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Quick links/Discussed in this episode:
Buy “Zardoz Speaks To You! How a Classic Movie was Created, Died, and Was Born Again” by this week’s guest, Roger Mitchell
The Making of Zardoz Facebook page
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (2023): An Argentinian woman stages a fake miracle, but real miracles (or at least, inexplicable events) soon follow. The well-reviewed magical realist feature with comedy elements arrives on VOD this week. Buy or rent Chronicles of a Wandering Saint on Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu) or Apple+.
Crumb Catcher (2024): A newlywed couple are accosted by a couple of entrepreneurs intent on getting them to invest in their get-rich-quick device: a crumb catcher. “Absurd” and “odd” are some of the words turning up in reviews; the indie arrives on VOD this week. Buy or rent Crumb Catcher.
Megalopolis second trailer: Not sure if this is an “oops!” moment or part of a marketing scheme that has often stressed how bizarre this entire production was, but Lionsgate has withdrawn their second trailer for Francis Ford Coppola‘s Megalopolis after Variety pointed out that the (negative) critics’ quotes it presented for The Godfather and other films were made up. Roger Ebert himself called this trailer “one of the biggest embarrassments ever released by a major studio,” while Pauline Kael said the scandal “stinks like a wedge of stale Camembert fermented in sun for three days.” Of course, the controversial trailer itself will live forever on YouTube. Hollywood Reporter describes the fiasco’s aftermath.
The Other Laurens [L’autre Laurens] (2023): The official plot description reads, “A private detective [is] forced to face the ghosts of his past when his niece asks him to investigate her father’s death.” Sounds conventional, yet it catches our attention because Yellow Veil is releasing it, and one reviewer calls it “Lynchian” and “a strange film” while The Hollywood Reporter refers to “bits of dark comedy and weirdness.” The Other Laurens official site.
Undergods (2020): Read Giles Edwards’ festival review. A pair of corpse-collectors ride around a dystopian ruined city relating their strange dreams in this dreamy dystopian anthology film that finally arrives on a bare-bones Blu-ray four years after release. Buy Undergods.
WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE:
We may have a surprise guest (or guests) lined up for our next Pod 366, but in any case, Giles will be back with Greg to discuss the week’s news and releases. In other YouTube content, having cleared up a copyright misunderstanding that delayed its posting for more than a month, Pete Trbovich‘s Weird View Crew returns to cover Hollywood’s campy critical flop Dick Tracy (1990). In written reviews, Shane Wilson wisely takes John Huston‘s 1979 adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood out of the reader-suggested queue; Giles Edwards catches Crumb Catcher (see above); and Gregory J. Smalley ambles off to see Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (also above). Onward and weirdward!
Every now and then, my brain hits an air pocket and nosedives for a couple seconds. When Greg drops his Roger Ebert remark, that was one of those times.