When a boy sprouts from a flower pot, it appears that he will require regular pruning.
Tag Archives: 2020
SATURDAY SHORT: JACK STAUBER’S OPAL (2020)
Young Opal sneaks into her neighbors’ house at night, where she is mistaken for Claire and listens to a suite of strange songs.
SATURDAY SHORT: SUGAR SHOW (2020)
Characters go through bestial and monstrous transformations as they search for love in this animation exploring the mysteries of human attraction.
CHANNEL 366: 30 COINS, SEASON 1 (2020)
30 Monedas
DIRECTED BY: Alex de la Iglesia
FEATURING: Eduard Fernández, Megan Montaner, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Macarena Gómez, Pepón Nieto, Manolo Solo
PLOT: In a small Spanish town, strange supernatural take place involving the town’s new priest, Father Vergara, previously an exorcist and currently an ex-convict. Vergara has in his possession a coin: one of the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas for betraying Jesus. He gets swept up in the increasingly strange events along with the town mayor, Paco and the town veterinarian, Elena. Amidst the deaths and strange creatures that appear, the three discover a conspiracy within the Church which involves gathering together all thirty coins.
COMMENTS: Getting A-level cinema talent to bring their A-game to the smaller screen can pay off; see Rian Johnson with “Poker Face” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.” In most cases, that talent creates the concept and is involved in some way—directing a few episodes, writing/producing—but then the majority of production gets farmed out to others. It’s a rarity to have said talent directly involved in a the entire run of full-season of television (where a season is eight to ten episodes, in a world where “miniseries” appears to be a dirty word). Notable exceptions are David Lynch‘s “Twin Peaks: the Return” and Mike Flanagan’s Netflix shows (“The Haunting of…,” “Midnight Mass,” “The Midnight Club”).
Add “30 Coins” to that list. Spain’s Álex de la Iglesia, together with co-writer Jorge Guerricaechevarría, combines elements of trashy telenovelas with a supernatural conspiracy involving the Vatican over eight episodes. Fans of de la Iglesia’s Day of the Beast will find this familiar ground. Beast is comparable to early Sam Raimi; “30 Coins” is like later Raimi, but with a bit more edge. The telenovela aspect involves the star-crossed romance of childhood sweethearts Elena (Megan Montaner) and Paco (Miguel Ángel Silvestre) who has an ambitious and jealous wife, Merche (Macarena Gómez). This triangle weaves in and out amongst the Lovecraftian events (several of the creatures who appear are explicitly named in that mythos).
The main title, one of the most vivid and memorable created for a television show, establishes the tone. It evokes the already over-the-top Biblical epics of the 1950s, with the Crucifixion shown in lurid detail, Judas getting paid off, and Jesus and his betrayer sharing a look that can be described as psychotic triumph. Judas’ suicide and the scattering of the coins end the sequence, setting up the show’s backstory.
The eight-episode series was created for HBO Europe, and proved to be successful enough on HBO Max that it was renewed for a second season, scheduled to premiere October 2023. Advance word on the second season suggests it focuses on the people of Pedraza, who have lost their minds and are confined to a psychiatric hospital. Elena lies in a Madrid hospital bed in a coma; Paco, shattered by remorse, tries to take care of her. Paul Giamatti will join the cast as Christian Barbrow, an American tech and business billionaire, science guru, writer of sci-fi novels, and head of a mysterious brotherhood of global elites. As horror grows around the cast, they must face a new enemy.
The first season can be streamed on HBO Max (or whatever they’re called today). Those thirsting for a home video release are out of luck, as there is no domestic release of the show as of this writing. There is, however, a Spanish Blu-ray release that has an English dub soundtrack as well as Spanish/English subtitles and a Spanish soundtrack—and is region free (although the format is incompatible with Playstation 3 and maybe some other units). Contact your favored importers.
Season One trailer:
Main title:
Season 2 teaser:
Season 2 trailer:
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: RÖCKËT STÄHR’S DEATH OF A ROCKSTAR (2020)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Röckët Stähr
FEATURING: The voices of Röckët Stähr, Abby Ahmad
PLOT: Röcky Stähr, a four-armed glam idol, leads the world revolution of the mind against the war-mongering C. Czar in the year 2165.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: As a glam rock opera presented in Yellow Submarine-style-by-way-of-Flash™ animation with living lyrics, this looks and sounds like virtually nothing out there. But its message is what makes Death of a Rockstar one of the oddest high-decibel screeds I’ve ever borne witness to.
COMMENTS: Death of a Rockstar is a shameless throw-back, from its “revolution through music” mentality, to its repeated homaging, through its bombastic revelry in bygone music eras. Simultaneously, it is a film with a dark (albeit vibrantly palletted) dystopian vision: all the violent, power-hungry nay-sayers have co-opted governments worldwide in a bid for theocratic power. Simultaneously, it has much to say about contemporary conflicts: the merits of and limits to freedom; individualism versus collectivism; victimhood and responsibility; and so on. Röckët Stähr has a lot to say, and Death of a Rockstar is not only his way of saying it, it also feels like he’s thinking things through with us, in real time, to a soundtrack reminiscent of Queen-Bowie-Bolan-Thunders-Sex-Pistols LOUD rock ‘n roll collaboration.
In its Citizen Kane-y beginning, there is a loud clap of noise and a sudden death. Cue the singing globe in a cage, flanked by instrument-playing planets, to jam out the exposition. It’s 2164, and the killjoys have won. Life is meant merely to be survived, and an omnipresent government takes hold to spare the citizenry the burden of thinking freely. Creigh A. Tohr has created a four-armed clone infused with the rebellious, rockin’ sensibilities of some dozen or more glam and post-punk rock luminaries to liberate mankind from the shackles of their own fear and acquiescence, named Röcky (hello, …Picture Show). In tandem, we see the story of Ronnie, a young woman with an abusive father and emotionally distant mother, who is forced to flee the authorities and ends up meeting the titular Rockstar.
Stähr (the filmmaker) knows his film history. He knows his music (he scored and performed the soundtrack). More importantly, he understands visual comedy (he even animated the film). When Ronnie’s writing a letter to her folks, her pen keeps dying, in sync with the lyrics she’ singing, and when shaking, scratching, and licking the nib fail to resurrect the ink-flow, she pricks her finger and the words come down in blood, just as the letter takes a dark tone. There are innumerable little visual touches that play with images, words on-screen, and quite often, the interaction of the two. The man is a natural-born cartoonist, humorist, musician, and singer.
Much of Death of a Rockstar is anti-fascist. It is also anti-collectivist. It has no sympathy for faddish leftie-ism (in a “Museum of Unnatural History”, there are various exhibits featuring banned items such as sugar, trans-fat, and drinking straws), alongside its dismissal of organized religion and martial practice. For awhile I thought this was a something of a libertarian’s dream vision. But by the final act, as Tohr sings a duet with a smashed-mirror-monster, something that had been lurking below the surface finally revealed itself: the importance of deliberation, and of keeping clear of absolutist thinking. It hit me like a moderated ton of bricks: Death of a Rockstar is an anarcho-bourgeoisie screed—one that rocks hard and fun from start to finish, and overflows with comedic self-deprecation as the pontificating rockstar puzzles through his credo to the wail of a guitar and the high-octane blast of his power tenor.
Death of a Rockstar was completed in 2020 but released in 2022. It currently streams exclusively on Tubi for free (with ads).
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: