We’ve got the usual eclectic mix of movies on our slate next week: first up is an in-depth analysis of the strange 1999 documentary Wisconsin Death Trip, about the tragic travails of a small town in the 1890s. We’ll follow that with a report on Beasts of the Southern Wild, this year’s breakout indie darling, about a six-year old girl who imagines (?) marauding beasts in her post-Katrina bayou home. And our quest for signs of intelligent weirdness in the universe will lead us on a psychedelic expedition to Fantastic Planet [La planète sauvage] (1973), where giant mystical blue aliens keep humans as pets, at least when their heads aren’t floating around the stratosphere.

You want weird search terms? We get the weirdest search terms, which is why we run them down each week in our Weirdest Search Term of the Week contest. We start off with a search for a movie we’d like to see, if it exists and can be located: “short film midgets eat feet.” To be perfectly honest, we wouldn’t mind checking out “strange sucking girls romance,” either.  And something strikes us as very humorous about this search for information on the “shoe quinn of blood island” (heck, would would have considered the “shoe queen of blood island” a bizarre search). In a pretty weird week, we’ll select “what is the next section of the dot that should be shaded in this sequence on the crows licorice box” as the weirdest term to cross our server logs this week. If the original searcher is reading this article now, you’ll really have to send us that particular crow’s licorice box for us to answer the question with any kind of accuracy.

Here’s your weekly progress report on that ridiculously-long-and-ever-growing reader-suggested review queue: Fantastic Planet (next week!); “My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117″; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra] (out of print in Region 1, but we’ll keep looking); Liquid Sky (re-review); “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; May; Little Otik; Final Programme; Sweet Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

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):

Alps (2011): Giorgos Lanthimos’ followup to Dogtooth involves a service that sends impersonators out to pretend to be the deceased loved ones of mourning families. It appears to be another weird one, but in a more subtle and quiet mode than the Greek’s provocative debut. Alps official site.

SCREENINGS (Jul. 19, Montreal, Canada):

For Love’s Sake: The latest from extreme provocateur Takashi Miike is a violent J-pop musical comedy based on “West Side Story.” Opening the Fantasia festival; we’ll be bringing you more coverage on this premier genre film showcase next week, but we had to mention this one as it’s playing for one night only. For Love’s Sake at Fantasia Film Festival.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

The Prophet (est. 2013): An animated adaptation of Kahlil Gibran’s popular collection of poetic/philosophical essays. We could care less about “The Prophet,” but the animators assembled for the project get us excited: Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis, Chicken with Plums), Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), and the great weirdo Bill Plympton. Here’s the scoop from the Hollywood Reporter.

Tales from the Hanging Head (est. 2014): An anthology of world fairy tales for children, each on the them of metamorphosis and with a strict “no CGI” rule. That might be interesting, but it gets more intriguing when you look at the lineup of outside-the-box directors: underground diva Sara Driver, Alfonso Cuarón, Marjane Satrapi (again), Emir Kusturica, and two-time Certified Weird director Michel Gondry. No official site yet, but here’s a story from IndieWire.

NEW ON DVD:

Black Limousine (2010): David Arquette stars as a down-on-his-luck alcoholic film composer who takes a job as a limo driver and meets a movie star (Bijou Phillips) who he hopes can put his career back on track. Despite an accomplished cast this movie was apparently too strange to get a Hollywood release and flew completely under the radar; the limited word-of-mouth says it’s extremely weird, however. Buy Black Limousine.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Altered States (1980): Read the Certified Weird entry! Ken Russell’s apocalyptic mushroom-trip-on-film is a Blu-ray must for any respectable stoner. No extras on this release, just a hi-def upgrade. Buy Altered States [Blu-ray].

Bitch Slap (2009): Read our capsule review. Get your cleavage in high definition with this unexpected Blu release of the cheesy Russ Meyer tribute film. Buy Bitch Slap [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Adaptation. (2002): Read our capsule review.  Don’t get us wrong—we loved Charlie Kaufman‘s script about a scriptwriter named Charlie Kaufman who can’t get started writing a script. We’re just torn on whether it’s weird, or just super-duper clever. Watch it and tell us what you think.  Watch Adaptation. 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.