DIRECTED BY: Fritz Lang/(version prepared by Giorgio Moroder)
FEATURING: Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge
PLOT: Freder, son of the man who rules Metropolis, discovers the plight of the subterranean workers who make the city run when he falls in love with a proletarian female preacher; his new lover is replaced by a robotic imposter who intends to lead the workers to ruin.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is a powerful candidate for the List, but Giorgio Moroder’s Metropolis isn’t. Kino’s 2010 “Complete Metropolis” restoration is now the definitive version of the film; Moroder’s re-imagining, with its synth-pop soundtrack and vocal intrusions by 1980s rock acts like Loverboy, Bonnie Tyler and Pat Benetar, is a curiosity.
COMMENTS: Set in a massive, mostly underground city that’s equal parts Futurist dreamscape and Babylonian pleasure garden, Metropolis is an unqualified, iconic Expressionist masterpiece, and if you want to turn down the sound and watch it while listening to Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga mp3s, that’s not going to destroy its visual splendor. Whatever questionable choices “Flashdance… What a Feeling!” composer Giorgio Moroder may have made with the proto-techno soundtrack that he added to this restoration (more on that score later), this Metropolis looks like it’s been struck from a pristine print, and it’s as feverishly hallucinatory as any other version. The decision to tint most of the scenes works wonderfully (and may even have reflected Lang’s original wishes; tinting was not at all uncommon in 1927). The colorization is tasteful and intelligent, with scenes on the surface bathed in radiant sepia, while the underground sequences utilize shadowy shades of steel blue and grey. This process retains the film’s monochromatic scale, simply shifting the palette towards the blue or the amber spectrum. Moroder added additional color effects for a few scenes; some of the equipment in mad scientist Rotwang’s laboratory glows with electricity, and when he transforms his robot into the image of Maria, the automaton’s eyes shine with an inhuman, metallic blue glint. Because some segments of Metropolis were lost, Moroder also Continue reading CAPSULE: GIORGIO MORODER PRESENTS METROPOLIS (1927/1984)→
FEATURING: Randy Tobin, Celeste Martinez, Devanny Pinn, Ava Rose, Nekromistress, Chase Monroe, Marna K., Brandon Engstrom
PLOT: The tagline sums it up best: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer meets Van Nuys Blvd. Drug dealer Grahm has a side hobby of picking up women and brutally killing them. Kristy is fresh off the train from Ohio to take part in the L.A. scene. Their paths will eventually cross.
COMMENTS: Give this one points for its skeezy atmosphere and for Randy Tobin’s performance as the title killer. Looking like a low rent Jay Mohr channeling early Nic Cage, Tobin is completely believable as a modern day Jack The Ripper, prowling about the city in his van.
It aims for a sort of ‘you-are-there’ semi-documentary quality, as it alternates between Grahm’s killings and Kristy’s arrival and life in L.A., their meeting and his obsession over her, which ends up exactly where you think its going. The film is successful in that aspect. It grabs onto the grindhouse vibe without any obvious self-consciousness about it (although the last third of the film, where the two main characters end up in an isolated desert hideaway, may have you thinking of similar events in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). There’s not a lot of character development, but in this case, that may not be a hindrance. Where the film comes up a bit short is in the technical department, with annoying camerawork and overbearing music being two strong flaws almost impossible to ignore. Most early reviewers have commented on the ‘satirical’ bits of the film—I didn’t notice anything ‘satirical’ here, unless the term has been altered to now specify awkward line readings and some idiosyncratic, but effective, editing choices.
It could be better, but it’s a pretty decent straightforward ‘Modern Grindhouse’ movie. A “limited edition” DVD release is planned soon.
Trivia: Director Craig McIntyre worked in the makeup/special effects unit on Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 3.
As we continue to wend our way towards 2012, here’s what we’ll be covering next week: 366 Underground will go on the trail of The Los Angeles Ripper (2011), we’ll take a look at Giorgio Moroder’s recently-released re-imagining of Metropolis (1927/1984) (partially scored to 1980s synth-pop!), we’ll take a second look at Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives (here’s the initial rave to whet your appetite), and Alfred will finish his survey of Flicker Alley’s new “Chaplin at Keystone” set (here’s the first part).
It’s that time you’ve all been waiting for: time to once again run down the candidates in 366 Weird Movies “Weirdest Search Terms of the Week” contest. Our first honorable mention goes to “movie japanese imdb penis grow monkey,” which scores bonus points because the searcher (searchers?) typed this peculiar phrase into search engines at least 11 times last week. (Trying to stuff the ballot box?) The “sex freak of the week award” goes to the horny person looking for “amateur foot sex jobs butchers woman chicken legs sex video” (the incredible specialization of fetishists, the fact that they assume someone out there shares their weird tastes, and the fact that they’re usually right always astound us). We always admire simple, yet crazy, search terms, and so we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the person out there in cyberspace looking for an “atmospheric weirdo.” But our Weirdest Search Term of the Week goes to “asian horror movie flour overpopulation,” just because we’d never before considered the horrific possibilities of a world with too much milled cereal grain products in it (leave it to the Asians to worry about that stuff).
Here’s the reader-suggested review queue, which we actually will be getting back to covering, we promise: 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 Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE→
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):
“Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival”: Headlined by Santa Claus Conquers the Martians with a handful of retro Christmas-themed shorts tossed in to pad the running time to a jolly two hours, the ad copy for this Holland releasing production sure makes it sound like the kind of thing our readers would dig: ” a bunch of the very rarest (and sometimes weird) Christmas filmic moments… these mind-boggling artifacts will seem either surreal or cheesy – or both.” It’s got fairly wide distribution with playdates from Dec. 2 to 23, so be sure to check the calendar to see if and when it’s screening near you. Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival official site.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
‘Manos’, the Hands of Fate (1966) restoration: Seriously. Ben Solovey (presumably the same Ben Solovey who was an assistant cameraman on Bitch Slap) is spending his free time making a high-definition restoration of the jaw-droppingly awful Manos (read our review) from a work print he bought at an Ebay auction. We’re in the camp that says cleaning up Manos‘ infamously murky look can’t help but hurt the film’s odd appeal (as Joel Hodgson famously observed, “Every frame of this movie looks like somebody’s last known photograph.”) Still, the old muddy, cruddy PD print will still be available for those of us who want to view the movie the way it was meant to be see, so why not restore it for those who think all Manos needs is a new paint job? ‘Manos’ in HD blog.
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (2012): The Cartoon Network cult comics get their own billion dollar extravaganza, but blow the entire budget on celebrity cameos by Jeff Goldblum, Zach Galifianakis, and Will Ferrell, among others. The plot has something to do with shrim [sic]. Debuting in theaters March 2, and on video-on-demand in January. Tim and Eric’s homepage.
NEW ON DVD:
A Cadaver Christmas (2011): $7,000, Troma-inspired, faux-grindhouse zom-coms are a dime a dozen. This one, about a janitor fending off the living dead at a university during Christmas break, should have a leg up: it actually got a good review in Variety. That favorable notice apparently didn’t help the makers snag a distribution deal, however, as they’re currently stuck self-distributing the finished product from their website. A Cadaver Christmas official site.
“Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)/Beast from the Haunted Cave (1959)”: Scarily cleavalicious horror hostess Elvira hosts the true-to-its-title seasonal absurdity, with a cheapie Roger Corman creature feature filling out the double bill. Serious question: is that really sexagenarian Cassandra Peterson still tramping around as Elvira, or did they slip a new actress into the role without telling anyone? Buy “Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians / Beast From Haunted Cave“.
“Found Footage Festival, Vol. 1: Live from Brooklyn” (2006): The folks at Found Footage Festival have been collecting awkward, embarrassing bits of pop-culture effluvia from VHS instructional tapes, public access TV shows, and other moldy sources since 2004. They have released these DVD collections of their finds before this (you can find even more volumes to buy at their website), but this compilation shows up as a new release this week, presumably because they now have a serious distributor in Lorber. Buy “The Found Footage Festival: Volume 1”.
“The Found Footage Festival, Vol. 2” (2007): More zero-budgeted, misbegotten zaniness from the curators of crud. Special note to lonely male 366 readers: this compilation includes the title “How to Seduce Women Through Hypnosis.” Buy “The Found Footage Festival: Volume 2”.
Histoire(s) du Cinéma (1998): Cinephile alert! Jean-Luc Goddard’s decades in the making, 4-part, 266-minute poem/essay on the history of film—told with overlapping images and optical effects as well as the auteur’s own odd reflections—is released on Region 1 for the first time. Thanks Olive Films! Histoire(s) Du Cinema.
Mammuth (2010): To correct a paperwork snafu, a recent retiree played by Gerard Depardieu hops on his motorcycle and treks across modern France to track down his last ten employers in this quirky, satirical comedy that some critics have labeled “absurd” and “surreal.” It didn’t play big screens in the USA, but UK critics praised Depardieu. Buy Mammuth.
Medea (1969): The story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, told Pier Paolo Passolini style, with bloody pagan rituals, Centaurs, and very little dialogue. Opera diva Maria Callas stars (but does not sing) in this long-unavailable art film rescued from oblivion by Entertainment One. Buy Medea.
“Mystery Science Theater, Vol. XXII”: As long as they keep releasing episodes of the hilarious 1990s cult movie-mocking series, we’ll keep buying them. Four more strange and awful movies are “riffed” this time around, including the Japanese Planet of the Apes ripoff Time of the Apes, the Japanese Bond ripoff Mighty Jack, the Ed Wood-scripted girls-gone-wild-(50s-style) juvie flick The Violent Years, and Rondo Hatton as The Brute Man. Buy “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXII”.
Santa Claus (1959): Santa lives in a castle in the sky, spies on children with a nightmarish eye-on-a-stalk telescope, and fights the Devil in this colorfully bizarre K. Gordon Murray Mexican import. This VCI release is actually a “special edition” complete with a commentary track, deleted scenes and Murray shorts! This one is definitely in our “reader suggested” list (we checked it twice). Buy Santa Claus.
“Ultimate Horror Collection (50 Movies)”: Absolutely not the ultimate horror collection, but these multi-packs of public domain and near public domain films make great stocking stuffers. Notable titles include the Certified Weird Carnival of Souls, public domain poster-child Night of the Living Dead, and Larry Cohen‘s super-odd God Told Me To. 3/50 is not a bad batting average for weirdness. Buy “Ultimate Horror Collection”.
Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971): So-bad-it’s-weird-ness from schlockmeister Al Adamson, featuring John Bloom as a Frankenstein who looks like he has chewed-up wads of toilet paper stuck to his face, the one-and-only Zandor Vorkov (in his one-and-only role) as the screen’s least scary Dracula, and Lon Chaney Jr. and Forrest J. Ackerman hanging around looking embarrassed. A horrible, entertaining movie. Watch Dracula vs. Frankenstein 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.
Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!
Drug dealer Grahm has a side hobby of picking up women and brutally killing them. Kristy is fresh off the train from Ohio to take part in the L.A. scene. Their paths will eventually cross.
short is in the technical department, with annoying camerawork and overbearing music being two strong flaws almost impossible to ignore. Most early reviewers have commented on the ‘satirical’ bits of the film—I didn’t notice anything ‘satirical’ here, unless the term has been altered to now specify awkward line readings and some idiosyncratic, but effective, editing choices.
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