Tag Archives: Musical

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD (2006)

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DIRECTED BY: Lloyd Kaufman

FEATURING: Jason Yachanin, Kate Graham, Allyson Sereboff, Joshua Olatunde, Robin L. Watkins

PLOT: When a ravenously capitalist fast-food chain builds a franchise on an old Indian burial ground in the fair burg of Tromaville, the spirits of dead Native Americans and dead chickens conspire to turn the poultry-eating populace into fluid-spewing zombies.

Still from Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

COMMENTS: What are you doing out there on the front porch? Get in here, darn ya! Sit, sit, we’re just about ready to serve. The stuffing is on the table, the onions on the green bean casserole are crisp, I’ve got a spoon for the cranberry sauce… oh, and here’s the bird. Would you like to carve? Just be careful with the knife, because once you cut into that crispy seasoned flesh, you’re liable to be sprayed with an unholy onslaught of blood, bile, vomit, feces, and any number of disgusting fluids. Go on, dig in!

Yes, it’s a Thanksgiving here at 366 Weird Movies headquarters, and even though it’s chicken and not turkey on the menu in Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, the film is suffused with the spirits of the two oppressed populations who have made our modern American Thanksgiving possible: Native Americans and domesticated fowl. If Troma Entertainment has taught us anything, it’s that failure to pay the proper respects will result in terror of the most disgusting and ridiculous nature imaginable, so choose your words carefully when you say grace.

What can one say when reviewing the most review-proof organization in show business? A rave would be an endorsement, while a pan is a badge of honor. I will suggest, then, that Poultrygeist is, in Troma terms, an almost perfect object. It’s got everything you expect, by the bucketload: deep stupidity, rampant nudity, crude insults that punch up and down in equal measure, and so much fluid being sprayed like a fire hose. Consider that a character named after a certain submarine sandwich pitchman/convicted sex criminal isn’t merely fat in defiance of his processed food diet; he’s morbidly obese, and we’re treated to an in-toilet POV shot of his unfortunate encounter with a haunted meal, a sight so appalling that even the Troma braintrust has seen fit to slap “CENSORED” bars across the screen. If you have even a passing familiarity with the Troma House of Moviemaking and that’s your bag, you will not be disappointed.

Liquids aside, Poultrygeist is a satire, but of the everyone’s-a-target variety. Voracious capitalism comes under fire, but so do self-righteous protesters and mawkish bleeding hearts. The cynical people who make fast food are hardly worse than the mindless hordes who eat it. Ridicule is ladled out in copious amounts at women, gay Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD (2006) →

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CAPSULE: DICKS: THE MUSICAL (2023)

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Dicks: The Musical can be rented or purchased on-demand.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson, , Megan Mullally, Bowen Yang, Megan Thee Stallion

PLOT: Craig and Trevor, two alpha male salesmen, discover they are identical twins separated at birth, and scheme to get their eccentric parents back together to form a family.

Still from Dicks: the Musical (2023)

COMMENTS: If you’re offended by a portrayal of God as a foul-mouthed gay Asian who’s cool with incest, you’re Dicks: The Musical‘s target audience. That is to say, director Larry Charles is targeting you, the way Ron DeSantis targets a Disney princess drag queen elementary school read-along. With consent jokes, vagina jokes, on-screen gay sex jokes, and (lots of) jokes mocking straight white men, Dicks finds ways to shock in this unshockable age.

Dicks‘ desire to transgress is its strength and its weakness. There’s a place in the cinema universe for mid-budget midnight movies in the “I really shouldn’t be laughing at this “mode, and they don’t come around that often. (Rocky Horror made a lot of grandmas blush in its day; the 1999 South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is probably the last major release with a similar traumatize-the-squares strategy.) On the other hand, it can be tiresome to watch a movie that’s this in-your-face all the time. At some point, my face got tired of having Dicks in it. I can’t say I laughed out loud too often, but I did gasp out loud at one grossout scene near the end (I suspect you’ll know which one I’m referring to when you see it). The funniest bit—perhaps tellingly—is a tongue-in-cheek post-credits sequence where Nathan Lane wonders how his showbiz career has come down to him spitting chewed-up lunch meat at puppets.

Despite not looking that much alike, stars Sharp and Johnson are indistinguishable, both to each other in-movie sense and in the function of their characters. They really are two men playing one character: well-endowed (or so they loudly sing) alpha male salesmen who score with the babes but are not-so-surprisingly repressed homosexuals. The real fun to be had here is in watching Mullaly and Lane as outrageously inappropriate parents who would (or at least, should) embarrass NYC’s most shameless narcissists.

Surprisingly, Mullaly is a great singer; equally surprisingly, given his long Broadway career, Lane is not (although he makes up for it with ace comedic timing). The songs are mostly amusing and perfectly serviceable, with Megan Thee Stallion’s “Out Alpha the Alpha” rap (which features her walking men on dog leashes) serving as the show-stopper. With its sneering Black-girl swagger, “Alpha” sounds just like a regular Megan Thee Stallion hit (I assume; can’t say I’ve ever heard a Megan Thee Stallion song).

The movie’s weird credentials come in the form of a pair of running-joke parental eccentricities: Lane’s pet “Sewer Boys,” two troll-like creatures he keeps in a cage and feeds masticated ham, and Mullaly’s detached vagina, which “fell off” one day (and walked away!) but which she now keeps in her handbag. We see it. It ain’t pretty. But Dicks ain’t about pretty, except for “that’s pretty gross.”

Dicks: the Musical is a strange project even for A24, which is now reportedly pivoting to more mainstream fare after the Oscar success of Everything Everywhere all at Once. This outrageous niche release buttresses their image as the studio willing to risk money on bizarre projects, but it’s ultimately a loss leader: the poorly attended theatrical release (a gross of a little over a million against its twelve-mil budget) will be followed by a much sooner than average appearance on VOD starting November 10.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a decidedly big swing and a genuinely weird take on the musical that has its moments, but also feels a bit stretched too thin given its concept. There are absolutely highs to this weird wonderland of genitals and Sewer Boys—especially with that third act—but for a comedy that needs to build and build to this idea justice, Dicks: The Musical too often relies on the same jokes told over and over again with a narrative that can’t continuously build the absurdity.”–Ross Bonaime, Collider (festival screening)

Capsules

CAPSULE: OPEN (2023)

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Open can be rented or purchased on-demand.

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Miles Doleac

FEATURING: Lindsay Anne Williams, Miles Doleac, Jeremy London, Elena Sanchez, Amber Reign Smith

PLOT: Kristina comes to regret pursuing her long-time fantasy of dating her teen idol when she and her husband explore sharing an open marriage.

Still from OPEN (2022)

COMMENTS: Be advised: if you have an aversion to New Wave music, you will want to avoid this movie. Over its run time, there are some dozen or so interludes featuring ’80s style studio music videos wherein Kristina Corbin’s subconscious processes her situational and emotional circumstances. Her youthful dream of fronting a glamorous synth-rock band is the pulsing heart of this quietly satisfying romantic comedy, and while the segues slip into the narrative like clockwork, they never feel unwelcome.

Ultimately unwelcome, however, is Erik LaRoux, an erstwhile teen idol whom Kristina adored growing up. When she and husband Robert’s marriage hits the rocks—triggered by a recent miscarriage—they are unsure how to proceed. They feel, they know—it must be!—that they’re good together, and that they shouldn’t split up the metaphorical band; but they’ll be damned if they can figure out what direction to go. And so, Kristina makes a suggestion: an open relationship. The first act of Play runs like a cute-‘n’-clever little relationship dramedy, with Kristina hooking up with a charismatic has-been, and Robert falling in bed with a long-time friend.

Open is very much an “all well and good” kind of experience. It shuffles along, capably attaining its realistic ambitions. The characters are all likable (even Erik, before his dark turn) and the songs hover around the better side of average. Sometimes the band is mediocre, other times they flirt with genius. (The tune “Aspic” merits bonus points for the choral couplet, “Damn it to Hell, get me out of this stinking putrid well/I need some elevation for my aspic to gel,” a line which prompts the husband-keyboardist character to exclaim, “‘Aspic’? Really?”) Even when it begins to flounder in the third act, Open is still charmingly executed.

In the end, I was kind of surprised—in a good way. When the closing number queued up, I was hit with the sentiment, “It’s over already?” So, be advised: anyone looking for a fun, mature, and tuneful romantic comedy would do well to take a look at and listen to Open. It’s got heart, brio, and plenty of good advice: “Grab love by the balls, but don’t twist ’em too hard when you feel small.”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Doleac, whose previous features have been horrors of deliciously demented delicacies, tries his hand at a quirky musical thriller – and the result is completely darling and truly absorbing.”–Bill Arceneaux, Moviegoing with Bill (festival screening)

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: LA CICATRICE INTÉRIEURE [THE INNER SCAR] (1972)

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DIRECTED BY: Philippe Garrel

FEATURING: Nico, Pierre Clémenti, Philippe Garrel, Christian Aaron Boulogne

PLOT: A man leads a woman through the desert;  abandons her as she pleads for help;  a nude archer arrives; the woman travels with him as well, until she again cries out in despair.

Still from La Cicatrice Interieur [The Inner Scar] (1972)

COMMENTS: The woman sits alone in a desolate landscape. A man approaches, wearing a burnt umber suit that is somehow both 70s and Victorian. He pulls the woman to her feet. They walk, heading toward the horizon as we fade to black. Before we’ve had a chance to fade in on the new scene, we can hear her, sobbing and wailing that she can’t breathe. She keens like a toddler who has been denied dessert, and the silent man finally abandons her, trudging off… in what turns out to be a circle, ending up right back with his bereft traveling companion. She shrieks “I don’t need you!” and staggers off into the distance. 

So passes the first ten minutes of La cicatrice intérieure. There isn’t going to be all that much variation on the theme. A first-time viewer should gird their loins for a lot of walking, a lot of screaming, occasional appearances by fire, and several dramatic songs that might be at home in a Ren Faire, courtesy of Nico. It’s the kind of film that will devote five minutes to despairing cries of“There is no justice!” followed immediately by an extended tracking shot of sheep being herded down a dirt road.

The temptation is to view La cicatrice intérieure as some kind of allegory. No one has a name, no one engages in dialogue, none of this should be taken literally. The locations in Egypt, Iceland, and New Mexico are stunning, but the people are barely even characters, and there are almost no situations to speak of. (The film even starts to parody itself, as more than one lengthy pan across a dramatic vista suddenly reveals Nico, once more shattering the peace with her vocal despair like an inescapable buzzkill.) But it doesn’t really say much in an abstract sense, either. The fire, the sword, the giddy nude toddler lying on a fur amidst a field of ice… they’re metaphorical, but without actually representing anything. 

So what is the goal? The film seems to function in part as a kind of proto-music video for Nico, the German chanteuse best known for her collaboration with the Velvet Underground. This makes it all the more curious that she doesn’t get top billing. Here she is, the actor with the most screen time, the only one to make the journey from the beginning of the film to the end, the ostensible reason the film exists at all, and she’s listed second. Although in fairness, perhaps the top spot is meant as a reward for Clémenti, who shows up as the new male lead roughly halfway through the film and who spends the duration completely naked save for a quiver and bow (which go unused). Clémenti is mostly impassive, although he impressively does things unclothed like ride a horse or sail a boat off an icy coast, inspiring the thought, “That looks really uncomfortable.”

The few moments of speech may be a clue as to the directorial intent. Nico alternates between German and English, while Clémenti and an adolescent boy speak French. Garrel reportedly refused to permit subtitles, meaning the literal incomprehensibility of some of the dialogue is a feature, not a bug. Being opaque is the point. That seems to be an overriding philosophy in La cicatrice intérieure; if you’re going to complain about things not making sense, you’re not the right audience. In that case, you might want to take a walk.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… pretentious artsy indulgence at its worst.” – Zev Toledano, The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre

(This movie was nominated for review by NGboo, who dubbed it one of “the most surreal and weirdest movies I’ve seen this year” back in 2011. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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CAPSULE: WILL-O’-THE-WISP (2022)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Mauro da Costa, André Cabral

PLOT: Concerned about the environment, the prince of Portugal chooses to become a volunteer fireman and falls in love with a co-worker.

Still from Will-o'-the-wisp (2022)

COMMENTS: There was a 1974 softcore sex spoof called 2069: A Sex Odyssey. Pretty hilarious title, huh? Will-o’-the-Wisp opens on almost the same joke, conspicuously setting its flash-forward prologue in 2069. This is not a promising opening for a supposedly serious art film.

A lot of the insubstantial Will-o’-the-Wisp comes off exactly as on-the-nose as that opening joke. Among the film’s incompatible parts is a general dedication to environmentalism (which motivates its protagonist to semi-abdicate his royal commission to volunteer as a firefighter). We know of Alfredo’s convictions because he interrupts family dinner to read Greta Thunberg’s 2019 U.N. speech off his phone, speaking directly to the camera. So when it comes time for a sex scene, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that it goes unambiguously explicit. The film contains a lot of hoses, and some actual hosing, but almost no firefighting—although Rodrigues shows, in a CPR-training scene, that he is perfectly capable of conveying eroticism indirectly. The finale features a singer substituting the word “falo” (phallus) for “fado” (folk song) in her dirge. Subtlety isn’t always a virtue, but with a project as wispy as this—even at 67 minutes, its plot feels stretched-out—a little could have gone a long way.

Will-o’-the-Wisp flits as lightly over its surrealism as it does every other element (with the exception of male full-frontal nudity, which, honestly, is the film’s major theme and raison d’être). Muscly, nude firemen re-enact various classical paintings (humorously), and the final funeral scene is suitably strange, with a pair of female mourners played by gossipy, ambiguously-gendered ladies. Perhaps most notably, the film is proffered as a “musical fantasia,” with pauses in the action for song-and-dances. The slim runtime only accomodates three numbers, however: an a capella ode to trees sung by schoolchildren, the closing funeral fado, and the centerpiece, an athletically choreographed fireman’s techno-ballet where the protagonist gets spun around like one of those twirling signs by his future lover.

The musical element makes Will-o’-the-Wisp resemble the queer absurdity of Rodrigues’ To Die Like a Man (2009) more than the ambitious surrealism of his Ornithologist. Wisp lacks the emotional heft of that 2009 effort, however, because it doesn’t spend enough time developing Alfredo and Alfonso’s characters into much more than romantic pawns playing their assigned roles. This phantasm of a film feels dashed-off, an under-budgeted pandemic-era project made to keep busy while waiting for something bigger to come down the pike. That said, other critics were more forgiving: 97% positive on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of publication, in fact. One would presume Wisp would also play well with a niche gay art-house audience, while lacking crossover potential. (I will point out that gay-friendly art-house patrons are the only ones likely to pick it for a screening, however; and, returning to the Tomatoes numbers, the paltry 32% audience score suggests that even they weren’t impressed. I suppose this is more of a critics’ movie: other critics, that is.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…hilarious and yet still heartfelt, extremely weird but wonderful…”–Lee Jutton, Film Inquiry (festival screening)