As promised, a family of crabs scuttle around in a dollhouse. When their lives are free of any labor to acquire their basic needs, living in itself becomes a struggle.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 6/15/2012
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):
The Woman in the Fifth (2011): Psychological (?) thriller about a down-on-his-luck writer (Ethan Hawke) who meets a mysterious woman while trying to reconnect with his young daughter after a divorce. This looks like one of those stories where it’s hard to tell whether it’s actually weird or not without either seeing it or reading a detailed spoiler-laden review. The Woman in the Fifth official site.
SCREENINGS (Museum of Modern Art, New York City, June 15-18):
UFO in Her Eyes (2011): Chinese authorities try to turn their backwater town into a tourist magnet after a possibly crazy woman reports having seen a UFO. It’s described as “surrealist and ironic” and features Udo Kier as the English-speaking alien. MOMA described this screening as the film’s “U.S. premier”; we can’t find any mention of it playing on anywhere after it finishes this run. UFO in Her Eyes at MOMA.
FILM FESTIVALS: LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL (June 14-24, Los Angeles, CA):
In the summer interval between Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festival, we keep coming across smaller film fests that have slates full of movies that didn’t make it to the bigger venues. Although we noticed some familiar titles at the LAFF—like the Southern-fired prehistoric monster apocalypse film Beasts of the Southern Wild, the 366-fave demented short Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, and the impressionistic art-school infatuation piece An Oversimplification of Her Beauty—we noticed several new (and a few retro) names popping up that may be worth keeping an eye out for.
- The Banishment (2007) – Read Eugene Vasiliev’s lengthy analysis of The Banishment. This seldom-screened, dreamlike Russian drama about a man who finds his wife is pregnant with another man’s child plays as part of the “Films That Got Away” series. Screening June 24.
- The Compass is Carried by the Dead Man [La Brújula la lleva el Muerto] (2011) – A thirteen-year old Mexican boy tries to make it across a “subtly surreal desert landscape” in his quest to reach Chicago. June 16 & 18.
- Crazy and Thief (2012) – Cory McAbee pauses work on his long-delayed opus Werewolf Hunters of the Midwest to deliver this color film in which two kids search for a cardboard time machine by following a homemade star chart. June 17 & 19.
- The History of Future Folk (2012) – Two aliens are distracted from their plans to conquer Earth when they fall in love with bluegrass music and decide to form a band. June 15 & 17.
- A Night Too Young [Prílis Mladá Noc] (2012) -Two thirteen year old boys are invited to an adult party and watch the grown-up’s strange behavior with wide-eyed amazement. June 17-18.
- P-047 (2011) – From Thailand comes this tale of two young adults who break into other people’s apartments while they’re away for a lark. With fantasy sequences, it’s described by LAFF organizers as “mind-bending.” June 20 & 24.
- The Science of Sleep (2006) – Read the Certified Weird entry. Los Angelinos can treat themselves to this special screening of Michel Gondry‘s Certified Weird dream romance tonight only (June 15) at 7:30 PST.
Los Angeles Film Festival homepage.
NEW ON DVD:
Accident (2009): A Hong Kong killer nicknamed “the Brain” who assassinates targets by staging “accidents” turns paranoid and assumes someone is trying to kill him in the same fashion. Weirdness is uncertain but it’s described as one of those “reality or delusion?” movies. Buy Accident
Don’t Go In The Woods (2010): An indie band goes into the woods and gets killed. This “slasher/musical” debut from Vincent D’Onfrio has been manhandled by critics and audiences alike, but the more we hear about it the more we suspect it might be somewhat surreal, even if only in a “so bad its weird” way. Buy Don’t Go In The Woods
Harold and Maude (1971): Read the reader recommendation. The black comedy cult classic about the love affair between a death-obsessed teenager and an elderly holocaust survivor gets the Criterion Collection treatment it deserves. Buy Harold and Maude (Criterion Collection)
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Accident (2009): See description in DVD above. Buy Accident [Blu-ray]
The Dark Crystal (1982)/Labyrinth (1986): Read our capsule reviews of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. A nice double-Blu of Jim Henson’s two oh-so-nearly-weird children’s puppet show fantasies. With an art booklet from designer/art director Brian Froud. Buy The Dark Crystal/Labyrinth [Blu-ray]
Harold and Maude (1971): See description in DVD above. Buy Harold and Maude [Criterion Collection Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Goth (2003): The synopsis promises it will “blur the boundaries between reality-driven horror and the hallucinatory style of ‘Requiem For a Dream.'” Maybe, maybe not, but it definitely delivers lots of skulls and candles, bad gore effects, stilted line deliveries, and topless girls in black lipstick. According to this film,there are three rules to being goth: “embrace the darkness, kill your fear, and live for death.” Ironically, these are also the first three planks of Mitt Romney’s campaign platform. Watch Goth 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.
SHANTY TRAMP (1967)
“Elmer Gantry (1960) with a dose of The Intruder (1962) on a 75 cent budget.”
There is the one-sentence synopsis for Shanty Tramp (1967), written and directed by Joseph P. Mawra. Mawra was a lesser-known director of numerous grindhouse films (such as 1964-1965’s Olga trilogy, produced by Glen or Glenda‘s George Weiss). Movies from this sadosexual school of filmmaking were often referred to as “roughies,” and here the lighting alone justifies that moniker.
After watching Shanty Tramp, you’ll never think of the song “When the Saints Go Marching In” quite the same way. The film opens with a worm’s eye-view of the Shanty Tramp herself (Lee Holland, in her only film role), barely squeezed into a tight white dress and pumps from hell as she shakes, jiggles, and marches her tramp way into a tent revival, choreographed to a gospel tune.
The little incubus-Eve is bound and determined to distract Preacher Man and every other male with red blood, which includes Daniel, a young African American male whose Ma warns him about the wiles of evil Shanty Tramps.
There’s a gleam in Shanty Tramp’s eyes when she spies the tithing basket. There’s a gleam in Preacher Man’s eyes when he spies Shanty Tramp’s popping cleavage. They promise to rendezvous later for a “spiritual lesson,” but Shanty Tramps get easily distracted.
The local rock-n-roll bar is man meat magnet for our heroine. Shanty Tramp grinds. Shanty Tramp flirts. Shanty Tramp gets fought over and the winner is… Savage, the leader of a biker gang! “Come on big man! You promised me a fin! I wanna see it!” She tells Savage. “Shut up and put out, babe!” Put out she does, and darn it, Savage actually lives up to his name and frolics rough.
Meanwhile Daniel’s Ma is still warning her son: “Tain’t good for black folk to be out at night! You get that Shanty Tramp outta your mind! ” “Oh come on Ma!” “Them whites in this town, they’re the same ones who strung up your Pa!”
Daniel’s not listening. He’s hearing the call of that succubus Shanty Tramp. The wise words of Ma can only fall on deaf ears when Shanty Tramp does her mating call. Daniel’s just in time to hear Savage yodel, “You teasing’ little bitch!” Poor Shanty Tramp has lost her top. It’s the exploitation version of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) with Daniel and Savage substituting for Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi, They crash into a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Daniel proves the better man and our heroine rewards him with some interracial action. Unfortunately, Shanty’s drunken Pa stumbles in to see Shanty and Daniel sharing a sweaty cigarette.
The redneck villagers, torch in hands, are in full pursuit of the black monster while his Ma has to pay the ultimate sacrifice for her little Cain. Shanty’s Pa gets sober enough to realize his little girl was engaging in consensual interracial sex. Pa grabs the old testament whip and … off with her top again!
Thrown in patricide, exploding cars, racial revenge, and bed-hopping that goes full circle back to Preacher Man, who don’t mind sloppy seconds so long as he gets to save a soul from the Devil’s lair. The sacrifices poor Preacher Man has to make doin’ the Lawd’s work!
Enjoy it with friends, but after shuffling your guests out the door, a tub full of Calgon is strongly advised to take you away from all that Shanty Tramp residue.
116. DAISIES (1966)
Sedmikrásky
“If there’s something you don’t like, don’t keep to the rules – break them. I’m an enemy of stupidity and simple-mindedness in both men and women and I have rid my living space of these traits.”–Vera Chytilová in a 2000 interview with The Guardian
DIRECTED BY: Vera Chytilová
FEATURING: Ivana Karbanová, Jitka Cerhová, Jan Klusák
PLOT: Two doll-like young women in bikinis theorize that because the entire world is becoming spoiled, they will be spoiled too. They set off on a series of anarchic adventures, many of which involve them permitting old men to take them to expensive dinners. Their surreal, sexy excursions are interrupted by Dadaist collages and sudden changes of film stock, and climax in a slapstick pie fight.
BACKGROUND:
- Although Daisies is frequently interpreted as a feminist statement, director Vera Chytilová denied that was her intent and preferred to describe the movie as “a philosophical documentary in the form of a farce.”
- In 1966 film composer Jan Klusák made his acting debut in two films: a small role as the butterfly-collecting beau in Daisies and in the major part of an absurd apparatchik in A Report on the Party and Guests.
- Writer Ester Krumbachová co-scripted the screenplays for both Daisies and Report and also designed the sets and costumes for Daisies.
- The Czechoslovakian censors banned Daisies in 1967 (at the same meeting in which they banned Jan Nemec’s overtly political A Report on the Party and Guests). Chytilová made one more feature in 1969, the equally surreal We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise, after which she was forbidden to make any more films for six years until she successfully appealed the government ban on her work.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: Marie II (I think; the blond one with the circlet of wildflowers) modestly trying to hide her nudity behind her suitor’s butterfly cases is an image that’s so highly charged it graces every DVD cover. The picture perfectly encapsulates Daisies‘ knowingly naughty innocence.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Watching the bright colors and bratty joie de vivre of Marie I and II as they slash and burn their way through square society, cutting up phallic symbols and the film stock itself with scissors, it’s hard to believe that Daisies wasn’t produced under the influence of drugs. Made a year before and half a world away from San Francisco’s Summer of Love, this proto-flower power film nonetheless captures the anarchic spirit of Sixties psychedelia; it’s a relic from an alternate universe populated by sexy Czech hippy chicks with serious cases of the munchies. Alternately described as a feminist manifesto, a consumerist satire, and a Dadaist collage, it seems that no one—possibly including the director herself—is quite clear on what Daisies is supposed to be about. Does it matter? No, it doesn’t.
Trailer for the 2022 restoration of Daisies
COMMENTS: Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a censor in Communist Czechoslovakia in Continue reading 116. DAISIES (1966)
FILM FESTIVAL DOUBLE FEATURE: SUN DON’T SHINE (2012)/TCHOUPITPOULAS (2012)
Taking a trip to your local film festival is a good way to recalibrate your sense of weirdness. The sparsely attended showings will remind you that to the average movie patron, any film that doesn’t feature either 1. a car chase, 2, a robot chase, or 3. Adam Sandler probably qualifies as “weird.” So, although the two films commented on below may not qualify as weird by our bizarre standards, it’s good to remember that they are as extraordinary a pair of oddities as the average moviegoer might be accidentally exposed to.
Writer/director Amy Seimetz reveals that Sun Don’t Shine was based on a recurring nightmare, combined with her fever dream recollections of the subtle insanity engendered by south Florida humidity. The scenario sees fragile Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and macho beau Leo (Kentucker Audley) on the lam heading for the Everglades in a clunker with a bad radiator, fleeing troubles which aren’t immediately disclosed but which you will easily guess. There are a few moments, when the story shifts to see things from anti-heroine Crystal’s distorted perspective (which seems equally informed by insecurity and sunstroke) that Sun seems about to take off into nightmare territory. But we always quickly return to reality and to the movie’s core, the uncomfortable co-dependent relationship between sullen Leo and wispy Crystal. The movie seems afraid to push itself past the merely uncomfortable and into the full depths of insanity, at least until a final “too little too late” moment of madness. In that, perhaps the script is only playing to its strengths. Seimetz is excellent at creating a believable dynamic between the troubled lovebirds; there’s a barroom scene where Crystal is boring her man with a story about pilfered lipstick to the point where he has to get up and walk away as if to say “I love you, but if you yap on for one more second we’ll be talking about your fat lip instead of your lipstick.” She follows him into the men’s room and wins him back with persistent affection. It’s a very real scene, but the problem is almost the entire film is made up of such supplemental moments. A movie can have so much character Continue reading FILM FESTIVAL DOUBLE FEATURE: SUN DON’T SHINE (2012)/TCHOUPITPOULAS (2012)