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):
Cheatin’ (2013): Bill Plympton‘s latest animated feature is about a woman who, with a magician’s help, takes the shape of her paramour’s ex-girlfriends. It’s getting a scattered release across the country (especially Plympton’s home state of Oregon) through May. Cheatin’ official site.
ONLINE RENTAL:
World of Tomorrow (2015): We don’t usually spotlight films that are available online only—much less short films that are available online only for the price of a feature and don’t offer us referral fees—but we’ll make an exception for Don Hertzfeldt‘s latest, because the trailer is very cool and the reviews are out of this world. Rent World of Tomorrow on Vimeo.
SCREENINGS – (New York City, Lincoln Center Film Society, Fri. Apr. 3 & Weds., Apr. 8):
Obscure Pleasures: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk: Borowczyk was a Polish-born French Surrealist painter and animator whose filmmaking drifted to the borders of pornography. Of the more than one dozen films (not including shorts) being screened in this retrospective, our picks would be 1975’s infamous and much-banned arthouse bestiality feature The Beast [La bête], and 1969’s tamer Goto, Island of Love, an absurd anti-totalitarian fable. Or, you could just take in one of his nunsploitation flicks like Beyond Convent Walls. Obscure Pleasures: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk at Lincoln Center.
NEW ON DVD:
Cries and Whispers (1972): Ingmar Bergman‘s portrait of a woman dying of cancer, and her emotionally-repressed sisters, comes to the Criterion Collection. Obviously a classic, but are its few moments of magical realism enough to call it weird? Buy Cries and Whispers (Criterion Collection)
Waxie Moon in Fallen Jewel (2011): A drag queen (who, based on the DVD cover, sometimes performs in mutton chops and an evening gown) seeks love in Seattle. I’ve never heard of Waxie Moon, but reviewers called it “Pink Flamingos meets Sex in the City” and “dazzlingly bizarre.” Buy Waxie Moon in Fallen Jewel
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Cries and Whispers (1972): See description in DVD above. Buy Cries and Whispers [Criterion Collection Blu-ray]
“The Dario Argento Collection:” Three movies: the gialli Cat O’Nine Tails and Deep Red, together with Inferno, the surreal sequel to Argento‘s Certified Weird Suspiria. All of the single-disc special features are included herein, so this 3-disc set from Blue Underground, which is currently priced in the range of a single new release, is a real bargain. Buy “The Dario Argento Collection” [Blu-ray]
“The Lucio Fulci Collection”: Three Italian gut-munchers from controversially “weird” horror “icon” Fulci: City of the Living Dead (the Gates of Hell open in a small New England town), The House by the Cemetery (mad doctor conducts experiments in small New England town), and The New York Ripper (maniac kills women in New York). A companion to the artier Dario Argento box set listed above. Buy “The Lucio Fulci Collection” [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.