Tag Archives: Obscure/Out of Print

60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977)

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“This is really weird.”–Raggedy Andy, when a camel asks him to climb on and join him as he chases an invisible caravan in the sky

DIRECTED BY: Richard Williams

FEATURING: Claire Williams, voices of Didi Conn, Mark Baker, Fred Stuthman, Niki Flacks, George S. Irving, Marty Brill, Joe Silver, Alan Sues

PLOT: On her owner’s birthday, Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy meet Babette, a snobbish new doll from France. Babette is quickly abducted by snowglobe pirate Captain Contagious. Ann and Andy venture out into the night, where they encounter a camel, a taffy pit, and an inflatable Loony king, before finally confronting the pirate ship.

Still from Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

BACKGROUND:

  • Raggedy Ann began her life as a mass-produced rag doll in 1915. A series of children’s books based on the character followed in the 1920s, continuing until the 1970s. Fleischer Brothers studios made three animated Raggedy Ann and Andy shorts in the 1940s. The dolls are still produced today.
  • This feature film was loosely adapted from the 1924 children’s book “Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees.
  • Director Richard Williams took over for originally-slated director Abe Levitow, who died before production began.
  • The adaptation was originally conceived as a Broadway musical, then a TV special, before becoming a feature film. An actual Broadway musical with many of the same characters (but a different plot) followed in 1986.
  • The film ended up costing more than double its original budget, and was a box office failure. It was released on VHS, but has never officially been released on DVD or Blu-ray.
  • Voted onto the Apocrypha by readers in this poll.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The Greedy, an inexplicable being who inhabits the Taffy Pit and exists as a sort of candy-themed, eternally mutating ian horror-cum-cupcake.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Ghost camel caravan in the sky; expanding looney king

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Raggedy Ann was a hobo doll, the cheapest and most unassuming children’s toy imaginable. Throwing this plain Jane toy into a backyard “Alice in Wonderland” scenario shouldn’t have produced results as odd as it did. A Musical Adventure is uneven, but in its insaner moments, it genuinely goes for broke.

Original trailer for Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

COMMENTS: “Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all Continue reading 60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977)

CAPSULE: PALMS (1993)

Ладони, AKA Ladoni

DIRECTED BY: Artour Aristakisyan

PLOT: A man tries to connect with his unborn son by seeing glimpses of him in the faces of people he meets in the slums of late-Soviet Moldova.

Still from Palms (1993)

COMMENTSPalms is a pseudo-documentary black-and-white film shot single-handedly by Artour Aristakisyan over five years in Chisinau, Moldova. It is a haunting journey through faith, identity, and what it means to exist. When it was first screened in Moscow in the early 1990s, it blindsided everyone. Few people saw it, but those who did will never forget it. Even compared to other eccentric Russian films of Soviet parallel cinema or necrorealism, Palms is something else entirely. But unlike the ironic works of Yevgeny Yufit or Andrei I., Palms overflows with intense passion and austere ideology.

The film is composed of ten short stories about real people—beggars, psychiatric patients, oddballs, cripples, and others—who behave like “Bodies without Organs” (a concept from philosopher Gilles Deleuze). So, who are these people? There’s an unwashed woman who has supposedly lain on the ground for 40 years, waiting for Jesus. A boy who swore not to move until the Kingdom of Heaven arrives. An old woman who clings to the severed head of an SS officer—her lover—a clear nod to both Salome and Judith. A grandfather who collects trash from the dead, with “the border of Israel running across his face.” A man named Srulik, who kisses a dove—an allusion to the Holy Spirit.

Each kooky character, with their own tragic story, is woven into a cryptic narrative voiced by the filmmaker, who speaks as “the Father” addressing his “Unborn Son,” a child about to be aborted (an allusion to “the Logos—Jesus before the Incarnation). The Father (voiced by Aristakisyan himself) is the only speaking character in the film. The central theme of his calm, solemn narration is a deep distrust of the material world, which is portrayed as inherently evil. Earth, in this worldview, is the creation of the Demiurge—a false god behind all societal systems. Although Aristakisyan claims he followed these drifters, outcasts, and madmen for five years and wrote down what they said, it’s clear that many of them are figments of his imagination.

Though the film seems disconnected from any specific cinematic tradition, Palms shares thematic affinities with early Christian thought, including Pauline theology and the Bogomil heresy. “Father Aristakisyan” proclaims:

“This is the System. It doesn’t have borders anymore. The System will find you wherever you go. So, kid, before it’s too late, focus on your salvation. You have your own light. Use it, and you’ll escape the System. For now, don’t get distracted by all this nonsense. No, don’t think about traveling abroad. After death, you’ll have plenty of time to travel. Your next baptism will be by fire. And then it’ll be too late to pick a side.”

To the Paulicians, everything on Earth was the work of Sataniel—the Demiurge, the god of the Old Testament. Jesus Christ, in contrast, was the Good God, made of “subtle” matter. They viewed Christ as a kind of phantom, not truly human—an idea known as docetism, associated with Serapion of Antioch. Aristakisyan’s concept of the System aligns with this Paulician worldview: not merely a political structure, but something much larger. It’s not socialism or capitalism, or even human society as such. The System is the entire material realm—factories, asylums, homes, and everything else.

Ironically, Aristakisyan (or his on-screen persona) even ridicules the vastness of outer space:

“I’m worried about you, kid. The sky used to be a protective ceiling—obviously made of foil. It kept me safe from the cosmos and all the crap in it. When I lived under the sky, maybe some of my thoughts didn’t come true. Now, every thought becomes real. It’s like cancer spreading everywhere, but a special kind of cancer. It keeps the body alive so the corpse can keep generating energy.”

In a nod to earlier critiques of modernity, the film hits the audience with an almost didactic intensity. Aristakisyan’s vision of the System is a heady mix of conspiracy theory and mystical philosophy, creating a spellbinding and unsettling atmosphere throughout. Thirty years later, the leading ideologist of Russian fascism, Alexander Dugin, would echo some of these themes: “The Outer Space exploration is godless and shameful. It’s a globalist fantasy preparing for the Antichrist. The Outer Space is an illusion. We need to stay faithful to Christ and the Russian land.”

The film recalls the small, priestless sects that emerged in 18th-century Russia, some of which still survive in remote regions like the Evenk taiga or the Trans-Volga steppes. One such group, the Golbeshniki, believed society itself was the kingdom of Lucifer. They buried themselves in mysterious earthen dens, burned their children in dark rites, and danced naked in the moonlight.

Despite its Paulician creed and somber tale, the film breathes of something far greater. The pallid and dappled hues that stain the frame, the wretched hovels of Chișinău, and the tranquil voice of the author together weave a spell most strange. A beauty not of this earth steals o’er the senses, ensnaring the soul in such wise that to look away becomes a sorrowful task indeed.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

[Palms’] approach certainly risks exploiting, aestheticising or exoticising human suffering. Instead, the film decontextualises its subjects without suggesting that the suffering it depicts is either unreal or picturesque. Rendering the historical as the trans-historical here functions to set extant reality into question.”–Hannah Proctor, ‘So-called waste’: Forms of Excess in Post-1960 Art, Film, and Literature’ (lecture)

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: IMPOLEX (2009)

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DIRECTED BY: Alex Ross Perry

FEATURING: Riley O’Bryan, Kate Lyn Sheil, Bruno Meyrick Jones, voice of Eugene Mirman

PLOT: A lone soldier trudges through the forest in search of a pair of V-2 rockets, but consistently loses his way thanks to a combination of tiredness, apathy, and a series of hallucinated distractions.

Still from Impolex (2009)

COMMENTS: Like many filmmakers before him, Alex Ross Perry broke in with a microbudgeted, limited cast, one-set, single-premise film to demonstrate his talent. These “calling cards” can provide a fascinating peek into an extraordinary career poised to explode. (I have reviewed one such example on this very site.) Perry’s introduction keeps things pretty simple, from a production standpoint. It’s as a storyteller that he shows an unusually high level of ambition, given that he’s decided that his debut feature is the right place to attempt an unsanctioned adaptation of ’s “Gravity’s Rainbow.” No quickie horror film for him.

Having never attempted the literary Everest that is Pynchon’s most acclaimed work myself, I take it on faith that shared character names, common elements (missile numbers, octopi, bananas), and a similarly surreal milieu speak to the faithfulness of Perry’s covert adaptation. The secretive author has only been officially translated to the screen once, but since Perry includes the novel amongst several nonfiction works in an end-credits bibliography, we can stipulate its influence here. What suffers in the translation to a visual medium is the nature of its central character, a feckless fellow who may seem introspective on the page, but comes across as lethargic or even clueless on the screen. Tyrone (Riley O’Bryan) stumbles around the forest in no particular direction, mumbling in a grand display of Gen Z-style elocution. His ostensible goal is to collect two precious German rockets as part of a secret military operation (although his targets are mere models rather than the actual four-story missile that paved the way for modern rocketry), but having located one of the pair, he seems to have no prospects for finding the second rocket, and has a hard enough time keeping hold of the first. When he’s not toting or spooning the wayward projectile, he’s fending off the intrusions of people who categorically cannot be there, including a one-eyed Australian who gives off Raoul Duke vibes, an old colleague who is also evidently an escaped criminal, and an octopus who shows up just for the hang. And so he wanders, going nowhere and fending off plot development like a mystery box TV show with no definitive end date.

There’s strong reason to believe that we’re watching the dream—or possibly the Jacob’s Ladder-style final moments—of our hero, possibly moments after perusing Pynchon’s novel while eating too much spicy food. Aside from Tyrone, no one dresses in period garb. At one point, he reads from the secret files which dictate his mission, but when it comes time to identify the superiors who have sent him on this assignment, he formally reports, “I cannot say, I’m afraid. That would be telling.” He describes himself as having unique abilities for the task at hand, but never demonstrates that he has any skills at all. He doesn’t have a compass, his orders contain maps of Scandinavia and irrelevant photographs, and he never comes across the slightest trace of the wider world beyond the forest. Tyrone is perpetually on his own with no direction home, and he displays very little interest in improving his lot.

The most frequent interruption in his wanderings is the repeated intrusion of Katje, the girlfriend he left behind and whose biggest contribution seems to be as a nagging harpy throwing cold water on his efforts. But Katje finally gets her turn in a nine-minute sequence near the film’s end where she lays bare his cruelties. It’s a crucial shift in perspective, as it provides her only opportunity to speak her mind as a real human instead of a wet blanket. It also calls into question the very nature of Tyrone’s mission, as the flashback appears to take place in the now rather than in the ostensible World War II-era setting we expect. When Katje returns one last time to try and advise Tyrone, she appears as a protector instead of a critic. But this is the story’s last new element before it stumbles toward the closing credits, and it reads as a twist rather than as a legitimate pathway. In any event, Tyrone pays her no heed. His fate is fixed. The forest is the end. 

Perry’s Pynchonesque journey benefits from uniqueness, as there aren’t too many narratives where the hero actively goes nowhere and does nothing. But there’s not really any reward for coming along for the ride. Without a central character to be interested in, an objective to be achieved, or intriguing visuals or occurrences to capture a viewer’s attention, Impolex is aimless and dull. We are all Katje, fruitlessly waiting all night for someone to come home. 

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Reveling in its provocative absurdity, ‘Impolex’ is a madly uncommercial head-scratcher that will strike a dream-logic chord in some viewers and leave others in a ‘My kid could do better than that’ mood… a nine-minute single-take closeup of a woman (Kate Lyn Sheil), delivering a weirdly revelatory monologue, unexpectedly catapults the film to another level, breaking viewers’ otherwise understandable alienation.” – Ronnie Scheib, Variety (contemporaneous)

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

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KUNG FU CONTRA AS BONECAS [KUNG FU AGAINST THE DOLLS] (1975)

AKA Bruce Lee versus Gay Power

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DIRECTED BY: Adriano Stuart

FEATURING: Adriano Stuart, Maurício do Valle, Helena Ramos, Edgard Franco, Nadir Fernandes

PLOT: When Chang, a wandering warrior of mixed origin who is well-versed in the skills and philosophies of kung fu, returns home to find that his family has been murdered by a gang of outrageous bandits, he vows to seek vengeance.

Kung Fu Contra As Bonecas [AKA Bruce Lee vs. Gay Power] ()

COMMENTS: No one associated with the making of this film ever called it Bruce Lee vs. Gay Power. This is important, because that extraordinary title seems to be at the heart of its lingering reputation. If some enterprising videocassette huckster hadn’t decided to employ some savvy attention-getting branding, combining an extreme example of Bruceploitation with a thematically unexpected opponent, then Kung Fu contra As Bonecas might never have made it out of Brazil. As it is, I’ve had to take a crash course in Brazilian history and film trends just to wrap my head around exactly what’s going on here, to say nothing of stoking a passing familiarity with poorly aged 1970s American television. Even with that, I have my doubts as to whether I’ve gotten it all. It is often said of art that if you have to explain what your piece means, then it has failed. Kung Fu contra As Bonecas has this problem to the nth power. 

Let’s start with the part that was closest to my wheelhouse. The movie is, in large part, an outright spoof of the David Carradine vehicle “Kung Fu,” the popular American TV series in which a distinctly non-Asian itinerant warrior made his way across the Old West confronting various forms of oppression and bigotry. (Depending upon who is telling the story, the real Bruce Lee either devised the premise for “Kung Fu” and had it stolen by unscrupulous producers, or was first in line for the lead role but was bypassed by studio execs who couldn’t fathom making an Asian actor the star of a prime-time TV series.)

Playing the lead role himself in a ludicrous oversized jet-black wig, Adriano Stuart deliberately mocks “Kung Fu”’s conventions, with flashbacks that directly parody the hero’s education in some dark monastery, turning the show’s innocent boy into a privileged young man in a graduation cap and gown and bearing the sobriquet “mosquito” (in place of the series’ “grasshopper”). He is instructed in the ways of Zen calm, which he consistently fails to maintain. In case that’s not obvious enough, this Chang sports a pink tank top featuring a glittery illustration of Carradine’s character hovering above the words “KUNG FU,” a garment that one suspects he picked up in a Hot Topic. It’s either unrestrained commitment to the bit or desperate flailing to make sure everyone gets the joke. 

Chang’s enemies are the cangaceiros, outlaws who brutalize the region, engaging in robbery, rape, and murder. Scenes in which the gang terrorizes innocents almost seem to be aping Sergio Leone, depicting their violence graphically and unblinkingly and setting a serious contrast to the ridiculous hero. However, the feminine habits Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KUNG FU CONTRA AS BONECAS [KUNG FU AGAINST THE DOLLS] (1975)

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: MONDAY (2000)

Mandei

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DIRECTED BY: Sabu (Hiroyuki Tanaka)

FEATURING: Shin’ichi Tsutsumi, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Ren Ohsugi, , Akira Yamamoto,

PLOT: A businessman awakens in a strange hotel room with no recollection as to how he got there; as reassembles his memories, he discovers that a number of shocking acts lead directly back to him.

COMMENTS: “Get a little booze in you and you’re a tough guy,” the mugger’s moll says. And right she is. Koichi Takagi, a meek middle manager (in Japanese parlance, a salaryman) can’t even stand up to his mouse-voiced girlfriend. But get a few drinks in him, he becomes an entirely different person. Confident, even cocky, and – provided with the proper tools – a spree killer. Kanpai!

Like Garfield but so much worse, Koichi is having a truly terrible Monday. He wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel room with multiple religious tomes open on his bedside table and no clear memory of his weekend. When the neurons finally begin to fire, they first recall an incredibly uncomfortable funeral where, through farcical hijinks, he is called upon to snip the wires on the corpse’s pacemaker with disastrous results. From there, his girlfriend dumps him after he fails to explain why he missed her birthday party. An attempt to drink away his woes lands him in the orbit of a yakuza boss, and soon he’s engaging in a highly charged dance number with the gangster’s girlfriend. Alcohol definitely seems to have loosened him up, but maybe too much, as will become apparent once he gets a hold of the mobster’s shotgun. Whoops.

A surprising number of reviewers seem to think that “’Monday’ is a movie for those who believe that fate has once again dealt them an especially bad day.” The thing is, I don’t think this is really a case of bad luck. There are three very clear causes at the root of Takagi’s rampage: a gurgling rage from overwork and underappreciation, a distinct inability to keep a clear head with all the liquor that’s thrust upon him, and the sudden and unfortunate availability of a Philadelphia-made shotgun. (One of his selected poisons, Henry McKenna Kentucky bourbon, also throws some shade at all-American vices.) Maybe one can argue that none of these things are intentional on Koichi’s part, but this isn’t just a rotten roll of the dice. Rather, he has reached the point where he is unable to hold himself back from bad choices. In a funny/tragic moment, Koichi begins to compose a maudlin suicide note, expressing regrets to his family and offering explicit instructions for taking care of his plants. But while he writes, he idly takes a swig (and then several more) from a nearby bottle of booze, and his tone becomes less conciliatory and more aggressive. That proves unfortunate, but that’s not dumb happenstance.

The revelation of Koichi’s lost weekend plays out like a darker version of The Hangover, but when he discovers that every channel on the television is talking about him, as well as the regrettable ease of perpetrating gun violence, Monday takes on a different tenor as he tries to find a way out of this mess. It soon becomes clear that he’s the only guest left in the hotel, and the place is surrounded by authorities waiting to apprehend him as a brutal murderer. Here is where the film makes its true bid for weirdness, deploying a series of massive tonal shifts and elaborate setpieces in quick succession. When the drunk and armed Koichi emerges from his hotel room, we’re treated to a violent action scene to compete with the likes of John Woo or Gareth Evans. When Koichi enters an elevator to make his way down to the street, he is accompanied by a gaggle of giddy white-painted demons urging him on as he indulges his worst impulses. And when he reaches the street and takes the lead detective hostage, he indulges in an amusingly self-serving inspirational speech that culminates in a public celebration akin to the boys coming home from war. It’s a dizzying display, but even if you thought you could draw any meaning from it, Sabu yanks the rug out by returning Koichi back to the hotel room to contemplate his predicament. And there we end, certain that it all means something, but sure of little else.

Monday relies heavily on the goodwill engendered by Tsutsumi’s affable performance. He seems like a decent man in a world where decency gets eaten for lunch, and even when his actions are at their most appalling, you hold out hope that he’ll come to his senses and pull himself out of the muck. But despite his charm, you can pity Koichi but you can’t really forgive him. His excuses have merit, but his actions are indisputable. Friday may be pay day, but Monday is when the bills come due.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The flashbacks become increasingly edgy as Sabu turns up the danger, as well as the weird… It’s the sort of thing that sends conventional moviegoers and I suppose overseas distributors running for the hills, but Sabu has too much on mind to be concerned about that. One thing Sabu is not is subtle, and serious issues, such as unchecked authority, glorified perceptions of violence, and the questionable right to take justice into one’s own hands, come to the forefront, even debated openly by the main character and those he confronts.” – Steve Kopian, Unseen Films (2022 screening)

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