Miscellanea

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

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In preparation for Christmas we’ll be having a “naughty or nice” week here at 366 Weird Movies.  We’ll take in a couple of nice movies about naughty people, starting with The Arbor (2010), a reverent experimental documentary about alcoholic working class playwright Andrea Dunbar.  She’s matched up against the subject of Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010), a biopic of the brilliant, boozing womanizer Serge Gainsbourg (and of his scary puppet alter ego).  Alfred will cover Claus Guth’s arguably naughty 2010 rendering of Handel’s Messiah, which dramatizes the holy text with a tale of adultery and suicide.  And in the “definitely naughty” category is Otto Preminger’s infamous flop Skidoo (1968), a square attempt at a counter-cultural comedy that gives us the spectacle of Jackie Gleason taking LSD and Groucho Marx smoking pot (!)

And we’ll be saving a surprise for Christmas day: a true lump of cinematic coal for our naughty readers (we already know you’re naughty because we caught you reading our Aphrodisiac! review).  It would be wrong of you to try to figure out the title of this clunker of a Christmas surprise we’ll be reviewing for you on X-mas day, but since we’ve already decided you’re naughty, you can go ahead and guess in the “comments” section if you wish.

With Google now masking about 12% of all search queries, it’s getting harder to find truly demented candidates for our “Weirdest Search Term of the Week” contest.  Nonetheless, we soldier on with our survey of strange and sick searches.  “Woman breastfeeding a dwarf” is a type of query we get a lot; while it looks weird on the surface, it’s far too understandable for us to give it anything more than an honorable mention (if the searcher was looking for a man breastfeeding a dwarf, well, that would be a different matter).  We’ll also mention the fairly ordinary yet disturbing search for “men sitting on toilets.”  Our favorite search terms this week fell into the “movies we’d really like to see, if they actually exist” category.  The runner-up was the simple but effectively odd “40’s musical movie with pervert baby.”  But nothing caught our attention this week more than the description of a “90s movie where girl discovers uncle was perverse and she is haunted by an apple.”  There are so few produce-related haunting films out there that we suspect this one will turn out to be a classic by default.

Here’s the reader-suggested review queue: Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (next week!); Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; The Bride of  Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 12/16/2011

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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):

Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel: If you’re not yet burned out on B-movie documentaries—and you live in New York or Los Angeles—you might want to head out to the cinema to soak in this survey of the life and work of independent impresario Roger Corman.  An odd assortment of Oscar winners and cult figures turn out to pay tribute to the King of the B’s, including Jack Nicholson, Pam Greer, Martin Scorsese and Traci Lords.  Corman’s World official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

1000 Kings [1000 Könige] (est. 2012): Sort of an abstract science fiction ballet set in a sky-ball dystopia where monks hate red sleeping bags, or something like that, this German first feature by Georgian-born Bidzina Kanchaveli is in post-production but still searching for completion funding. It looks like superlative weirdness; check out 1000 Kings at Indiegogo or at the 1000 Kings official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Astron-6 (2011): A 2-disc compilation of the 1980s-spoofing short films of the absurdist Canadian collective behind the pop-killer feature Father’s Day.  Titles include Inferno of the Dead, Gore Blade, and H.I.Z. (Erection der Zombi).  Avowed fans of the group include , George Kuchar, , and Jasmine from jasmines-panties.com.  Buy Astron-6.

Branded to Kill (1967): Read the Certified Weird entry!  After years of promises the Criterion Collection has finally re-released Seijun Suzuki’s totally whacko rice-sniffing yakuza film, with a new restoration and extras including interviews with the director and chipmunk-faced star Joe Shishido.  This is the new #1 killer version of the classic of weirdness. Buy Branded to Kill [Criterion collection].

Def-con 4 (1985)/Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988): Def-con sounds like just another Mad Max ripoff (The Los Angeles Times called it a “suspenseful, action-packed drama”—yawn).  Hell is much cooler, featuring wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper fighting future frog-men for the right to impregnate Earth’s remaining fertile females.  Hell is in our reader-suggested review queue. Buy Def-Con 4 / Hell Comes to Frogtown (Double Feature).

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2011): Read our capsule review. Tsui Hark returns to form with this colorful action fantasy set in a magical version of Imperial China. Buy Detective Dee & The Mystery of the Phantom Flame.

Jessicka Rabid (2010): The sensitive story of a female sex slave who is raised like a dog until one day she’s bitten by a rabid canine and goes on a killing spree.  Shot in a style reminiscent of a 1960s home movie, it co-stars veteran Trent Haaga, perhaps best known as the screenwriter of The Toxic Avenger 4: Citizen Toxie (2000) and Deadgirl (2008). Buy Jessicka Rabid.

Tokyo Drifter (1966):  An ex-yakuza hitman finds himself in trouble when a rival gang won’t recognize his retirement in this stylized, deconstructed gangster movie.  You wouldn’t expect the Criterion Collection to re-release Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill without giving equal time to this colorful ,comic book -styled warm up, and indeed they did not.  Buy Tokyo Drifter.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Branded to Kill (1967): See description in DVD above.  Buy Branded to Kill [Criterion Blu-ray].

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2011):  See description in DVD above.  Buy Detective Dee & The Mystery of the Phantom Flame [Blu-ray].

Heavenly Creatures (1994):  Two sheltered Kiwi girls develop an obsessive friendship and invent a fantasy world that they prefer to reality; their bond eventually ends in murder.  This was ‘s first arthouse movie after making three fun but tasteless underground cult provocations.  It’s also in our reader-suggested review queue.  Buy Heavenly Creatures [Blu-ray].

Tokyo Drifter (1966):  See description in DVD above.  Buy Tokyo Drifter [Criterion Blu-ray].

Velvet Goldmine (1998): An impressionistic, and frequently surrealistic, portrait of an aging androgynous glam-rock star (obviously modeled on David Bowie).  This visually splendiferous movie could not be more different than the film that first brought director Todd Haynes to the attention of the underground—Superstar, an unauthorized biography of anorexic pop star Karen Carpenter acted out by Barbie dolls.  Buy Velvet Goldmine [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Faust (1926): F.W. Murnau’s telling of the Faust legend owes little to Goethe or Marlowe, but it’s a classic of German expressionism.  Watch Faust (1926) 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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

CHAPLIN AT KEYSTONE, PART TWO

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The first in a two-part series on “Chaplin at Keystone” (read the first part here).

Charlie Chaplin‘s first solo directorial effort, Caught in the Rain, is an inauspicious one. It starts off as another comedy in the “day at the park” subgenre.  Alice Davenport flirts with Charlie after her husband, Mack Swain, walks off on an errand.  Compromising positions follow, of course, taken straight from Keystone founder Mack Sennett ‘s gag assembly line.  Sennett himself directed the next six Chaplin shorts.

A Busy Day features Charlie in drag, trying to disrupt a parade in a shameless rip-off of his previous Kid Auto Races At Venice.  A Fatal Mallet also stars Sennett (a rare appearance, and for good reason—his acting is more uneven than his directing) fighting with Charlie over girly girl Mabel.  They are both dull Sennett products exhibiting little craftsmanship or art.

The Knockout is a half hour long, an epic for Keystone.  It is basically a Fatty Arbuckle boxing vehicle with Charlie coming between prize fighter Fatty and Edgar Kennedy.  Chaplin’s ballet-like brand of slapstick (barely) salvages the film, and The Knockout again makes it abundantly clear why Chaplin quickly outshone his peers.

Mabel’s Busy Day is an eccentric step up.  Mabel is the much put upon, unkempt hot dog vendor at a race track.  Charlie, as a dandy, arrives amidst much shenanigans, including dance-like slapstick with some Keystone Kops.  Charlie spies the patrons abusing poor Mabel.  He comforts her and, when her back is turned, he steals her hardware to go into business for himself, with predictably disastrous results.  Chaplin here is without sympathy, even if he ends up as abused as the girl he himself abused and, realizing what she has been put through, finds enough pity for her to accompany her through the iris out.  Again, the odd chemistry between Charlie and Mabel inexplicably works, although Chaplin would find more apt female counterparts later in his career.


“Laughing Gas” (1914, unrestored)

Chaplin co-wrote Mabel’s Married Life with Norman and, although Sennett officially directed, it is moving towards the style film historians will later term “Chaplinesque”; it is easily the best of the Sennett-directed Chaplin Keystones.  Charlie and Mabel are a married couple out on a Sunday promenade in the park.  Charlie grudgingly shares his banana with the Mrs.  He momentarily steps into an inn, which gives Mack Swain ample opportunity to stop and flirt with Mabel.  The Continue reading CHAPLIN AT KEYSTONE, PART TWO →

Canonically Weird (The List)

100. UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES [LOONG BOONMEE RALEUK CHAT] (2011)

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AKA Uncle Boonmee

“Facing the jungle, the hills and vales, my past lives as an animal and other beings rise up before  me.”—Title card at the beginning of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

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DIRECTED BY: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

FEATURING: Thanapat Saisaymar, , Sakda Kaewbuadee, Kanokporn Tongaram

PLOT: On his plantation in rural Thailand, the dying Boonmee is visited by living relatives and the ghosts of his past. As they ease him into death, the story is interrupted through vignettes that may represent his memories of past lives.

BACKGROUND:

  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul considerately refers to himself as “Joe” when speaking to Western audiences.
  • Uncle Boonmee is loosely based on a 1983 book by Phra Sripariyattiweti, a monk from Apichatpong’s hometown of Khon Kaen, Thailand.
  • The film is a feature-length component of Primitive, Apichatpong’s ongoing multimedia project, which also encompasses a number of video installations and the short films A Letter to Uncle Boonmee and Phantoms of Nabua.
  • Received the Palme d’Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Jury president Tim Burton described it as “a beautiful, strange dream.”
  • Sakda, who plays Boonmee’s nephew Tong, and Kanokporn, who plays his nurse Roong, played characters of the same names in Apichatpong’s earlier films Tropical Malady and Blissfully Yours, respectively. In both cases, it’s unclear if they’re meant to be the same characters.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Though it’s chock-full of beguiling, whimsical imagery, the single most memorable sight in Uncle Boonmee is that of a princess in a lagoon, undulating with pleasure as she receives oral sex from a catfish. (Unsurprisingly, the words “catfish sex” became synonymous with Uncle Boonmee‘s brand of weirdness immediately following its Cannes premiere.)

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Critics sometimes identify Apichatpong’s style as a mix of


Apichatpong Weerasethakul on Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

surrealism and neorealism, and this is a handy skeleton key for getting at Uncle Boonmee‘s weird nature. The film contains plenty of enigmatic images and seeming non sequiturs, but they’re framed as natural, even welcome steps in the cycle of life and death. The characters accept them nonchalantly, going along with the film’s dream logic and implicitly entreating viewers to do the same. No clear border separates the mystical from the mundane. And two hours in, when it feels like you should be totally inured to Uncle Boonmee‘s disorienting twists, along comes a denouement that renders everything else normal by comparison.

COMMENTS: An ox, having escaped its tether, strolls through the forest at twilight.  Eventually, Continue reading 100. UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES [LOONG BOONMEE RALEUK CHAT] (2011) →

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