Our weekly 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 at the official site links.
IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):
My Big Night [Mi Gran Noche] (2015): During a Spanish New Year’s Eve broadcast, the producers struggle with blackmail, huge egos, and an assassination attempt. This madcap farce from Alex de la Iglesia abandons the horror/comedy trappings of his most recent cult hits for exuberant campiness and kitsch. My Big Night U.S. distributor site.
SCREENINGS – (Cinefamily, Los Angeles, CA, Friday, 4/15 to Monday, 4/18):
“Underground USA: Independent Cinema of the 1980s Encore”: A little mini-festival of hip 80s weirdness courtesy of the ‘family. On Friday night it’s Forbidden Zone (with Richard Elfman in attendance and a “wild” after party); Saturday brings a double feature of Deadbeat at Dawn and Diary of a Deadbeat (see the DVD, listed below); and Sunday and Monday evening they’re screening the seminal punk-junk flick, Repo Man. Also, on 4/20 (?) there’s an event called “Keep Netflix Weird” (they won’t say what’s on the menu, but the announced guests are Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Maria Bamford, Mitch Hurwitz, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Mike Price and Pam Brady). “Underground USA” at Cinefamily.
SCREENINGS – (AFI Silver Theater, Silver Springs, MD, Saturday, 4/16):
A Page of Madness (1926): An early example of Japanese film in the European avant-garde style: a surreal/expressionist tale of a sailor who goes undercover as a janitor in an insane asylum hoping to free his wife, who has been committed for infanticide against their son. Jazz drummer/composer William Hooker will provide a live score. A Page of Madness at AFI Silver Theater.
SCREENINGS – (Alamo Drafthouse, Kansas City, MO, Sat., 4/16):
The Devils (1971): Ken Russell‘s artsploitation/nunsploitation classic is loosely (and we mean loosely) based on Aldous Huxley’s non-fictional examination of 17th century witchcraft hysteria, “The Devils of Loudun.” Warner Brothers basically suppressed their own production due to (quite accurate) complaints that the film was blasphemous; a print has been making the arthouse rounds recently, but no word on whether Warners is testing the waters and intends on loosening their grip on the property’s home video prospects. The Devils at Alamo Drafthouse.
FILM FESTIVALS – Tribeca Film Festival (New York City, April 14-24):
With more arthouse, revival and first run theaters per capita than anyplace in the world, every day in New York City is like a film festival, so Tribeca as an event is almost redundant. Still, there are some fine movies debuting here. Besides festival fave High-Rise, which is at the end of its fest cycle, here are some possibly weird offerings (plus one fairly big event):
- Icaros: A Vision – In the wake of Embrace of the Serpent comes this trippy pseudoautobiographical film about first worlders traveling to the Amazon to partake in ayahuasca rituals; the co-director died of breast cancer soon after the movie was completed. Take the shamanistic journey 4/16, 18, 21 or 24.
- Lavender – Psychological thriller about an amnesiac photographer who discovers she may be a murderer; programmers describe it as “a riveting hallucinatory tale…” Check it out on the 18, 19, 22 or 23.
- Parents – Two empty nesters return to the apartment where they lived as a young couple in this Danish drama with “just a touch of surrealism.” North American debut tonight (4/15), with encores on the 17th, 20th and 21st.
- Seances – Not a movie per se, but (it appears) a Guy Maddin experimental movie making machine that shows short reels in random order; you will recognize what look like outtakes from The Forbidden Room. See it n the 16th or 17th.
We promise that seeing a film at Tribeca will not give you autism. Tribeca Film Festival home page.
NEW ON DVD:
Bride of Re-Animator (1989): Dr. Herbert West and his glowing green needle return from the 1985 cult original to re-animate more dead bodies, with predictably tragic and gory results. Brian Yuzna takes over directing duties from Stuart Gordon, and while this outing is not as transgressively original as the first film (or as disgustingly surreal as Yuzna’s previous Society), it is still worth seeing for fans of gross-out horror comedies. Buy Bride of Re-Animator [DVD/Blu-ray combo]
Diary Of A Deadbeat: The Story Of Jim VanBebber (2015): Portrait of underground director VanBebber (Deadbeat at Dawn, The Manson Family). Includes tributes from fellow undergrounders Richard Kern (Fingered), Damon Packard (Reflections of Evil), Buddy Giovinazzo (Combat Shock) and others. Buy Diary of a Deadbeat: The Story of Jim VanBebber [DVD/Blu-ray combo]
German Angst (2015): Angsty Germans—Jorg Buttgereit, Andreas Marschall, and Michal Kosakowski—tell a trio of surreal and transgressive stories about death. Buttgereit’s segment is the first and the shortest; we confess to being unfamiliar with the other two directors. Buy German Angst
The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (2015): We originally thought we would pass over Joann Sfar‘s latest as too conventional, but audience complaints like “none of the pieces ever add up or seem to have been meant to add up” and “coherence and sense make a lot of watching any film” made us reconsider. Buy The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun
Medousa (1998): A retelling of the medusa myth set among thieves in modern Athens; distributor Mondo Macabro describes it as “surreal.” It’s director George Lazopoulos’ only known film. Buy Medousa
Schramm (1993): Read Giles Edward’s review. More mind-of-a-serial-killer madness. Buy Schramm
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Bride of Re-Animator (1989): See description in DVD above. The Arrow release contains the unrated version with special features on DVD and Blu-ray, and the R-rated edit on a second Blu-ray (by all accounts the differences in the two versions are hardly noticeable, however). Buy Bride of Re-Animator [DVD/Blu-ray combo]
Diary Of A Deadbeat: The Story Of Jim VanBebber (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Diary of a Deadbeat: The Story of Jim VanBebber [DVD/Blu-ray combo]
German Angst (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy German Angst [Blu-ray]
The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun [Blu-ray]
Schramm (1993): See description in DVD above. Buy Schramm [Blu-ray]
“Sex, Murder, Art: The Films Of Jorg Buttgereit”: Set includes Nekromatik, Nekromantik 2, Der Todesking, and Schramm (see above), plus rare shorts and music videos, and CD soundtracks of all four films. If you had your heart set on winning this package in our contest but your entry wasn’t picked, you pretty much have to buy this now, right? Buy “Sex, Murder, Art: The Films of Jorg Buttgereit”
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES:
The Quest for the Cine-Rebis, A Mutant Film (2016): From Clara Pais and Daniel Fawcett comes this witty experimental manifesto on film calling for an embrace of mutant cinema. Look for quick clips of Certified Weird movies mixed in (we caught at least one). An accompanying .pdf text is available as “Film Panic Issue #2“.
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.