This trailer for a thirty-minute short stands alone as plenty weird.
To see the full short, visit Deadly Serious Productions here. This Is Why Everyone Hates You contains strong language and adult content.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 4/27/2012
A 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 (WIDE RELEASE):
The Cabin in the Woods: Five college kids find themselves trapped inside an impossibly clichéd horror movie situation at the titular locale; who is the puppetmaster pulling the strings? We passed on mentioning this big time Hollywood horror release last week as too mainstream, too hiply postmodern, but we’ve since changed our minds and now think this could be worth a bit of your weird attention. The Cabin in the Woods official site.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Bunnyman 2 [est. 2012]: The sole source of potential weirdness in this one is that the serial killer looks like a (far less terrifying) Ice Cream Bunny with a chainsaw. We confess, we weren’t even aware there was a Bunnyman 1. Here’s a link to the not-safe-for-work (NSFW) trailer: Bunnyman 2 trailer.
Mondo Art [est. 2012]: By coincidence, the day I was writing about “Mondo” movies in the context of Sans Soleil and wondering to myself where the Mondos had gone, I get a notice of a new Mondo in production, this one covering the modern/performance art scene. Fringe movements exploited in the shock-doc include feminazi films, insane asylum art, and an “assault rifle aggression” artist. Another NSFW trailer (this time, for nudity and perversion): Mondo Art trailer.
NEW ON DVD:
“Citizen Welles: The Stranger (1946), The Trial (1962), Hearts of Age (1934)”: Here’s a 2.5 movie set of Orson Welles pictures. The Stranger is a solid, conventional anti-Nazi noir; of more interest (to us) is Welles’ adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial, the story of an average man accused of a crime but never told what he is supposed to be guilty of (this movie is in our reader suggested review queue). Both the feature films were already in print, but what makes this 2-disc set a bit more interesting is the inclusion of “Hearts of Age,” Welles’ rarely seen 8-minute first film, in which a young Orson plays Death and which was actually inspired by Surrealism. Nothing new here, but an interesting collection nonetheless. Buy “Citizen Welles”
Dirtbags (2009): According to the synopsis, this is a retitled (but identical) re-release of Dirtbags: Evil Never Felt So Good, which itself is supposedly a remake of a probably non-existent movie called Dirtbags: The Armpit of Metal. This “special” edition contains an interview with someone called Peter Steele and behind the scenes footage for extra features totaling about an hour and a half in length. Apparently, the movie is a date-rape comedy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’d have a lot more confidence in director Bill Zebub if he’d chosen the more elegant pseudonym Bill Z. Bubb. Buy Dirtbags
“Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave”: Although some of these movies are currently in print from other sources, this 4-disc, 6 movie set from the Criterion Collection’s “Eclipse” line still counts as one of our most anticipated releases of the year. Covering the frequently surreal movies of the Czech New Wave from 1966-1969, the star of the set is the “madcap feminist farce” Daisies (already in our review queue). Also of note is the surreal and notoriously banned Report on the Party and the Guests. Other films are the anthology Pearls of the Deep, the eccentric comedy Capricious Summer, the subversive adultery drama The Joke, and Return of the Prodigal Son, a film about which we know absolutely nothing. This set could potential contain multiple movies that we’ll eventually certify as weird (if they live up to their legendary reputations). Buy “Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave”
Girl on a Motorcycle (1968): Marianne Faithful leaves her newlywed husband, gets on a motorcycle, experiments with psychedelic drugs, and has flashbacks inside of flashbacks. This feminist counterculture road-trip film was billed as the European version of Easy Rider. Buy Girl On a Motorcycle
“A Hollis Frampton Odyssey”: Another compilation of “not for everyone” experimental films from the 1960s avant-garde, of which the frustratingly ambiguous “Zorns Lemma” (1970) comes closest to being famous. Brilliance, or structuralist wankery? Now you can decide. 2 discs. Buy “A Hollis Frampton Odyssey” (Criterion Collection)
The Theater Bizarre (2011): A six-film horror anthology from directors Douglas Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Jeremy Kasten, Tom Savini, and Richard Stanley. Apparently Hussain’s segment is surreal. Like any anthology, we expect this to be of mixed quality—but we like the title. Buy The Theater Bizarre
Thor at the Bus Stop (2009): Ragnarök has arrived, and the Norse god Thor needs to take public transportation for his date to fight the Midgard serpent; his annoyed actions at a Las Vegas bus stop spark mini-dramas in those standing around him. Zero budget or not, you have to take notice of a concept like that. The DVD had been sold independently, but was picked up by VCI for a proper release. Buy Thor at the Bus Stop
The Wicker Tree (2010): Two missionaries travel to a remote Scottish town where the villagers still worship the old pagan gods in this re-make/boot/hash of the Certified Weird The Wicker Man (1973). It’s from original director Robin Hardy and brings back star Christopher Lee for a cameo, but reviewers suggested Hardy should have left the Old Gods sleeping. We’ll probably check it out anyway: could it be worse than the infamous 2006 remake with Nicolas Cage? Buy The Wicker Tree
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Girl on a Motorcycle (1968): See description in DVD above. Buy Girl On a Motorcycle [Blu-ray]
“A Hollis Frampton Odyssey”: See description in DVD above. Buy “A Hollis Frampton Odyssey” [Criterion Collection Blu-ray]
The Wicker Tree (2010): See description in DVD above. Buy The Wicker Tree [Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Stranger Than Fiction (2006): An IRS agent (Will Ferrel) comes to realize that he is actually a character in a novel being written by a creatively-challenged author (Emma Thompson)—and even worse, he figures out that she’s trying to come up with a plot twist to kill him off. This literate comedy-fantasy with a postmodern premise is one of the biggest hits available for free on YouTube, as well as the only movie starring Will Ferrel that critics actually liked. Watch Stranger Than Fiction 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.
42ND STREET (1933)
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42nd Street is the film that really made choreographer Busy Berkeley a star; and that, in itself, is telling. Although directed by Lloyd Bacon (a 1930’s version of a Ron Howard-type assembly line director), it was Berkeley who rightfully grabbed the honors.
The musical, it seemed, had already run its course when Warner Brothers released 42nd Street. Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927) had been the ground-breaker, ushering in the advent of sound. But, in the six short years between The Jazz Singer and 42nd Street, the genre had already grown stale. Warner, on the verge of bankruptcy, took a huge gamble (studios used to do that) and brought in the innovative Berkeley, teamed him with the competent helmsman Bacon, an unknown (fresh) cast, and the expert songwriting team of Al Dubin and Harry Warren (who make a cameo in the film).
The plot is hackneyed, and would set the pattern for what constitutes a “Berkeley” film. It’s a backstage story about the struggles of a Broadway musical production (who really thought 1980’s Fame had an ounce of originality?) with an overly intense, self-destructive director (Warner Baxter, an archetype later taken to the extreme in Roy Scheider’s portrayal of Joe Gideon in 1979’s All That Jazz) and an understudy (Ruby Keeler) who, at the last moment, fills in for the injured star (Bebe Daniels) and becomes a star herself.
Of far more interest, plot-wise, is the nuanced filler material. Virginal Keeler and her leading fellar, golly-gee-wiz swell guy Dick Powell have limited charm and register as flat and clunky next to the wisecracking chorus girl Ginger Rogers (already projecting star quality) and the dirty old rich lecher Guy Kibbee. This is the Depression era and there is talk aplenty about the desperate struggle for money and success, which gives the film moments of sweaty substance. Star Daniels, no fluff actress, is clearly an occupant of Kibbee’s casting couch, even if she is in love with George Continue reading 42ND STREET (1933)
111. SANS SOLEIL (1983)
AKA Sunless
DIRECTED BY: Chris Marker
FEATURING: Alexandra Stewart (narrator, English language version)
PLOT: Essentially plotless, Sans Soleil is structured as a series of letters sent from around the world by a fictional director addressed to the anonymous female narrator. The footage shown ranges from the banal to the incredible, and each image sparks a meditation from the letter writer. Among other sights, we view Japanese praying at a shrine to dead cats, the imaginary nightmares of sleeping subway riders, and the bloody slaughter of a giraffe by poachers.
BACKGROUND:
- Sandor Krasna, the cameraman whose letters the unnamed narrator is supposedly reading, is fictional, an alter-ego of reclusive director Chris Maker. The name “Chris Marker” is itself a pseudonym for Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve.
- Marker has said he was born in Mongolia, a claim some film historians dispute. He was a philosophy student before joining the French resistance during the Nazi occupation. After the war he became a journalist, then a documentary filmmaker.
- Sans Soleil was Marker’s first personal film after years spent making a series of Marxist political documentaries.
- The title comes from a song cycle by Modest Mussorgsky; some of the melodies are recreated in nearly unrecognizable electronic versions arranged by Isao Tomita.
- In one section of the film “Sandor Krasna” has traveled to San Francisco to visit locations from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Remembering the scene where Madeline points to the tree stump, the narrator says “he remembered another film in which this passage was quoted…” The other film, of course, is Marker’s own La Jetée.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: For many, Sans Soleil‘s unforgettable scene is the slice in time when a striking-looking young woman in Cape Verde, who knows the camera is pointed at her but demurely refuses to acknowledge it, briefly makes eye contact; Marker highlights the moment, remarking about “the real glance, straightforward, that lasted a twenty-fourth of a second, the length of a film frame.” (It’s an inversion of a famous bit from Marker’s La Jetée, where every shot is technically the length of a film frame except for a single glance at the camera). As unexpectedly powerful as this brief moment of eye contact is, it’s unfortunately not so weird. So, for our indelible image we instead turn to the video transformation of the ceramic cat idol into an abstract orange and blue blob, a moment where Marker brings two of the film’s diverse interests into a temporary harmony, illustrating how he weaves his seemingly random obsessions into a coherent tapestry.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Sans Soleil begins with an image of three Icelandic girls and
Clip from Sans Soleil
voiceover narration admitting that the photographer can find no other image to link it to, followed by a brief shot of American warplanes on an aircraft carrier, followed by scenes Japanese commuters napping on a ferry. This ADD documentary changes topics every minute or two, with each brief sequence accompanied by a spoken observation that could be read as profound, poetic, pretentious, or even all three at once. Sans Soleil visits cat shrines, the slaughter of a giraffe, and a monkey porn museum in its wanderings. If that’s not weird enough for you, the film takes time out of its busy schedule to recreate the imaginary nightmares of passengers dozing on a Tokyo subway. All of the scenes are accompanied by freaky synthetic electronic sounds percolating up through a video mix that’s often altered with then-avant-garde video transformation techniques. With their feet nailed to reality, documentaries have to strain hard to escape the bonds of gravity and sail to the heights of weirdness, but Sans Soleil is one experiment in nonfiction that manages to soar effortlessly.
COMMENTS: Essentially, Sans Soleil is an arthouse version of Mondo Cane. (For the record, I Continue reading 111. SANS SOLEIL (1983)
CAPSULE: STRINGS (2004)
DIRECTED BY: Anders Rønnow Klarlund
FEATURING: Voices of James McAvoy, Catherine McCormack, Derek Jacobi, Julian Glover
PLOT: Hal, Crown Prince of a kingdom of marionettes, disguises himself as a commoner to try to uncover his father’s murderer.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Strings is essentially a stock prince-grows-to-be-a-man-and-saves-the-kingdom high fantasy tale, but with a twist: everyone in the film is not only a marionette, they know they’re a marionette. The gimmick is used meaningfully, but given the standard-issue narrative, it’s not enough to movie this film from the “offbeat curiosity” into the “weird” column.
COMMENTS: Strings‘ basic plot, which involves an undercover prince, a kingdom in peril, intrigue and betrayal, prophecies, virtuous misunderstood rebels, appeals to the “power of love,” and a big battle at the end, is at the same time a bit confusing (with lots of characters, factions and subplots to keep track of) and overly familiar. That hardly matters, however, because the movie’s real pleasures come from admiring the meticulously constructed puppets as they dance across the boldly-lit diorama sets, and even more from the film’s creation of a complete marionette culture and mythology. The hand carved puppets have an Old World, doll-like charm, and although their faces are all frozen in neutral expressions, they exhibit an unexpected range of expressiveness just by raising or lowering their eyelids or tilting their heads that make them only slightly uncanny. The filmmakers make no attempt to hide the marionettes’ strings—even going so far as to title the movie after the darn things—and this is the most interesting and curious aspect of the production. A dozen or more strings rise up from each character’s body, disappearing into the heavens above. A breathtaking aerial view illustrates why airplane flight would be impossible in this alternate reality, as we see thousands of strings rising above the moonlit clouds stretching up to infinity, each set connected to an invisible creature walking about the world below. The film explores every aspect of their strung-up existence; even the city gates and prison cells operate according to weird marionette logic. I won’t spoil every single thread, but it was fascinating to see the mystical “birth of a marionette” scene, as the mother brings the carved wooden block of a baby to life by painfully summoning strings to descend from the heavens, then attaching them to the lifeless wooden doll. It’s tough to figure out who this movie is aimed at—it’s too dark and weird for the kiddie matinee crowd, and not quite dark and weird enough for us—but that very singularity of vision and lack of a clear marketing angle gives it cult credibility. In the end, despite the fact that we don’t make much of a connection with the archetypal heroes, despise the stock villains, or feel much investment in the restoration of the kingdom, Strings still manages to be a visually beautiful and imagination-stimulating movie. And it finishes with an unexpectedly touching ceremony that takes the marionettes’ central metaphor, alien as it is, and uses it to tug a little on our heartstrings as well as theirs.
Strings contains a couple of nods to Shakespeare: the main character who seeks to avenge his slain father, the king, while being opposed by a deceitful uncle, bears a passing resemblance to “Hamlet.” Even more obviously, the protagonist who grows from a foolish boy to a competent king is named Prince Hal, just like the star of the “Henry IV” and “Henry V” plays.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by “Teodor.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)