (or, as we refer to them, the “Weirdcademy Awards for squares”) will begin. We are happy to steal the Academy’s Thunder by announcing cinema’s weirdest winners of 2014.
In the category of “Weirdest Short Film,” in a shocking upset, the Weirdcademy Award goes to Alasdair Brotherston for “Earthworm Heart.”
In the category of “Weirdest Scene,” the Weirdcademy Award goes to The Dance of Realityfor the scene where Mrs. Jodorowsky decides that her urine has the power to cure the plague.
In the category of “Weirdest Actress,” the award goes to buxom soprana Pamela Flores, for singing every one of her lines throughout her role as Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s mother in The Dance of Reality.
In the category of “Weirdest Actor,” the Award goes to Michael Fassbender for the title role in Frank as an ecentric musical genius in a giant papier-mâché head.
And the award for Weirdest Movie of 2014 goes to The Dance of Reality, the Alejandro Jodorowsky psychomagical autobiography that is every bit as weird as you’d think it would be.
Thanks to all members of the Weirdcademy, and see you again next year!
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):
Kung Fu Elliot (2014): An actor/director longs to become “Canada’s first action star” with self-produced low budget movies like They Killed My Cat and Blood Fight, but as this self-styled “surreal documentary” continues it seems that his identity is based on a web of lies. Limited screenings in the next two weeks take it to New York, Los Angeles, Columbus, Philadelphia, and the Texas trio of Houston, Austin, and Lubbock (!) Kung Fu Elliot official site.
VIDEO-ON-DEMAND:
Heart Attack! The Early Pulse-Pounding Cinema of Kelly Hughes: An hour-long look back at “Heart Attack Theater,” an anthology of transgressive melodramas featuring drug addiction, demonic possession, and psychic nuns with evil twins that ran on Seattle public access in the 1990s. Guest appearance by Kitten Natividad. Watch Heart Attack! The Early Pulse-Pounding Cinema of Kelly Hughes ($3.99).
SCREENINGS – (Cinefamily, Los Angeles, Feb. 20 & 21):
The Color of Pomegranates (1968): Sergei Parajanov‘s stunning impressionistic biography of Armenian poet Sayat Nova, in a newly restored print. Screens tonight (Friday 20th) at 7:30 PM PST, and again tomorrow at 5 PM if that’s too short notice. You can also check out The Duke of Burgundy, which is screening at the theater all week. The Color of Pomegranates at Cinefamily.
Cult of the Damned [AKA Angel, Angel, Down We Go] (1969): An overweight heiress with a retired porn star mom falls in with a gang of revolutionary rock musicians. This seldom-seen trashy exploitation film has musical numbers and is frequently described by those who’ve seen it as “bizarre.” Buy Cult of the Damned.
Jake Squared (2013): A Hollywood director decides to film his own party as an experiment, but is shocked when dead relatives and past versions of himself show up to castigate him. It’s a little 8 1/2, a little Synecdoche, New York, and a little Hot Tub Time Machine. Buy Jake Squared.
Motivational Growth (2013): A mold growing in filthy home of a depressed man starts giving the homeowner motivational advice (which may not be in his best interests). Featuring the voice of Jeffrey Combs. Buy Motivational Growth.
Le Pont du Nord (1981): Two women discover a magical map that turns Paris into a hallucinatory board game. Curious that this is obscurity finally released on DVD, 14 years after its debut, but Jacques Rivette’s far more eagerly awaited Celine and Julie Go Boating remains missing. Buy Le Pont du Nord.
Psych-Out (1968): A deaf girl goes to Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love looking for her missing brother and winds up hanging out with a psychedelic band fronted by “Stoney” (Jack Nicholson); everyone drops acid and indulges in some free love. Pair this with Cult of the Damned above for a swinging Sixties sexploitation double feature. Buy Psych-Out.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013): Read our review. This classic Japanese fairy tale from Studio Ghibli about a tiny princess found in a bamboo stalk didn’t screen much in the U.S., but Universal put a lot of work into the DVD, including an entire disc of extra features. Buy The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Birdman, or (the Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance) (2014): See description in DVD above. Buy Birdman [Blu-ray].
John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary was one of 2014’s best films, with a central performance that is authentic in the rarest of ways. Brendan Gleeson is a welcome throwback to a specialized breed of cinematic actors: big, erudite men (Robert Shaw was such an actor). Gleeson began his acting career at a young age, appearing in the plays of Samuel Beckett and William Shakespeare. He was an English teacher for over a decade before embarking on a film career. Naturally, he has specialized in playing Irish patriarchs, mentors and historical figures, which makes his casting as Father James, a potential martyr, shrewd.
Traditionally, the role of a Catholic priest has been thought of as an actor’s plum. It is easy to see why, especially in the contemporary world. The Roman Catholic priest, with his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, has willfully chosen a subculture that is shockingly in direct opposition to the precepts of modernism’s worldview. The priest believes, whether he inevitably lives up to it or not, that he has an existential calling. He does not take the honor unto himself. Rather, he regards that his is a vocation called by something inward. His rejection of materialism is, hypothetically, inclusive. Capital, desire, and ego, theoretically are tenets of a status quo path that he has chosen to reject. The priesthood is the quintessential revolt against all that which is temporal.
Alfred Hitchcock‘s I Confess (1953) features a performance by Montgomery Clift, as Father Michael Logan, which takes the psychology of the priestly vocation to an icy extreme. Clift’s performance, born of primordial method acting, parallels the film’s inert aesthetic.
Robert Burks’ shimmering cinematography exudes a Genesis-like potency. This, combined with Clift’s acting achievement, rendered I Confess a cult favorite among New Wave filmmakers and French critics.
American critics and audiences found it a more curious affair. It is akin to Gabriel Fauré’s music. Its appeal is primarily provincial; so subtle that invoking its aesthetic content proves to be a task. Critics deemed this theological drama from the Jesuit-schooled Hitchcock too inaccessible, an inside affair amidst the director’s populist oeuvre. With introverted themes of Eden-esque transgressions, annihilation of carnality, and dogmatic devotion, I Confess was too bound in the interior of an orthodox landscape. Had Hitchcock’s film taken a more commercial approach, Western reception would have been considerably broader. Local critics predominantly panned Continue reading CALVARY (2014) AND I CONFESS (1953)→
“Parce que moi je rêve, je ne le suis pas.” (“Because I dream, I am not.”)–Léolo
DIRECTED BY: Jean-Claude Lauzon
FEATURING: Maxime Collin, Yves Montmarquette, Pierre Bourgault, Ginette Reno, Giuditta Del Vecchio, Julien Guiomar
PLOT: Young Léo Lauzon lives in Montreal with his dysfunctional family; he has an active imagination which he uses to escape from his squalid surroundings. He insists that his name is actually Léolo and that he is Italian, inventing a story that his mother was impregnated by a tomato contaminated with semen. He lusts after a neighbor girl (as does his grandfather) and tags along on salvage operations with his bodybuilding older brother in-between trips to the mental hospital to visit other family members; the entire time a mysterious old man hangs around the edges of the story.
BACKGROUND:
This was writer/director Jean-Claude Lauzon’s second feature film. He died in a plane crash in 1995 while working on his third.
Lauzon said the film was semi-autobiographical. Leo’s last name is also Lauzon, which he Italianizes to “Lozone” when he decides he is really Léolo.
The “Word Tamer” (or possibly “worm tamer”—“dompteur de vers” in the French may be a pun meaning both “worm” and “verse”) is played by Pierre Bourgault, a Quebecois separatist and professor. Lauzon was once a student of Bourgault’s.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: The “contaminated” tomato, the film’s most deranged comic invention.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Immaculate conception via imported produce, underwater hallucinations, and bizarre sexual practices reign in the world of Léolo’s imagination. He uses these inventions to escape from an almost equally strange, but far less pleasant, reality.
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