Miscellanea

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

Leave a comment

Don’t forget to vote in the Weirdcademy Awards poll. It’s been invaded by partisans of some of the more obscure films (partly at our request, it’s true). This is the opposite of the problem we expected, that the movies with better distribution would easily win over the lesser known movies. Father’s Day, Maximum Shame and The Catechism Cataclysm have surged to huge leads over The Tree of Life, Melancholia and Uncle Boonmee. Plus, there’s that whole “stripper with a chainsaw” fiasco to consider…

If you’re tired of all the highfalutin film criticism round these parts (what with two Luis Buñuel reviews last week alone), then the upcoming week should represent a welcome return to the gutter as we cover the reprehensible The Bride of Frank (1996) and the revolting Hobo With a Shotgun (2011).  Then, we’ll class things up with a lesbian vampire flick, Shiver of the Vampires (1970).

We know why you read this column: for the list of weird search terms. And we have some doozies this week. First off, the noticed a new mini-trend in bizarre Google queries: weird birth searches. To wit, the teen pregnancy/fanfiction crossover is reaching new levels of insanity if there are actually “videos of teen titans giving birth to babies” out there somewhere in cyberspace.  Even stranger is the search for “horse gives birth to naked stunner” (although, frankly, it would be weirder if a horse gave birth to a fully clothed stunner).  We liked the following search term because the searcher lost focus and switched to another topic completely in the middle of composing his query: “photography show tv old weird i like the boat clown.” (We suspect this guy would like the boat clown a lot less if he took his medication as scheduled).  And how could we ignore this classic, “women vagina image on lair of spam”? But, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we’ll go with “love story made by pig bbong movie” as our official Weirdest Search Term of the Week.

Here’s the utterly out-of-control reader-suggested review queue: The Bride of Frank (next week!); La Grande Bouffe; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small;  “My Wrongs Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 2/10/2012

2 Comments

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):

Father’s Day (2011):  Read our capsule review! From Canadian pranksters Astron-6, this is the first  release we’ve actually been looking forward to in some time. Opening in NYC with dates to follow throughout the US and Canada (and one in the Czech Republic) through May. If you’re interested in seeing it on the big screen then check the release schedule at Father’s Day official site.

The Turin Horse (2011): There’s little that’s truly strange out there in theaters right now, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to mention the latest (and final?) film from sometime weird director Béla (Werckmeister Harmonies) Tarr.  It concerns the fate of the beaten horse philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche hugged on the day he went insane, and by all accounts the pacing makes look like Steven Spielberg.  Playing for a week at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center in New York city, then screening across the USA at museums and other specialty venues throughout the spring. The Turin Horse official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Thunder-Sky (2012): Our own Alfred Eaker has completed his latest film: a documentary about Raymond Thunder-Sky, the autistic son of a Mohawk chieftain who dressed up as a clown and went out to paint construction sites in the streets of Cincinnati.  Limited screenings begin in March.  No official site but you can get more info at Eaker Productions Facebook Page.

NEW ON DVD:

Horror Classics: House on Haunted Hill (1959)/Little Shop of Horrors (1960)/Carnival of Souls (1962)/I Bury the Living (1958): It’s a slow week for new releases, so we’ll mention this public domain collection that includes two films of interest: Roger Corman‘s oddball carnivorous plant comedy Little Shop of Horrors (read our review) and the microbudget creepfest Carnival of Souls (read the Certified Weird entry). Buy Horror Classics 4-pack (House on Haunted Hill/Little Shop of Horrors/Carnival of Souls/I Bury the Living).

Yakuza Weapon (2011): A yakuza hit man is blown to bits and then rebuilt with a retractable Gatling gun arm, rifle in the kneecap, etc.  Co-directed by the auteur behind Meatball Machine and from the studio who brought you Alien vs. Ninja; if you’ve been paying attention to the Japanese splatterpunk movement, you know what to expect here. Buy Yakuza Weapon.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

La Jetée (1962)/Sans Soleil (1983): Chris Marker is one of the most influential filmmakers whose name you’ve never heard.  The influential science fictioner La Jetée was a mindbending tale of time travel (only 28 minutes long and composed mostly of stills with narration, it was remade at feature length by Terry Gilliam as 12 Monkeys).  Sans Soleil is a highly decorated experimental documentary/travelogue that focuses on odd world customs (sort of like an intellectual, less exploitative version of Mondo Cane).  Criterion’s Blu-ray upgrade adds a few minor featurettes not on the DVD release, including a clip from a David Bowie video inspired by La Jetée. Buy La Jetée / Sans Soleil (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

Yakuza Weapon (2011): See description in DVD above. This is a two disc DVD/Blu-ray combo. Buy Yakuza Weapon [Blu-ray/DVD Combo].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Alice in Wonderland (1915): If (like us) you’ve became jaded to Wonderlands due to overexposure, here’s a new one: a 1915 silent version with actors (some very short ones) in fuzzy animal suits. This is not quite the earliest Alice adaptation (there was a 1903 short treatment), but it’s close enough.

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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema, List Candidates

BUNUEL’S SIMON OF THE DESERT (1965)

3 Comments

“Moving pictures merely repeat what we have been told for centuries by novels and plays. Thus, a marvelous instrument for the expression of poetry and dreams (the subconscious world) is reduced to the role of simple REPEATER of stories expressed by other art forms”-Luis Buñuel.

Simon of the Desert (1965) was Buñuel’s final Mexican film before moving to France. His Mexican period is often considered a repository of “anti-religious” films, although a more apt description might be “anti-ecclesiastical.”  This 45-minute pilgrimage is an incomplete work (due to haphazard funding), but even in its truncated state, it is a shockingly substantial work.

The ascetic fifteenth century Saint Simon Stylites () has spent his life atop a pillar in order to get closer to God. A wealthy patron has an even larger pillar built for the holy man and so, after six years, six months, and six days, Simon, reluctantly, comes down from atop his ivory tower, albeit briefly, to “move up” in the world. Detached irony abounds. As in Nazarin, Buñuel presents a religious figure as a fool, but a stubbornly determined fool to be identified with and admired, with detachment.

Still from Simon of the Desert (1965)Kurt Vonnegut once wrote an amusing observation about Christ and the Lazarus story. In his take on the narrative, Vonnegut imagined that, Lazarus’ resurrection, it was the recent corpse, not Christ, who became the celebrity with the crowd. Leave it for the masses to look at the wrong end of a miracle every time. But, what Vonnegut was expressing was the inevitable chasm between prophet and audience.

Buñuel also emphasizes contrasts. Simon’s audience does not desire holiness. They crave tinseled parody, only because they do not know the difference. A handless man is resorted and immediately begins using his hand to slap an inquisitive child. Bunuel’s integrity and convictions astutely critique, not the faith itself, but the contemporary adherents to the faith, who, with their short attention spans, pedestrian tastes, poverties of intelligence and of aesthetics, are rendered consumers of spectacle as sacrament. Bunuel’s shift from the religious to the bourgeoisie was a natural development, seen flowering here.

The devil is, naturally, a woman, and Silvia Pinal agreeably fleshes her out.  She takes turns as a Catholic school girl, an androgynous messiah who performs a Janet Jackson-style wardrobe malfunction for the unfazed celibate, and finally as a mini-skirted Peter Pan, whisking Saint Wendy away from his Tower of Babel to a modern discotheque.

As with all of late Bunuel, he is no mere repeater of old narratives here. As St. Luis (and only a seasoned saint could be this irreverent), he spins a new parable, one that is organically textured and startling in its improvised finale. Bunuel was no hypocrite, and the unexpected loss of cash flow inspired a quixotic bleakness and an unequaled sense of purpose.

Canonically Weird (The List)

105. BELLE DE JOUR (1967)

2 Comments

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

“By the end, the real and imaginary fuse; for me they form the same thing.”–Luis Buñuel on Belle de Jour

Must See

DIRECTED BY: Luis Buñuel

FEATURING: , Jean Sorel, , Michel Piccoli,

PLOT: Séverine is a wealthy young newlywed who proclaims she loves her husband, but refuses to sleep with him. Her erotic life consists of daydreams in which she is bound, whipped and humiliated. She decides to secretly work as a prostitute during the day, taking the stage name “Belle de Jour”; in the course of her adventures a macho young criminal becomes obsessed with Belle, and he sparks sexual passion in her, as well.

Still from Belle de Jour (1967)

BACKGROUND:

  • The movie was based on a scandalous (but moralizing) 1928 novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel.
  • Belle de Jour marked Buñuel’s return to France after his “Mexican exile.”  It was the 67-year old director’s most expensive production to date, his first film in color, and his biggest financial success.
  • The director did not get along with the star, and the feeling was mutual. Buñuel resented Deneuve because she was forced on him by the producers. For her part, the actress felt “used” by the director.  Whatever their differences, however, they made up enough to collaborate again three years later on Tristana.
  • Séverine’s courtesan name, “Belle de Jour” (literally “day beauty”) is the French name for the daylily; it is also play on “belle de nuit,” slang for a prostitute.
  • Too spicy for critics in 1967, Belle de Jour won only one major award at the time of its release: the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.  It now regularly appears on critics top 100 lists (Empire ranked it as the 56th greatest film of world cinema).
  • Martin Scorsese was behind a 1995 theatrical re-release of the film.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The ecstatic look on Catherine Deneuve’s face as, tied up and dressed in virginal white, she’s insulted and spattered with shovelfuls of mud (or is it cow dung?).

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Although the movie weaves in and out of dreams and reality until we don’t know which is which, by Luis Buñuel’s standards Belle de Jour is a straightforward dramatic film.  Even the dream sequences are relatively rational, unthreatening, and easy to follow, making Belle the favorite “Surrealist” film of people who don’t like Surrealism.  But something about the dilemma of Séverine/Belle’s divided personality, and her uncertain denouement, sticks with you long after “Fin” appears.  The movie’s weirdness is subtle but persistent, like the scent of a woman’s perfume that lingers in the air long after she’s departed the room.


Re-release trailer for Belle de Jour

COMMENTS:  Cinematographer Gil Taylor famously said “I hate doing this to a beautiful woman” Continue reading 105. BELLE DE JOUR (1967) →

Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!