Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 11/18/2011

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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.

NEW ON DVD:

Bellflower (2011):  Read our capsule review.  Two hard-drinking slackers who build post-apocalyptic vehicles in their spare time experience love, loss, and non-linear narrative. Side note: the marketers have removed the word “weird” from the critical quote they selected for the cover.  Buy Bellflower.

Evil Dead 2 (1987):  Read the Certified Weird entry!  All three of Sam Raimi ‘s Evil Dead moves are constantly being reissued in new packages.  Rights to 2 have switched hands from Anchor Bay to Lions Gate, and this “25th Anniversary” re-release promises an improved picture (although some reviewers have said the difference isn’t very noticeable) and a mix of old and new featurettes (the commentary track is old).  Buy Evil Dead 2 (25th Anniversary Edition).

Futurist Life Redux (2009): Viva Futurista is a lost film, created as a series of linked shorts by eleven founding members of the Futurist art movement in 1916.  Futurist Life Redux is an experimental, loose and modernized reconstruction of what that original movie may have looked like, re-imagined for the 21st century from the original creators notes and a few surviving stills.  Most of the directors come from the performance art world, with George (Sins of the Fleshapoids) Kuchar a noteworthy exception.  If the clip below is representative, then these are weird, yeah. Buy Futurist Life Redux.

Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis (1927/1984):  In 1984 composer Giorgi Moroder restored Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and in a controversial decision, colorized the movie and gave it a pop-music score by the likes of Billy Squier, John Anderson, Freddy Mercury, Pat Benetar, and so on.  At the time Moroder was fresh off an Academy Award for writing the song “What a Feeling” for Flashdance. Buy Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis.

Griff the Invisible (2010): A clerk who moonlights as a masked vigilante meets a girl lost in daydreams in this Australian romantic comedy.  Half the reviewers who’ve seen it use some form of the word “quirk” to describe it (and one even uses a form of “weird”). Buy Griff the Invisible.

“Half Pint Brawlers, Season 1” (2010):  We never caught it on its brief Spike TV run, but the packaging (“WARNING: X-treme and Absurd!”), caught our eye.  It’s a reality show about a traveling troupe of wrestling little people led by a character who calls himself “Puppet the Psycho Dwarf.”  The performers call themselves “midgets,” which got them in trouble with the Little People of America.  As an aside, your editor sincerely hopes the word “midget” makes a comeback; it sounds far less demeaning than “little person.”  Buy “Half Pint Brawlers: Season 1”.

“Neverwhere” (1996): This 180-minute BBC miniseries concerns a chap who finds himself trapped in a fantastic underground world of demons and magic dubbed “London Below.”  Co-scripted by fantasy author , it has a cult reputation and special effects on the level of a “Dr. Who” episode. Gaimain later turned the screenplay into a novel. Buy “Neverwhere”.

The Tree (2011): An eight-year old girl becomes convinced that her dead father’s spirit inhabits a giant tree growing near the house. Life-affirming Australian magical realism starring the always-odd Charlotte Gainsbourg. Buy The Tree.

The Weird World of Blowfly (2011):  Documentary focusing on Clarence Reid, better known as his alter-ego Blowfly, the proto-rapper and x-rated auteur of 1970s “party albums” packed with brilliantly brain-dead song parodies like “Spermy Night In Georgia” and “My Baby Keeps Farting In My Face.”  Hey, it’s got “weird” right there in the title, of course we’re going to mention it!  Buy The Weird World Of Blowfly.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Bellflower (2011): See description in DVD above.  This is a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack. Buy Bellflower (Blu-ray/DVD Combo).

Despair (1978): A chocolate magnate goes mad; he watches himself making love to his wife and believes a laborer is his doppelgänger.  Rainer Werner Fassbinder directs Dirk Bogarde in Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel (is that enough name-dropping for one sentence?).  Buy Despair [Blu-ray].

Evil Dead 2 (1987):  See description in DVD above. Buy Evil Dead 2 (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray].

Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis (1927/1984): See description in DVD above. Buy Giorgio Moroder Presents: Metropolis [Blu-ray].

Griff the Invisible (2011):  See description in DVD above. Buy Griff the Invisible [Blu-ray].

The Weird World of Blowfly (2011):  See description in DVD above. Buy The Weird World Of Blowfly [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962): This tale of a mad-scientist who keeps his decapitated fiancée’s head alive while he searches for a stripper’s body to slap it on is one of the sleazier, and stranger, artifacts of its era.  “I’m just a head… and you’re whatever you are… but together, we’re strong!” Watch The Brain That Wouldn’t Die 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

ERICH VON STROHEIM’S THE MERRY WIDOW (1925)

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With this 2011 Warner Archive Release, most of Erich von Stroheim’s “personally directed” films have been released with the inexplicable, frustrating exclusion of his legendary, mutilated Greed (1924).   Only von Stroheim could have taken Franz Lehar’s 1905 giddy operetta “The Merry Widow” and turned it into a silent fetishistic melodrama.  The Merry Widow stars Mae Murray and John Gilbert.  Murray’s screen persona alternated between virgin and vamp . Here, she is the virgin who becomes the much sought after prize.  Despite having unique on-screen charisma, Murray, one of early cinema’s true divas, was among those who could not make the transition to sound, and her off-screen life was not afforded a happy ending.  She married a real-life Prince who forced her to leave MGM, then divorced her, and took custody of their children.  Years later, Murray, homeless, was arrested for sleeping on park bench in NYC.  She died, forgotten and in poverty, in a nursing home in 1965.  Gilbert’s decline into alcoholism is, of course, far better documented.

Still from The Merry Widow (1925)Quite surprisingly, The Merry Widow was a critical and box office success for von Stroheim.  The film was so successful that it was remade in 1934 by Ernst Lubitsch (as a musical, replete with the Lubitsch touch, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald) and in a best-forgotten 1952 version starring Lana Turner.  Despite a studio mandated, ill-fitting happy ending, von Stroheim’s silent version is, predictably, the most bizarre.  The director added much to the story, stamping it with his idiosyncratic touch and causing the film to go considerably over schedule and over budget. The previous Continue reading ERICH VON STROHEIM’S THE MERRY WIDOW (1925) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! (2010)

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DIRECTED BY: Mark Hartley

FEATURING: Roger Corman, Eddie Romero, , Pete Tombs, , , ,  Marlene Clark, Judy Brown, R. Lee Ermey, Danny Peary,

PLOT: Documentary covering exploitation films made in the Philippines in the 1970s and 1980s, both by Filipinos and by American companies looking for cheap labor and exotic locations.

Still from Machete Maidens Unleashed!

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: A few of the films mentioned (For Y’ur Height Only?) might be worthy of consideration for the List, but this documentary survey is a curiosity piece—and possibly a place to get ideas for your Netflix queue.

COMMENTS: There are two strands to Machete Maidens. One is the history of an enterprising but anarchic third-word film industry and the American carpetbaggers who flocked there to make cheap pictures, packed with war stories from those who were there. Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos (who loaned army helicopters to American filmmakers in the evenings after they’d spent the mornings strafing Islamic rebels) and notorious first lady Imelda (who allegedly ordered dead workers’ bodies to be left in the cement of the Manila Film Center so the project could be completed in time to host a film festival) remain in the background as villains throughout the entire epic. On the front lines, American filmmakers and actors relate stories of pistol-packing makeup men and cockroach-infested living conditions (at one point Sid Haig describes his accommodations by saying “I saw a rat carrying a kitten out the window”).

But as interesting as this backdrop might be, the main attraction is not the island’s political scenery, but the movies made there for export. These reflected the evolving shock aesthetic of the American drive-ins, not tropical politics. The scandalous profit margins of native filmmaker Eddie Romero’s “Blood Island” horror movies, with their cheap rubber-masked monsters menacing topless Filipino babes, were the proof-of-concept legendary low-budget producer Roger Corman needed to ship contract director Jack Hill off to the islands to produce his smash hit The Big Doll House.  This revolutionary sleaze introduced the world to the concept of women’s prisons as topless entertainment centers, and also to the enormous talents of burgeoning bust icon  Continue reading CAPSULE: MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! (2010) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: JACKBOOTS ON WHITEHALL (2010)

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DIRECTED BY: Edward McHenry, Rory McHenry

FEATURING: Voices of Ewan McGregor, , Rosamund Pike,

PLOT: British farmers unite with Churchill and Scotsmen to repel Nazis who invade London by

Still from Jackboots on Whitehall (2010)

tunneling under the English Channel.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The idea of an absurd Nazi invasion of England acted out by children’s toys is odd and appealing, but the premise is undercooked, and never hits either the weird or (more importantly) the comic notes that it should.

COMMENTS: Hitler in a dress!  That should be funny, right?  It could be either a great punchline, or the beginning of a running series of gags that see (for example) der Führer more concerned with what’s going on with his hemlines than with developments on the front lines.  But Hitler’s transvestite cameo is emblematic of the problem with Jackboots.  The joke is never developed; the movie just trots out the dictator dressed as the Queen of England, with a pearl-handled Luger, and expects us to laugh.  Although the occasional amusing one-liner slips through the fog of war (usually delivered by in his dead-on Churchill impression), for the most part Jackboots‘ quips don’t exactly stomp on your funny bone.  They’re sparse, as well.  A lot of time is devoted to chuckle-free dramatic scenes between big-handed farmhand turned soldier Chris (McGregor), his lady-love Daisy (Pike), and her disapproving Vicar father (Grant), as well as to intricate battles between plastic Panzers and Punjabi guards that—considering they’re enacted with toy tanks fighting Ken dolls in turbans—are more thrilling than expected.  Jackboots is part WWII movie parody (with a roughneck American pilot who thinks the Nazis are Commies), part clever historical references (the defeated Brits retreat to Hadrian’s Wall, and the Germans are fearful of pursuing where even the Romans dared not go), and part pure silliness (a Braveheart spoof takes up a large part of the last act).  There is a running undercurrent of mock-prejudice against the Scottish (who are depicted as cannibals in skirts) that must be funnier to U.K. residents than to those in the U.S. and elsewhere—at least, I hope it is; otherwise, it’s just another Jackboots comic misfire.  The movie manages to be unique without ever finding its own voice, which makes it interesting without ever being engaging.  Mainstreamers hoping for a script with the sly gross-out humor of Team America or the pop-culture savvy of TV’s “Robot Chicken” (which uses the same action-figure aesthetic as Jackboots) will be disappointed, if not angry and frustrated, by the oblique comedy on display here.  But even if it’s not riotously funny, little touches like a ghoulish pig-nosed Goebbels, a cat who looks like Hitler, puppet gore, and an attack vanguard of bazooka-wielding Nazi dominatrices in black lipstick should be enough to keep weirdophiles watching to the end.

Though the end result is mediocre, Jackboots‘ crazy synopsis managed to attract top-notch cult British acting talent.  Besides McGregor, Pike, Spall and Grant, the voiceover cast includes Alan Cumming (as Hitler), Tom Wilkinson (as Goebbels), and (as Himmler).

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…for sheer oddity value… must rank as some kind of collector’s item.”–Henry Fitzherbert, Daily Express (contemporaneous)

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: FATHER’S DAY (2011)

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This review first appeared in a slightly different form at Film Forager.  Alex Kittle’s complete coverage of the Toronto After Dark festival can be found here.

DIRECTED BY: Astron-6

FEATURING: , , , Mackenzie Murdock, Amy Groening, Lloyd Kaufman

PLOT: A crazed cannibalistic killer goes after fathers in his rape/murder spree.  One-eyed assassin/maple syrup maker Ahab, young priest Father John Sullivan, paranoid streetwalker Twink, and mystery-solving stripper Chelsea all seek revenge, teaming up for a strange and scattered mission.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: An eye-patched vigilante, a topless stripper with a chainsaw, a nearsighted cannibal rapist, incest, demonic possession, trips to both heaven and hell, a non sequitur commercial for low-budget sci-fi “Star Raiders,” hallucinogenic berries: Father’s Day has a lot of weirdness to recommend it. It starts off as a fairly standard (and insanely gory) grindhouse throwback, but evolves into a bizarre and fantastic adventure that just might be weird enough for the List.

COMMENTS:  Known for their impressive output of horror and comedy shorts, Winnipeg-based collective Astron-6 combines DIY filmmaking with a sick sense of humor and unadulterated love for 80’s straight-to-video schlock.  After making a trailer for the fake exploitation flick “Father’s Day,”  offered the group $10,000 to produce a full-length feature of the concept.  At the start it seems like a standard, and completely gruesome, grindhouse throwback with grisly close-ups of penis mutilation and sickening rape/murders set alongside over-the-top character archetypes and an enthusiastic score.  As Ahab (Adam Brooks), Father John (Matthew Kennedy), and Twink (Conor Sweeney) team up in the wake of several close-to-home father murders, it begins to take a turn for the ludicrous and eventually plunges into all-out wacky fantasy, seeming to forget its initial narrative and stylistic leanings—and becoming better for it.

With real pig intestines, buckets of fake blood, and a well-laid green screen, Father’s Day maintains a dark, grungy aesthetic that works well with its 70’s appropriations while exuding DIY innovation that sets it apart from some of its peers.  Steven Kostanski’s stop-motion hell creations and an extended trip around the world for Father John are among the many segments that vary in style and tone.  There’s even a goofy commercial for a fake Star Wars rip-off thrown in about two-thirds of the way through (the feature itself is introduced as a “midnight movie” tv program).  Astron-6 seems to have hundreds of ideas and little interest in streamlining, resulting in a surprisingly dense 99 minutes as myriad references, off-kilter jokes, side-trips, and subplots arise and descend.  Luckily, most of them work, but the ones that don’t result in some unevenness, especially in the overall tone.  The noticeable shift towards the middle is somewhat jarring, but not a dealbreaker.

Father’s Day may be sick and twisted in many ways, but it manages to be most of all fun.  The Astron-6 gang looks like they’re having a blast just being silly together as the plot becomes more and more ridiculous.  The whole cast is great, injecting equal amounts of parody and imagination into their roles, and I especially enjoyed the main three male leads, who have excellent comedic chemistry.  The film’s biggest flaw is its tonal inconsistencies, but for many viewers the inclusion of so many ideas and exploitation references will likely be appreciated.  Astron-6 decided to really go all-out for this film, and by holding nothing back they will impress many and alienate those who wouldn’t get it anyway. And I have a feeling they’re fine with that.

Father’s Day official site.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“With a surreal plotline, exceptional acting, a host of hilarious one-liners, and a large, beautiful cast of many many almost naked women this is one highly recommended giggle & gorefest you really shouldn’t miss.”–Rick McGrath, Quiet Earth (festival screening)

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