Arthur Lipsett’s assemblage of bizarre discarded footage from the National Film Board of Canada has been credited as a major influence on George Lucas’ work. Lucas even made Princess Leia’s prison cell on the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV number 2187, after this short.
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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 on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Hamesima X (2010): A Mossad agent catches and interrogates a man who has infiltrated a top-secret facility; turns out, he’s an alien bringing Kabbalistic secrets (and fleeing psychic ninjas). We have very few reports on this mystical Israeli import that is playing New York City for one week, but you have to admit that plot description sounds a little weird. Hamesima X official site.
Mortem (2010): Hmm… from what we can make out of the synopsis, we gather Mortem is about a woman who refuses to die and instead holes up in a hotel room and makes out with her own soul? It’s hot girl-on-girl metaphysical action in this B&W French import that’s playing at Quad Cinema in Manhattan with Hamesima X (above) this week; director Eric Atlan will be in attendance for a Q&A session on April 26 & 27. Mortem official site.
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012): An impressionistic, experimental, partially animated portrait of a young artist and his desire for a beautiful woman. Debuting this week in New York City with scattered showings across the country through early June. An Oversimplification of Her Beauty official site.
SCREENINGS – (Cinbefamily, Los Angeles, CA, 4/26-4/28):
Phase IV (1974): Ants set out to conquer the world in famed title designer Saul Bass’ only feature film. It’s a restored print, but the real attraction is Bass’ original 2001-inspired 8-minute psychedelic finale sequence, newly discovered in the Academy Film Archives vaults. Sorry we have to miss it but we hope the new footage will show up in a DVD release soon. Phase IV at Cinefamily.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (est. 9/13 – Japanese version): Shion Sono‘s latest is about… well, we don’t know what it’s about, because no one on staff reads Japanese. It’s got samurai fighting yakuza and literal rivers of blood and definitely looks weird, though, as you’ll see if you check out the teaser trailer on the official site. Why Don’t You Play in Hell? official site [Japanese].
NEW ON DVD:
D’Agostino (2012): The story of the romantic—or at least the master/pet—relationship between a London businessman and the naked male slave he discovers hiding in his dead grandmother’s Greek beach home. Critics weren’t too fond of it, but it does sound a little weird. Buy D’Agostino
Flirt (1995): A woman tries to tempt a man into marrying her before she accepts another proposal, and then the same scenario plays itself out among different people on three different continents in Hal Hartley’s experimental comedy. Hartley (The Unbelievable Truth) has his fans, but this one has never been released on DVD before. Buy Flirt
The Grapes of Death [Les Raisins de la Mort] (1978): Frenchmen turn into zombies after they drink wine made from grapes treated with pesticide. Having spent last year remastering and re-releasing Jean Rollin‘s surreal vampire movies, Redemption is finishing up his catalog with his less well-known (and generally less successful) horror efforts. Buy The Grapes of Death
It’s in the Blood (2012): Read our capsule review. Lance Henriksen stars in this psychological horror/drama set in the woods. Buy It’s in The Blood
K-11 (2012): A record producer wakes up after a night of partying and finds himself imprisoned in Los Angeles Prisons K-11 unit—that’s where they send the homosexuals and transgendered folk. Directed by Kristen Stewart’s mom Jules (a veteran Hollywood script supervisor), critics declared it guilty of sucking, although on the plus side the Hollywood Reporter called it “like a deranged John Waters remake of The Shawshank Redemption” (they put that quote on the cover). Buy K-11
Meanwhile (2011): Hal Hartley’s latest tells the story of a self-sacrificing Joe wandering around Manhattan, never seeming to get ahead because he’s always helping others out. It only runs an hour, never received theatrical distribution, and was funded via Kickstarter. Buy Meanwhile
Night of the Hunted [La Nuit des Traquées] (1980): In a departure for Jean Rollin, this strange horror movie contains no mythical monsters, but instead takes place in a mental asylum housed in a skyscraper. Like Grapes of Death, this one stars one of Rollin’s favorite actress, the former hard-porn star Brigitte Lahaie. This is obviously not to be confused with Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter! Buy Night of the Hunted
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Flirt (1995): See description in DVD above. Buy Flirt [Blu-ray]
The Grapes of Death [Les Raisins de la Mort] (1978): See description in DVD above. Buy The Grapes of Death [Blu-ray]
K-11 (2012): See description in DVD above. Buy K-11 [Blu-ray]
Meanwhile (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy Meanwhile [Blu-ray]
Night of the Hunted [La Nuit des Traquées] (1980): See description in DVD above. Buy Night of the Hunted [Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Peacock (2010): Read our capsule review. Cilian Murphy goes drag, but Andreas Stoehr complained that it’s a “a muddled, small-town drama with only the occasional hint of slight weirdness”: see if you agree. Watch Peacock 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.
Buster Keaton further explored his fascination with the west in his feature Go West (1925). Keaton had previously parodied the westerns of William S. Hart in Frozen North (1922) and Go West is a further development of that exploration. Go West, however, is more influenced by Charlie Chaplin than by Hart; it has qualities which have to come to be termed as “Chaplinesque”, albeit filtered through “Keatonesque” sensibilities. It is said to have been Keaton’s personal favorite among his features, enough that he took solo directorial credit, which was rare for him.
Go West is the romantic (and odd) story of a cowhand drifter and his cow, with a girl in the very distant background. Keaton plays a lonely fish-out-of-water named Friendless (cue symbolism). The unemployed Friendless finally gets a job at a cattle ranch, but he is ill-equipped for the duties of a cowboy. Out of his element in this blue-collar, macho labor, Friendless is an object of ridicule to his peers. He never can bond with the other ranchers and gets so behind in his work that he always misses the company meal. Some gags are in order now, including Friendless’ clever technique for overcoming his discomfort with a six-shooter. Paralleling Friendless is an equally anti-social cow named Brown Eyes, who also does not bond with her peers. Rather, Brown Eyes gets attached to Friendless and becomes a shadow to the misfit herder, whom she loves.
Naturally, our misfit among misfits will have to overt the slaughter of Brown Eyes. Kathleen Myers, the ranch owners’ daughter, develops a soft spot for the bohemian pair and pleads with Papa to show mercy, which is about all the lackluster Myers gets to do. (With few exceptions, Keaton’s leading ladies are pretty much wallpaper and Myers’ character is true to that rule. Keaton never developed or nurtured a consistent female foil of the type Edna Purviance or Paulette Goddard played for Chaplin).
Although Keaton pulls audience heartstrings here, he never milks it with obviousness, but rather imbues it with inherent strangeness. Keaton, per the norm, builds the film to an epic climax which involves a stampede in town. Havoc ensues, although it is pretty much an extended single joke of cattle wandering into places and circumstances in which they do not belong.
The most inventive gag is Friendless donning a devil’s outfit and literally becoming a waving red flag to round-up the wayward herd. Keaton pulls out all the stops and the finale is grandly executed—although much to Keaton’s dismay, the cattle was not as cooperative as he had hoped for, and compromises had to be made in the shooting script. Naturally, the eccentric duo will save the day and Friendless will choose his longhorn over the real live girl as a reward.
One Week (1920) is co-directed by Edward. F. Cline and was Keaton’s first real solo short after a lucrative three-year apprenticeship with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Keaton clearly had learned his trade and developed a vision; One Week is a masterpiece, co-starring, for the first time, Sybil Seely, who was the closest Keaton would come to a regular leading lady.
Keaton establishes a decidedly more progressive and idiosyncratic stylization here: inventive and intelligent slapstick through elaborate set demolition and madcap, highly choreographed stunt work.
Uncle Mike gifts newlyweds Keaton and Seely a house and a lot. Seely’s old suitor, Handy Hank, is incensed. Much to the newlyweds’ dismay, they discover their house comes in a box, which they have to assemble. There are directions, which simply instruct to “follow the numbers.” A vengeful Hank jumbles the numbers. Carpentry is simply not Keaton’s trade, ND the result is a surreal house which makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look stable.
The house on sand will come a tumbling down, a gag Keaton will perfect in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928). Perhaps the most surprising element here is Selly’s bath scene in which she drops her soap and the cameraman spares her modesty by covering the lens with his hand. Seely is understandably grateful. It’s easy to see why Keaton preferred Seely. He may not have given her a lot to do on-screen, but her sexy and sweet personality shows through in every frame she occupies. One Week rounds up with an extended storm sequence.
Next Week: Seven Chances (1925).
DIRECTED BY: Rob Zombie
FEATURING: Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Dee Wallace, Patricia Quinn, Judy Geeson
PLOT: An overnight DJ is drawn into a web of witchcraft when she plays a mysterious record.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s weird, to be sure, but it’s not weird enough to make us forgive all of the script’s missteps. I saw Salem in a theater with a quartet of teenagers as the only other patrons in the audience. They were far more thrilled by the Iron Man 3 trailer, which made the girls and boys alike squeal with delight. They were less impressed by this movie: one of them complained afterwards that it wasn’t even a “horror movie” (what kind of movie she thought it was, if not horror, I didn’t overhear). Yet, they stayed through the entire thing. If you can’t get teenagers who think Iron Man 3 looks awesome to walk out on your movie, then I’m afraid you haven’t made it weird enough to make the List.
COMMENTS: The Lords of Salem wants to be a rock and roll Rosemary’s Baby, but most of the time it’s just a bunch of dream sequences floating around in space, looking for a movie to latch on to. Of course, 366 Weird Movies doesn’t object to the use of dream sequences—hell, make your entire movie one long dream sequence and we’ll eat it up—but we do object to the clumsy, clichéd fashion in which they are handled here. If you’ve seen a horror movie before, you know the kind we’re talking about: everything seems normal and then suddenly the protagonist sees some dreadful apparition, bony fingers reach towards her neck, and then—poof!—she wakes up, it was all a dream. Do it once, and you’re just relying on a genre convention. Do it twice, and the audience may start to get annoyed. But play this trick three times or more, as Salem does, and you’ve broken a bond of trust between viewer and director. But let’s back up for a moment. These recurring hallucinations take up most of the pictures second act. The first act sets up the essential story: DJ Heidi lives alone with a dog in a Salem, Massachusetts apartment. Played by Sheri Moon Zombie, Heidi is unglamorous: skinny like a junkie, with bad tattoos, blond dreadlocks and hipster glasses. (Despite what you may have heard, her acting is not bad; the character is just underdeveloped. It was created in makeup and wardrobe, not in the script). Heidi interviews an expert on the Salem witch trials (for some reason, the late night classic rock show she co-hosts invites only Satanism-related guests) who provides historical background on local witchcraft cults. Then she receives a mysterious LP record, plays it on the air, and we drift into that seemingly never-ending series of dreams inside dreams which serve no plot purpose, but only showcase the director’s ability to construct a fake scare scene. Although it turns out all those second-act hallucinations (including a nasty bit involving a priest) were just padding, the story starts to improve in the third act, when three villainous witches start actively corrupting events. As the end draws near, the hallucination sequences become both more intense and more meaningful. Directed by the delightfully nasty and foul-mouthed hag trio, they take on a purposeful ritualistic character that makes it clear (well, somewhat clear) what’s going on with Heidi. The scenes turn operatic as Heidi’s efficiency apartment transforms into a grand ballroom. We meet a wonderfully creepy fetus-looking demon with a bifurcated umbilical cord who’s up to no good. And Rob Zombie goes all-out crazy in the final moments, creating a grand surrealistic horror montage that’s reminiscent of the kind of psychedelic apocalypses Ken Russell was putting up on big screens in the 1980s. The bottom line is I can’t recommend, or recommend avoiding, watching Lords of Salem. If you go you’ll see a fairly standard horror movie setup, a muddled middle, and an ambitious ending; you’ll see demons of every shape and size (including one looks like Chewbacca), corpses and rats and goats, psychedelic effects, blasphemous Satanic sex rituals, nude hags, cameos by minor genre icons like Dee Wallace and Patricia Quinn (the credits say Michael Berryman and Sid Haig are in there somewhere too, though I didn’t spot them), and Sheri Moon’s skinny butt. If that kind of hodgepodge sounds it worth it to you, and you don’t need a coherent story or artistic vision to tie it all together, than by all means have at it.
Rob Zombie is a difficult director to get a handle on. On the one hand, he is almost certainly the most talented director to ever bear the name “Zombie.” On the other hand, each of his movies contain moments of visionary inspiration marred by deep flaws and missteps. He displays the aesthetic sensibilities of an Iron Maiden album cover combined with an overweening sense of self-importance (his rambling, half-mad director’s statement claims that “only the goat knows free will” and warns against some “dangerous old conceptual fiction so near to the silver screen”). He’s a true American weirdo for our sick times.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
That Obscure Object of Desire has been promoted onto the List of the 366 Weirdest Movies ever made. Please visit the official Certified Weird entry. Comments on this post are closed.
DIRECTED BY: Luis Buñuel
FEATURING: Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet, Angela Molina
PLOT: A rich French businessman courts a beautiful young Spanish woman over the years, but although she sometimes professes to love him, she continually refuses to consummate the relationship.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Obscure Object is one of Buñuel’s best, but not one of his weirdest. If you merged the two actresses who inexplicably share the role of Conchita into one, you could almost mistake this parody of obsessive bourgeois eroticism for a normal comedy—almost.
COMMENTS: The “gimmick” of two actresses playing the object of desire is the high-concept highlight of That Obscure Object of Desire, but make no mistake: the casting was not a desperation move to salvage some sort of novelty value out of a dull script. Buñuel’s final film is one of his most tightly controlled and plotted movies, the work of a 77-year old master intent on putting the final punctuation on a distinguished career. The story is simple: prosperous, respectable, middle-aged Mathieu meets 18-year old serving girl Conchita and attempts, and fails, to seduce her. She leaves his service, but as the years go on he continues to encounter her, whether by chance or by design, and gradually he works his way closer and closer to her heart—but although she declares her love for him, she never surrenders her virtue. Buñuel and his totally committed trio of actors push the dramatic scenario further than you would think possible: the erotic tension builds and builds until surely, you think, something has to break. Either Conchita will give in or Mathieu will tire of being teased and rid himself of her forever. And yet, after each frustrating encounter, the bourgeois businessman comes back for more, and Conchita is willing to continue the dance. There are moments when rape seems inevitable, but that solution would wreck the game, so they push right to the brink before pulling back and resetting.
It’s not all unbearable erotic tension: Obscure Object is, at heart, a droll and absurd comedy, full of sophisticated, off-kilter jokes; even if you don’t always get them, you feel smarter for chuckling at them. Some gags are obvious: there’s a variation on the old “waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!’ joke—this time, it’s in a martini. One night, Mathieu lures Conchita to his bedroom; Angelia Molina asks “can I change?” and goes into the bathroom to put on her nightgown; she emerges as Carole Bouquet. At other times the humor is more oblique and surreal, and we’re not sure what to make of it. Mathieu tells his story to traveling companions on a train; one is a dwarf, and a professor of psychology—but he only gives private lessons. A Spanish fortune teller carries a pig wrapped in a blanket like a baby. The movie is set in a Europe where terrorist bombings are a background fact of life; one of the revolutionary groups is named “the Revolutionary Army of Baby Jesus.”
This being a Buñuel film, there’s a constant subtle mockery of the unexamined values of the middle class. Mathieu casually tells the strangers in his train compartment how he essentially tries to purchase Conchita off her cash-strapped mother, and how he beats and humiliates the girl after he’s been sexually frustrated. Rather than being scandalized by the shameful confession, everyone takes his side, nods understandingly and comforts the respectable victim. Obscure Object is Buñuel’s attack on what he sees as the capitalist system of romance: men, the class with the capital, protect and provide for women, and in return they receive love and sex. This arrangement, based on inequality, can never satisfy either sex: men will remain emotionally frustrated because women only give in to them out of hardship, and the disenfranchised women use the only weapon at their disposal—their erotic power—to revenge themselves upon men. Just as the characters in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie never get to eat, Mathieu never gets to… you know.
As for why two women play Conchita, it’s one of those deliberate Surrealist accidents that suggest interpretations that remain obscure. Do Bouquet and Molina represent two sides of the same woman, a divided personality, female duplicity? I lean to the reading that there are two women because Mathieu, the bourgeois man, can’t understand the “object” of his own desire; he no more notices that his love changes before his very eyes than he sees that the society around him is crumbling into anarchy.
According to co-writer and longtime Buñuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, the idea to cast two women in the role of Conchita occurred in an early draft of the script, but was discarded. When production began on the movie Buñuel was unhappy with the woman chosen to play Conchita (Last Tango in Paris’ Maria Schneider) and came close to abandoning the project before resurrecting the idea of using dual actresses in the role.
The Criterion Collection lost the rights to Studio Canal’s Buñuel collection, and therefore the 2013 Blu-ray of That Obscure Object of Desire was released by Lions Gate (buy
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: