A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
Kill List: A psychologically scarred hit man agrees to the proverbial “one last mission” and finds it ironically horrifying. This off-the-radar British horror-thriller is drawing a lot of comparisons to The Wicker Man (something that didn’t happen for the “official sequel,” The Wicker Tree). Kill List official site.
IN DEVELOPMENT:
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (June 2012 release): The title tells all: this is a movie about the Great Emancipator freeing the undead from the curse of living death. A silly concept, but the talent behind it makes it of some interest: Timur Bekmambetov (Nightwatch) is directing and Tim Burton is producing. It’s being filmed in 3D, unfortunately. No official site (yet).
NEW ON DVD:
Blubberella (2011): Another exercise in tasteful restraint from the inimitable Uwe Boll: a comedy about a fat, half-vampire superheroine who fights Nazis in WWII. Boll gives himself a cameo as Hitler. Buy Blubberella
Dream House (2011): Psychological thriller about a man who relocates his family to a suburban house where a murder once took place and starts seeing strange things, etc. A troubled production which was virtually shelved by the Universal despite the presence of box office draws Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts in the cast. The director tried to have his name removed. Buy Dream House
The Mill and the Cross (2011): Artist/director Lech Majewski brings Pieter Brueghel’s sprawling canvas “The Way to Calvary”—which set the Crucifixion in the painter’s own 16th century Flanders—to life, using CGI to overlap real actors with the artwork. Maybe it’s not all that weird, but it’s certainly not normal. Rutger Hauer stars as Brueghel and becomes the first actor ever to portray a Flemish painter and a hobo with a shotgun in the same year. Buy The Mill & The Cross
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Adaptation (2002): Read our capsule review. Nicolas Cage stars as twin screenwriters Donald and Charlie Kaufman in this seminal metamovie scripted by Charlie Kaufman. From bargain label Image Entertainment, so there are no special features. Buy Adaptation [Blu-ray]
Dream House (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy Dream House [Blu-ray]
The Mill and the Cross (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy The Mill & The Cross [Blu-ray]
Monkeybone (2001): Brendan Fraser plays an underground cartoonist who meets his libidinal alter-ego, Monkeybone, in a coma in this Roger Rabbit-style feature mixing animated and real life characters. It’s from Henry Selick, co-stars Whoopi Goldberg as Death, and is actually pretty nasty for a PG-13 movie. Buy Monkeybone [Blu-ray]
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
My Beautiful Girl, Mari (2002): Korean animation about a boy’s first love, with a girl who may be a spirit of some sort. Critic were divided but it looks mildly weird (though audiences and critics used the word “confusing” instead). Watch My Beautiful Girl, Mari free on YouTube.
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.