David Lewandowski, lead graphics animator for the movie Tron: Legacy (2010) shares with us a new, inventive way of going to the store.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 3/16/2012
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 (LIMITED RELEASE):
The FP: Post-apocalyptic spoof where rival gangs fight in a desolate urban wasteland, dominating the bands of survivors through their mastery of dance video games. Released via the new distribution arm of the fantastic Alamo Drafthouse theater, which we fear may be the coolest thing about the movie. The FP official site.
NEW ON DVD:
@Suicideroom (2011): A bullied teen turns emo after kissing a boy on a dare and flees into a virtual reality world in this Polish movie. It probably only describes what it’s like to be a modern day adolescent in a world of techno-escapism, but who’s to say that everyday reality isn’t weird? Buy @Suicideroom
“4 Film Favorites: Fantasy Thrillers”: This grab bag of 2005-2006 visionary features includes Constantine, a minor cult film starring Keanu Reeves as a demon hunter; a bigger cult hit in the graphic novel adaptation V For Vendetta; Neil LaButte’s strange and awful anti-feminist remake of The Wicker Man (featuring Nicolas Cage at his manic, overacting worst); and Darren Aronofsky‘s mystical The Fountain (a title that’s in our reader-suggested review queue). You could do a lot worse for under $20. Buy “4 Film Favorites: Fantasy Thrillers”
Coonskin (1975): Ralph Bakshi’s controversial satire on racism features three animated Song of the South stereotypes (a fox, a bear and a rabbit) rising to lead a Harlem crime syndicate. With live action sequences and the voices of Scatman Crothers and Barry White; Al Sharpton protested the film’s opening, despite the fact that the NAACP approved of it (with reservations). This is currently in our reader-suggested review queue, and will soon climb out of it. Buy Coonskin
House of Tolerance [AKA House of Pleasures] (2011): The story of a Parisian bordello circa 1899, told in a deliberately anachronistic style (a 1960s soundtrack, split screens, etc.) We only mention it because David Fear of Time Out gave it a positive review while simultaneously calling it “occasionally WTF hilarious”; other sources, however, haven’t noted significant strangeness here. Buy House of Pleasures
Killer’s Moon (1978): Four criminally insane patients are given an experimental drug and go on a crime spree while believing they’re living in a lucid dream. Redemption (which recently brought us those Jean Rollin remasters) is pitching this minor, seldom-seen British shocker as A Clockwork Orange meets a slasher movie. Buy Killer’s Moon
Melancholia (2011): Read our capsule review. Lars von Trier‘s followup to the frighteningly deranged Antichrist once again metaphorically explores the harsh reality of clinical depression, this time as a mysterious planet named “Melancholia” threatens to collide with Earth and destroy all life. In our judgment the movies doesn’t go all the way to “weird”; but, it’s equally far away from normal. Buy Melancholia
My Joy (2010): A Ukrainian truck driver begins his day trying to make a delivery, runs into absurd bureaucracy and corruption, and ends up trapped in a strange timeless village. Critical response was been favorable, while hinting at an uncomfortable strangeness. Buy My Joy
Neverland (2011): Nick Willing has specialized in creating expressionist alternate versions of imagination classics for TV: Tin Man, an update of The Wizard of Oz); a sci-fi tinged version of Alice; and now this one, which explains the origin of the puckish Peter Pan. Charlie Rowe plays Pan, Rhys Ifans is Hook, Keira Knightley supplies the voice of Tinkerbell, and Bob Hoskins appears in the same role he did in Speilberg’s Hook. Buy Neverland
“Superjail: Season 2” (2011): This crudely animated series about a fantastic prison housed inside a volcano is transgressive, offensive, and senselessly cruel and violent. It’s also undoubtedly surrealistic and psychedelic. Viewer beware. Buy “Superjail: Season Two”
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Killer’s Moon (1978): See description in DVD above. Buy Killer’s Moon [Blu-ray]
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988): Read our capsule review. Martin Scorcese‘s adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel about the Passion isn’t at all blasphemous, but it does have cool dream sequences. Part of the Criterion Collection’s ongoing upgrade of their existing catalog to Blu-ray. Buy The Last Temptation of Christ (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Melancholia (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy Melancholia [Blu-ray]
Natural Born Killers (1994)/True Romance (1993): An ultraviolent and well-matched 1990s cult double-feature Blu-ray from Warner Brothers. True Romance is Quentin Tarantino-scripted coke-deal-gone-wrong variant with pulp sensibilities; Natural Born Killers is Oliver Stone’s hallucinogenic violence satire, following two celebrity serial killers slaying their way through a bent TV reality. (NBK is in our reader-suggested review queue). Buy True Romance/Natural Born Killers [Blu-ray]
Neverland (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy Neverland [Blu-ray]
Wizards (1977): An animated mix of sword and sorcery and post-apocalyptic science fiction which features fairies, elves, robots and Nazis. This week’s second release from cult animator Ralph Bakshi, it gets the full special edition treatment, complete with insert booklet and director’s commentary, from 20th Century Fox (who wouldn’t touch the controversial Coonskin). Buy Wizards [Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Black Sunday (1960): Mario Bava’s black and white masterpiece of Gothic horror recalls Universal Studios in the 1930s. Barbara Steele was so radiant and iconic as the medieval witch and her 20th century descendant that she was typecast playing dual roles in Italian horror movies for years afterwards. Not that weird, but very influential (it’s said to be one of Tim Burton‘s favorite movies).
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.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO EDWARD D. WOOD, JR!
*This is the first testament in our Ed Wood Gospel. The second, New Testament, will cover Wood’s late films, including his collaborations with A.C. Stephens.
This month, Ed Wood‘s Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) sees its Blu-ray release; posthumously, Ed is thoroughly enjoying his last laugh. He can thank those smug, condescending, hopelessly unimaginative thugs posing as establishment critics, the Medveds, for resurrecting him from the dead and catapulting him into a cult Valhalla. As everyone knows by now, the Medveds infamously awarded Wood the honor of “Worst Director of All Time” in their infamous Golden Turkey Awards. Today, of course, we know that award could go to someone far more deserving, such as Mel Gibson, Tony Scott, or Mark Steven Johnson. Why pick on the genuine tranny auteur of outsider art? But, thank John Waters, the Medveds saw fit to bestow their award on Ed! There is a sense of divine justice after all, because we have rightly canonized him.
Plan 9 was already colorized for DVD a few years ago, and there wasn’t a single complaint about a legendary film being subjected to this much-maligned process. Probably because we all realized Ed simply would have loved the extra attention it gave his magnum opus. According to his biographer, Ed Wood said that while Glen or Glenda? (1953) was his most personal film, Plan 9 was his proudest accomplishment!
Wood’s appeal and fame continues unabated. Yes, he was a trash filmmaker, but he was a trash filmmaker delightfully of his time, simultaneously encased in and fighting against the naiveté of the 1950s. Naturally, that phenomenon is something that cannot be repeated, despite the countless attempts to do so by Continue reading THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO EDWARD D. WOOD, JR!
107. HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001)
DIRECTED BY: John Cameron Mitchell
FEATURING: John Cameron Mitchell, Michael Pitt, Miriam Shor, Andrea Martin
PLOT: We first meet Hedwig as she and her band the Angry Inch are performing at a seafood buffet in Kansas City. In flashback, and in music videos, we learn that she was born a boy named Hans in East Berlin, and underwent a (botched) sex change operation so she could marry an American G.I. and leave for the West. Now, she and her band are shadowing the cross-country tour of Tommy Gnosis, Hedwig’s ex-boyfriend turned arena rock star, whom she accuses of having stolen her songs.
BACKGROUND:
- John Cameron Mitchell, then a professional stage actor, debuted the character of Hedwig in 1994 at a drag show at a punk nightclub in New York City. With the help of songwriter Stephen Trask, he built an off-Broadway play—originally staged in the ballroom of a fleabag hotel in Manhattan’s meat packing district—around the androgynous chanteuse.
- In the early drafts of the play Tommy was the main character and Hedwig a supporting player.
- Mitchell’s father was U.S. Army Major General John Mitchell, and the younger Mitchell spent much of his childhood in Berlin where his father was stationed during the later part of the Cold War.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: Is it Hedwig’s androgynous Aryan visage, half-hidden under a pound of glittery makeup and a sculpted blond wig big enough to double the diameter of her head? Or is it the animated retelling of Aristophanes fable in “The Origin of Love,” with a squiggly line drawing of Zeus cutting the legs off whales? Fortunately, thanks to split-screen technology, we don’t have to choose; we can get Hedwig’s glacial glam mug on the left and a severed half-moon face yearning to swallow her up on the right together in one still.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Well, it does feature a rock star who’s the victim of a botched sex
Original trailer for Hedwig and the Angry Inch
change searching for love and vengeance and telling her life story through song while playing on a tour of discount seafood restaurants with her band of Eastern European refugee musicians, which is a plot you don’t see everyday. If that’s not enough to satisfy your weird desires, however, stick with it until the end, when it drifts into a dreamlike series of music videos that see characters swapping sexes and changing into other characters.
COMMENTS: He may not be widely acknowledged as the West’s weirdest philosopher, but Continue reading 107. HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001)
LIST CANDIDATE: MODUS OPERANDI (2009)
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Modus Operandi has been promoted to the Apocryphally Weird list of movies. Please read the official Apocryphally Weird entry.
DIRECTED BY: Frankie Latina
FEATURING: Randy Russell, Danny Trejo
PLOT: The CIA convinces an alcoholic ex-agent to track down two stolen briefcases in return for the name of the man who killed his wife.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST:The post-Tarantino/Rodriguez fake-grindhouse movie is a sub-genre that’s less than a decade old, but already feels stale. Newcomer Frankie Latina, however, freshens the formula by spiking this exploitation cocktail with a shot of some sort of quick and dirty experimental hallucinogen he synthesized in his kitchen using drain cleaner, pencil shavings, and an over-the-counter hangover remedy. It’s a minor, but bizarrely entertaining, concoction.
COMMENTS: Exploding cowboy heads! Random film stock switches from black and white to Eastmancolor! Pubic hair shaving! Debuting director Frankie Latina throws everything he can think of into Modus Operandi, including the kitchen sink and whatever other plumbing fixtures he can bum off his Milwaukee pals. Bizarre bikini coke party! Authentic funk soundtrack! Time lapse shot of rotting fruit! Ideas and interruptions come fast and furious, and yet the plot is comfortingly simple to process. The missing briefcases are classic MacGuffins, and although it’s utterly preposterous, almost everything in the story tracks—except when the film breaks and VHS nude model auditions suddenly bleed into the movie. Gratuitous Alexandre Dumas quote! Strip club massacre! Danny Trejo! Ideas, you see, are free, an important asset when you’re filming a movie with no money. Latina disguises the fact that his movie has almost no action by blindsiding the audience with exploitation staples (nudity and gore) and stylistic non sequiturs at every turn. There is little of that alienating “look at us, we’re making a bad movie and we know it” jokiness in Modus Operandi; instead, the comedy in this parody arises from juxtaposition and weirdness. Senseless zooms! Snuff movies! Real life lesbian vampires! Among the film’s subtler jokes is the fact that the nominal hero and supposed ace agent, Stanley Cashay, is a middle-aged, frequently nude drunk who has no observable talent and who doesn’t actually do anything remotely heroic, or even interesting. The CIA is desperate to rehabilitate him from his stupor, but once sobered up the only thing he does is to put in a phone call to his underworld contact, Thunderbird. Thunderbird then calls Xanadu, Xanadu calls Foxy Borwn-wannabe Black Licorice, and somehow, through a confusing series of swaps and double crosses between a series of colorful agents, the briefcases eventually work their way back to Cashay. Meanwhile, Latina delivers more of what we tuned in for. Japanese torture vixens in black corsets! Hitchcock tributes! Intermission sequence with suggestive ice cream licking! As the promo for “Ayesha Ayesha,” the fake Bollywood spy babe TV show that’s a smash hit in Modus Operandi‘s universe, explains, it’s “psychedelic… razor sharp… rainbows and waterfalls… espionage… Air Mumbai… ice cold… bizarre adventures… far out!” To which we can only add: Corkscrews to eyeballs! Split screens! Background painting of a topless woman riding a unicorn!
Modus Operandi also features fellow low-budget auteur Mark Borchardt (American Movie, Coven) in a small role. It’s “presented by” recently retired adult star Sasha Grey, for no observable reason except for the huckster logic that a porn starlet’s endorsement will sell tickets. Latina is already at work on his second feature, Skinny Dip (due out any day now), which brings back Trejo in a larger role and adds an expanded roster of acting talent including Grey, Doug Jones, Brigitte Nielson, and Pam Grier (now entering her fifth decade of exploitation filmmaking).
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: