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 on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Under the Skin: Scarlett Johansson stars as a beautiful alien who lures men to their death in Scotland in this science fiction experiment with avant-garde visuals. By bringing us this one just after unleashing Denis Villeneuve‘s baffling doppelganger thriller Enemy on unsuspecting audiences, new distributor A24 is fast becoming the go-to outlet for limited-release weirdness. Under the Skin official site.

FILM FESTIVALS – Kansas City FilmFest (Kansas City, MO, Apr. 5-13):

Although there’s not much that’s newly weird at this heartland festival—we’ll only be highlighting one film that’s escaped our notice thus far in the festival season—there are a couple of very interesting themed programs of older movies running here. The first, dubbed “Afrofuturism,” features Sun Ra’s uncategorizable 1974 oddity Space is the Place (a sort of blaxploitation sci-fi musical from the avant-garde jazz orchestra leader who claimed to be an alien from Saturn) along with the satire Destination Planet Negro (about what might have happened if George Washington Carver had built a spaceship to colonize Mars) and a smattering of other films in this very small and specialized subgenre. The other notable program is an impressive animation slate that’s anchored by Bill Plympton‘s latest, Cheatin’, and Ari Folman’s long-awaited dystopian adaptation The Congress. Add to those a mid-1970s Ralph Bakshi retrospective featuring Heavy Traffic (1973), the racially explosive Coonskin (1975), and Wizards (1977), and you have a truly weird series going. As to our new discovery:

• Coherence – Described as “part cerebral sci-fi and part relationship drama,” this reality-bending debut is garnering comparisons to Shane Carruth‘s Primer for its mix of hard science and low budget. Screens April 10 & 12.

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Kansas City FilmFest home page.

NEW ON DVD:

L’immortelle (1963): A Frenchman vacationing in Istanbul falls in love with a woman who may be involved in the white slave trade. Redemption Video continues to slowly release their treasure trove Alain Robbe-Grillet’s playful, surreal and sadomasochistic movies. Buy L’Immortelle.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

L’immortelle (1963): See description in DVD above. Buy L’Imortelle [Blu-ray].

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.