Tag Archives: 2002

366 Underground, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: NITWIT (2002)

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Nitwit is currently available to watch for free on YouTube.

DIRECTED BY: Xan Price

FEATURING: Agnes Ausborn, Daniel Brantley, Wilder Selzer, Philly Abe

PLOT: A couple licks pictures of horses; the woman grows an unusually large blue proboscis. A wig screams and moans, while a baby cries out for a mommy; a man digs up a furry monster named Tongue and agrees to be its mommy and buy it a red dress. Microscopic creatures scheme to implant a baby in the woman so that the ensuing explosive birth will produce an anus; rollicking games of “Hot Damn” and “Damn Slow” are played.

Still from Nitwit (2002)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Nitwit checks all the boxes. There are monsters and manipulative babies. The characters are cartoonish and never make any choice you expect. The acting is wildly over-the-top. The filming is amateurish but confident. And the authorial voice is all there on the screen, neither judgmental nor protective. Nitwit is bracingly odd and unashamed. It plays by no rules, and doesn’t even pretend to make sense.

COMMENTS:  Having spent a couple years working my way through the 366 Weird Movies Reader Queue, I’ve been impressed with the perceptiveness of our contributors; even when I didn’t find a movie to be all that weird, I’ve always understood where the suggestion came from, the glimmer of surprise and wonderment that undergirded the suggestion. But when it comes to Nitwit, my immediate reaction was an unwavering, “Oh, yeah, this is the stuff.” The opening vignette, in which a boy and a girl (they are adults chronologically, but emotionally they are definitely children) become so enraptured by a visual encyclopedia of horses that they attempt to taste the pictures, followed by chomping on a piece of steel wool, is but a mere amuse bouche for the full menu of eye-widening surprise this film inspires. There’s something refreshing about a movie that is unmistakably, indisputably weird, and Nitwit is cool, invigorating plunge.

Nitwit plays like a sketch film. There are only a handful of characters, who shift from high to low status as needed, and their stories interweave without ever really connecting. Sometimes these sketches take the form of little dramas, like the way the fresh-faced Minoltuh and her bewigged mama Womma trade off taking care of each other, the sickly one becoming childish and helpless while the healthier of the pair criticizes the patient for being difficult. (When it’s Minoltuh’s turn to be the patient, she grows an enormous azure nose that resembles nothing less than a coiled duct pipe. They do finally manage to cut the appendage off, but when Womma demands to know why the enormous blue schnozz is still in the house, Minoltuh lamely replies, “I was just keeping it, you know… for the memories.”) Other times, the characters engage in random silliness, such as the game Minoltuh and Hootus play in which they climb over each other while lasciviously-but-asexually chanting “hot damn!” to each other. In one of my favorite absurd moments, Hootus meets up with a dog, whom the man says he would love to see dig a hole. Smash cut to both of them, the man and the dog, gleefully pawing at the dirt like the mindless animals they are. 

There are a couple threads that flirt with plot, including Hootus’ encounter with a Davy Crockett cap with dangling tentacles. He brings the strange spider-like creature to his bomb-shelter hovel and nails it to the wall, at which point the beast makes a simple request: it will be the man’s mommy if the man will be its mommy. In the most reasonable statement anyone in this film makes, the man admits that he doesn’t know very much about being a mommy, but the furry thing is undeterred. “Just mash your lips together and spit.” The bargain is made, with the caveat that he can’t call the monster “mommy,” but must instead use its given name, “Tongue.” This is one of the most fully articulated relationships in the entire movie, and it serves as a stark counterpoint to the glowing parasites who are conspiring to put a baby in Minoltuh’s belly in order to force an explosion that will create the anus she currently lacks. Their intent seesaws between charity and cruelty, and it’s only on that emotional spectrum that a character desperately gasping “I’m farting” could be a poignant moment.

Nitwit is an amateurish production, shot on harsh video with novice actors gamely doing every crazy thing Price asks of them in locations like abandoned alleys, empty fields, and somebody’s apartment. But there’s nothing that a gaudier, more professional approach would bring to the material that’s not already here. The film is collected insanity, stuck together like pinned butterflies on display, and the raw presentation only intensifies the surprise of the thing. Nitwit isn’t smart, but it’s content to be exactly what it is, and that’s not dumb.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“A doggedly eccentric whatsit of a movie, Xan Price’s debut feature after 10 years of underground shorts stamps its own distinctive weirdness on ideas influenced by ‘Eraserhead’ and early John Waters.” – Dennis Harvey, Variety (festival screening)

(This movie was nominated for review by K Lovelady. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DAY OF THE WACKO (2002)

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 Dzien swira

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DIRECTED BY: Marek Koterski

FEATURING: Marek Kondrat

PLOT: An easily irritated Polish teacher with OCD spends a long day in increasingly surreal, comic situations.

Still from Day of the Wacko (2002)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: This cult Polish comedy is a long shot for consideration among the weirdest of all time, but it does offer numerous imaginary sequences, a uniquely cynical perspective, and a scene where the main character complains, “where are all these weird people coming from?”

COMMENTS: Day of the Wacko’s Adas Miauczynski is a comic creation who transcends cultural boundaries. Perpetually annoyed, he strides through Warsaw like a Polish Basil Fawlty, arguing with noisy neighbors, defecating on their lawns, and sending a crippled lapdog flying over a hedge with a swift kick. He’s no role model, but his take-no-guff attitude is perversely appealing; his misbehavior allows the audience to live out a fantasy of taking out their frustrations on annoying urbanites. But while Adas’ antics are vicariously satisfying, the film never loses sight of how utterly miserable the man really is. The first twenty minutes or so show him engaged in his obsessive morning rituals, which involve him washing up and making coffee, always using multiples of seven. He’s the kind of sad sack who, when he finally meets a dream lover in a fantasy sequence, immediately begins worrying about how he’ll be able to get rid of her. And his final monologue as night falls over his apartment block is utterly despairing, tonally inconsistent with the foregoing comedy, and yet somehow not at all out-of-character.

The movie is essentially plotless, showing Adas mucking his way through various social disappointments over the course of a long day. After completing his persnickety ablutions and raging at his noisy neighbors, he gets peeved and walks out of the poetry class he’s teaching; visits his mother, ex-wife, and son, all of whom disappoint him to various degrees; putters about attempting to complete errands; tries to take an afternoon nap just as a wandering minstrel decides to stroll by with an accordion; and decides to take a trip to the beach, where he falls asleep and dreams about death. These adventures are peppered throughout with little fantasy sequences and skits: snippets of the serene-but-constantly-interrupted poem Adas tries vainly to compose, a TV ad for dildos. The satirical material aimed at millennial Polish audiences may go over your head: for example, a scene where various factions tug at a medieval flag, which rips apart and bleeds. The film occasionally looks like it was shot on video, and the fantasy sequences lack visual fireworks, but the imagery isn’t really the thing here: it’s all about Kondrat’s peeved performance, which keeps you watching to see what outrage he will suffer, or commit, next.

Marek Kondrat plays the role of Adas Miauczynski in two other Koterski films, Dom wariatów (1985) and Wszyscy jestesmy Chrystusam (2006). Cezary Pazura played the same character (although named “Adam” instead of “Adas”) in Nothing Funny (1995) and Ajlawju (1999), and at least one other actor has portrayed Miauczynski at a different stage in life. Like Mick Travis in ‘s movies, there is little narrative or stylistic continuity between the various Miauczynskis; Wszyscy jestesmy Chrystusam, for example, seems to be an earnest drama about alcoholism, and in another, the character is described as a film director rather than a teacher. Other than Nothing Funny and Wacko, none of the Miauczynski movies appear to have been translated into English. Wacko is the most universally praised.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“A nonstop screwball screed against the multitude of perceived indignities in contempo Poland… sheer chutzpah alone should propel this unique item to brave fests and perhaps a bit of business.”–Eddie Cockrell, Variety (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by “haui.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Dzien Swira (Day of the Wacko)

Dzien Swira (Day of the Wacko)
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: TEKNOLUST (2002)

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DIRECTED BY: Lynn Hershman Leeson

FEATURING: Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Davies, , Karen Black

PLOT: Dr. Rosetta Stone creates three “self-replicating automatons” in her image, who generally stay hidden away in her apartment except when one goes out to harvest the Y-chromosomes they require to survive; her creations’ growing dissatisfaction with their confinement threaten this arrangement.

Still from Teknolust (2002)

COMMENTS: Years before Zoom culture, Teknolust latched onto the power of screens to bring communication to those trapped in their rooms. Rosetta’s isolated, phosphor color-coded creations – unsurprisingly named Ruby, Marinne, and Olive – speak to her through large flatscreens mounted in each of their matching bedrooms, and she peers back down at them and their silly antics through her own screen. The catch is that, rather than a phone or a tablet, Rosetta’s viewscreen is the disguised window panel of a  microwave oven. It’s not exactly Star Trek, but then Teknolust is only interested in enough science fiction to get things going. After that, it’s devil-may-care.

Consider that title, for example, which suggests a neon-accented erotic thriller on early-90s Cinemax. Teknolust is a much lighter, frothier confection. Once we get past the opening minutes, in which one of the automatons uses her sexual wiles in a steamy modern-decor bathroom to extract valuable “nourishment” from an unsuspecting male, the movie settles down into something closer to a romantic comedy. In fact, it’s remarkably evocative of 1987’s Making Mr. Right, which also features an asocial scientist who constructs an empathic android in his own image.

Even if we focus on the “lust” part, the strongest emotions held by Rosetta’s three creations (it is never clear if they are actual robots, clones, or computer-generated beings) are not their sex drives, but their compulsion to see the world beyond their window. It’s surprising that femme fatale Ruby jettisons all of her powers of seduction (which she gleaned from watching three public domain films) for Davies’ hapless copyboy, but given her lack of a life otherwise, it’s only logical that she latches on to his dweeby innocence. (His mother’s surprise that this angular, statuesque vision would take up with her scruffy, underachieving son is worth a chuckle.)

The roles of Rosetta and her creations point to Teknolust‘s gravest sin: wasting the bottomless reservoir of weirdness that is Tilda Swinton. Casting her to play four separate roles – three of which are constantly interacting – seems like a masterstroke, but the four women are given precious little opportunity to assert themselves beyond surface-level characteristics. Rosetta is your classic flustered nerdgirl, right down to the terrible perm and oversized glasses. Marinne is a petulant schoolgirl, Olive is eager to please, and Ruby is mainly the one who gets to go outside. Swinton can’t figure out anything else to do with them, which suggests these underdeveloped parts might have worked better with someone a little closer to the comedy genre they seem to be stereotyping, like Sandra Bullock or Reese Witherspoon.

A number of oddball characters populate Teknolust, who all turn out to be little more than their affectations. The script develops bit parts, like the doctor who speaks exclusively in an ASMR whisper, just as much as prominent figures like Karen Black’s cellar-voiced private detective Dirty Dick. There are interesting depths to be plumbed in such characters, but we never delve deeper than their surface oddness. They probably wouldn’t hold Leeson’s interest anyway, as she repeatedly demonstrates by crosscutting between storylines with almost no regard for timing or narrative flow. She’s always got a new thing she wants to show off – little hints in the story about an entire family being wiped out by a virus, or the implications of a disease that manifests a barcode on the victim’s forehead – and she’s in an awful hurry to get you there.

Like a sugar cube, Teknolust is pleasantly sweet in the moment and gone in a flash. There are some intriguing ideas at work here, but don’t get too attached to them. It’s got just enough in it to hold the attention of someone staring at the video screen on their microwave, waiting for the tea to steep.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This sweetly surreal futuristic comedy definitely marches to the beat of its own bizarre rhythm!” – Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

(This movie was nominated for review by Motyka. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Teknolust

Teknolust
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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates, Shorts

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: RABBITS (2002)

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“…scientists in Steve Heine’s lab at the University of British Columbia wanted to see if acetaminophen could also dampen those feelings of uncomfortable uncertainty that occur when our sense of the meaning of life is threatened — like when we think about our death or watch a surrealist film. To test their theory, they ran two experiments. First, they asked participants to write a few paragraphs about what will happen to their bodies when they die. In the second experiment, they showed participants a clip from David Lynch’s 2002 film ‘Rabbits.’”–The Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2013

DIRECTED BY: David Lynch

FEATURING: Scott Coffey, , Naomi Watts, Rebekah Del Rio

PLOT: Lynch’s own tagline reads, “In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain … three rabbits live with a fearful mystery.” These human-shaped bunnies occupy a bare living room, where they confirm the time, question whether there have been calls, and occasionally listen to the rantings of a demon, all to the accompaniment of canned applause and laughter. 

Still from "Rabbits" (2002)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: “Rabbits” goes pretty far toward weird on its overall theme of dread and foreboding. Absurd in their enormity, the titular animals nevertheless deserve empathy for their moments of uncertainty and terror. What takes the project to another level is the suggestion of a logic underpinning the enterprise. The dialogue is almost entirely non sequitur, but it hints at an order that remains just out of reach.

COMMENTS: To my knowledge, David Lynch has never directed a stage play. But he clearly has an affinity for performances on stages. Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and “Twin Peaks” are some of the selections from his oeuvre wherein everything stops and someone takes command of the scene to put on a show within the show. So the least surprising thing about “Rabbits” is that Lynch would create a work in which that style of performance was the entire show. 

Of course, David Lynch has a very different notion of what constitutes a compelling stage show than most of us. There’s little action. Most “Rabbits” episodes open with sorrowful train horns, a steady rain beating down,  and a baleful Angelo Badalamenti theme, while Suzie stands upstage in a dressing gown, ironing, and Jane stays seated on the couch. After a moment or two, Jack walks through the front door in the kind of entrance usually accompanied by a hearty “Hi, honey, I’m home” greeting. Enormous applause from an appreciative audience greets Jack’s entrance, as though he were a TV legend making a welcome return to the small screen. But the stage offers only disquiet. 

What follows is mostly disjointed dialogue: “I am going to find out one day.” “There have been no calls today.” “It was a man in a green suit.” There are enough common elements—secrets, lost things, the time of day—to make you feel that the dialogue could be reassembled into something approaching linear coherence, but no sense that doing so would bring clarity.

But that’s not to say “Rabbits” doesn’t mix things up. Two episodes are devoted to monologues, while a third features a haunting musical number. Periodically, the telephone rings ominously, the only event that occasions an insert shot. And on two separate occasions, the room turns dark and an unintelligible monster appears on the back wall. At one point, there is a piercing scream offstage. Two episodes conclude with all of the coneys huddled on the sofa, clinging to each other for whatever comfort they can find. Lynch is almost cruel in calling his creation “a sitcom.”

The production itself is plenty bizarre. Lynch built the stage in his backyard garden and filmed at the same time each night to ensure consistent lighting, much to the annoyance of his neighbors. It appears that it really is Harring, Coffey, and freaking Academy Award-nominee Watts inside those big bunny costumes. And there’s not even a single way to watch the show. It originally appeared on Lynch’s now-defunct website in eight installments. Portions were later incorporated into his next film, Inland Empire. (In fact, those wascally wabbits were our Indelible Image.) He has since reformatted it on his own “David Lynch Theater” YouTube channel as a four-part presentation, minus the installment showcasing Del Rio’s musical contribution. (You can find the pieces assembled into a single presentation, likely taken from Absurda’s out-of-print “Lime Green Box,” while another YouTuber has helpfully adapted the series into an ambient loop, in case LoFi Girl isn’t giving you the focus you need.) 

That we are watching something being performed is implicit in the static camera, the characters’ careful respect for the downstage fourth wall, and most notably by the presence of an audience—or at least a raucous laugh track seemingly imported from an episode of “Married… with Children.” The faux audience laughs uproariously at distinctly non-comedic lines, and bursts into effusive applause every time Jack enters the room. It’s unsettling, then oppressive, and ultimately terrifying.

“Rabbits” has remarkable stickiness for such a short and static production. It has the familiar feel of Lynch’s other works, but there’s something pure about the way he whittles away the decadence of his features, including such baubles as scene-setting, linear movement, or continuity. It’s all mood, and the mood is unsettling. It’s easily the grimmest show about rabbits this side of Watership Down. They’re doing their best to hold it together in the face of awful uncertainty, but just barely. And if the rabbits can’t stay strong, what hope is there for the rest of us? As Jane says, “I wonder who I will be.”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“..this is Lynch at his most nightmarish, a bizarre and disconcerting series of disconnected moments that slowly builds in its weirdness towards a typically Lynchian moment of horror at the end.” – David Flint, The Reprobate

David Lynch The Lime Green Set [DVD]

David Lynch The Lime Green Set [DVD]
  • A collection of his own films picked by director David Lynch, including the Lynch supervised hi def re-mastered edition of Eraserhead, a collection of The Short Films of David Lynch, Blue Velvet with brand new 5.1 sound mix supervised by David Lynch, Wild at Heart, Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted, and The Elephant Man, along with new Lynch produced extras and Lynch direc
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(This series was nominated for review by panicalmechanical. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)