Zim-zam, flippy-floppy, jim-jam! Gibby Goo Bop, an overly-enthusiastic, sandal wearing, peace loving, tree hugging entity presents his first ever music video.
Tag Archives: Parody
SATURDAY SHORT: KILLER CUISINE 2
A taboo is crossed in this week’s short as a woman becomes the targeted main course of someone’s dinner. Enjoy a healthy portion of horror seasoned with satire, and don’t forget to tip the director with a quick comment on what you thought.
Killer Cuisine 2 (HD 720p) from Ross Goodman on Vimeo.
SATURDAY SHORT: ITALIAN SPIDERMAN TRAILER (2008)
Since extended to feature length through ten mini-episodes broadcast on YouTube, the “Italian Spiderman” trailer was originally shot as a film school project by Dario Russo. If you’re one of the few who hasn’t experienced the “actione,” “velocita” and “romanza” of “Italian Spiderman” yet, get ready for a treat.
RECOMMENDED AS WEIRD: SINGAPORE SLING [Singapore sling: O anthropos pou agapise ena ptoma] (1990)
DIRECTED BY: Nikos Nikolaidis
FEATURING: Meredyth Herold, Michele Valley, Panos Thanassoulis
PLOT: An alcoholic detective searches for a lost love, presumably dead, and ends up acaptive of two psychotic women. The women (a mother and daughter) ceaselessly torture the helpless and incapacitated victim. He remains mute as they participate in bizarre sexual practices and flaunt their derangement, sometimes literally in his face.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Singapore Sling is one of the rare films where practically every frame is teeming with weirdness. The imagery, behavior, and even the strange nuances in the women’s dialogue are often over-the-top and perverse, yet even while the viewer is made to feel uncomfortable, there is an overwhelming desire to see what comes next. Just when you think it couldn’t possibly get any weirder it somehow manages to top itself.
COMMENTS: Singapore Sling is one messed up film. It is a twisted take on the film noirs that filled cinemas in the early part of the 20th century. Specifically, it pays homage to Otto Preminger’s stylish classic Laura (1944). I use the word homage very loosely here, however. The original film’s music theme is used sporadically throughout, the detective’s lost lover is named Laura, and the nutcase daughter has a painted portrait of herself like Gene Tierney’s Laura character. The similarities pretty much end there. Deviance always played a central part in noirs, but not anywhere close to the degree that is on display here. I have to smile thinking about a dolled up 1940’s socialite having a night out at the theater, dressed to the nines in her pearl necklace and pillbox hat, witnessing this vulgarity. “What is she going to do with that kiwi fruit”? Gasp!
Film noir translates to “black film” and Singapore Sling is the purest black possible. Actually, the black and white cinematography is surprisingly lush and almost seems too perfect for a film with this subject matter. The beautiful crispness works to its advantage and the film would not have the same impact if shot in color. The contrast of the blacks and whites are stark and sets the mood perfectly. If I have any quarrel with the movie it is with the decision to Continue reading RECOMMENDED AS WEIRD: SINGAPORE SLING [Singapore sling: O anthropos pou agapise ena ptoma] (1990)
CAPSULE: THANKSKILLING (2009)
DIRECTED BY: Jordan Downey
FEATURING: Lindsey Anderson, Lance Predmore
PLOT: A killer turkey stalks a jock, a fat hillbilly, a nerd, a naughty babe, and a nice babe in this
hour-long homemade horror-comedy.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: A few of the gags in this holiday slasher spoof push the boundaries of silliness so far that they approach the weird, but in the end this light snack of a killer turkey flick is an honorable time-killer, nothing more.
COMMENTS: For a junk food film that wears its extreme dumbness as a badge of honor, ThanksKilling makes several smart moves. The first is keeping the running time to a trim 66 minutes; more fat might have made it hard to swallow. The second is starting off the movie with a prologue set in “the Olden Days” featuring an wisecracking, axe-wielding turkey puppet stalking an inexplicably topless Pilgrim woman; you immediately understand the level of filmmaking you’re about to be exposed to. (Don’t get too excited about that topless Pilgrim woman; the movie blows its entire nudity budget in the first five minutes, and hooking the target audience early probably counts as the movie’s third smart move). Along with the expected parodies of slasher movie cliches and the bad puns from the monster (“now that’s what I call ‘fowl’ play!”), the insanity includes psychedelic poultry point-of-view shots, an animated origin flashback, turkey rape (animal lovers calm down: it’s the bird that does the violating), and a glowing radioactive butterball monster for the final course. The best, weirdest and funniest sequence involves the turkey successfully posing as the heroine’s father by killing pop and wearing dad’s skinned face over his wattle. You already know if you’re the intended audience for this movie and if you’re not; if you are, you’ll find it a decent way to spend an hour. The fun the crew had making this comes through on film; it’s so dumb and carefree you’ll think it was actually made by drunken frat boys over Thanksgiving break.
ThanksKilling is evidence that at least one person in the world—director Jordan Downey—bought a copy of Lloyd Kaufman‘s Make Your Own Damn Movie!
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: