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Quick links/Discussed in this episode:
The Blue Rose (2024): Discussion begins. A “surrealist noir” about two rookie detectives trying to solve a homicide over a single night. Releasing simultaneously to (select) theaters and on VOD. The Blue Rose official site.
Boy and the Heron (2023): Discussion begins. Read Gregory J. Smalley’s Apocrypha Candidate review. Shout! Factory, in conjunction with GKids, releases Hayao Miyazaki‘s latest fantasy, in your choice of a conventionally packaged Blu-ray + DVD or a 4K UHD + Blu-ray Steelbook. Buy The Boy and the Heron.
Fata Morgana [AKA Left-Handed Fate] (1966): Discussion begins. A model stays behind in a Barcelona that’s nearly deserted after the populace flees a serial killer. An extremely obscure find by Mondo Macabro, this appears to be a Swinging Sixties, pop-art take on a surreal, science-fictiony psychological thriller/giallo. Buy Fata Morgana.
“My Last Movie” (202?): Discussion begins. 69-year old Alex Cox has taken to Kickstarter to raise funds for what he describes as his “last movie.” It will be an adaptation of Nicolai Gogol’s satire “Dead Souls” set in the Old West. The modest funding goal of $75,000 was met quickly, and the project is now into its stretch goals, the second of which, at $125,000, is to shoot a scene or two at El Condor. As I write this, the effort has a little more than two weeks to go. “My Last Movie” Kickstarter.
“Fantasia Festival 2024”: Discussion begins. Long-time readers know how we revere this particular festival (we’re in our ninth year of coverage). As its name suggests, Fant-Asia began by specializing fantasy films from Asia, but has since expanded to cover all types of genre filmmaking from around the world, including the more accessible experimental and would-be-cult films. Here are just a few of the top features roving correspondent Giles Edwards will be looking into at this year’s Fantasia, which begins on July 18 in beautiful Montreal:
- The A-Frame – A woman resorts to black market quantum physics in an attempt to cure her cancer in Calvin Reeder‘s sci-fi satire.
- Animalia Paradoxica – An experimental post-apocalyptic collage from Chile.
- Cuckoo – Tilman Singer (Luz) returns with a bigger-budgeted feature about a teenage woman undergoing strange experiences as a hotel desk clerk.
- Infinite Summer – Miguel Llansó returns with the story of a sinister mindfulness app.
- Kryptic – A woman loses her identity while searching for a cryptid and a missing cyptozoologist.
- The Tenants – In a near-future dystopian Seoul, a young man sublets part of his apartment to an eccentric couple whose behavior increasingly disturbs.
Fantasia International Film Festival home page.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
Next week, Giles Edwards will begin delivering reports from the Fantasia Festival, which starts on Thursday, July 18. We’ll try to check in with him on the pod over the next three weeks, but Pete Trbovich will handle primary co-host duties. In written reviews, Shane Wilson tackles another that Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue with the 2013 YouTube feature freebie Nick: The Feature Film, while Gregory J. Smalley braves the self-proclaimed “woke trash” kung fu/drag queen mashup Enter the Drag Dragon. Onward and weirdward!
RIP Shelley. Brewster McCloud is one of my all-time favorite non-certified weirdies.
I’ve seen Fata/Morgana and highly recommend it (there were copies of it floating around the internet). It takes place after a mysterious unnamed event, never clearly explained, which reminded me of The Falls. The character in the screenshot is a professor who thinks he has determined a method for predicting who will be the next victim of an unidentified black-gloved killer. He sets out to save her life by wearing a series of laughably unconvincing disguises and having philosophical conversations with her about such topics as the Book of Ezekial. There’s a lot going on in it, and every scene is pretty crazy. The score has some great 60s jazz. Teresa Gimpera described the author of the scenario, Gonzalo Suárez, as an intellectual with strange ideas. He went on to direct movies himself, which are probably also worth checking out, but I haven’t seen any of them.