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.
SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, 7/2-3, 6):
The Devils (1971): Yep, Cinefamily is getting the most out of their 35mm print of Ken Russell‘s hysterical study of Satanic sexual frenzy in the nunneries of 17th-century France while they still have it, with another four screenings this week. Also on tap in the “All of Them Witches” series: Dario Argento‘s witchy and irrational Suspiria sequel, Inferno, tonight at 10:00 PM PST, with stars Leigh McCloskey and Irene Miracle in attendance. “All of Them Witches” at Cinefamily.
SCREENINGS – (New York City, Lincoln Center, 7/2):
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974): Warren Oates plays a drunken piano player who collects a bounty on Señor Garcia, then drives through the Mexican desert with the bloody head in the passenger’s seat beside him in Sam Peckinpah’s strangest film. Part of an Oates retrospective (you might also want to check out Two-Lane Blacktop and, if you have a strong stomach for actual cockfighting footage, the surprisingly affecting Cockfighter). “Warren Oates: Hired Hand” at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
SCREENINGS – (Silver Springs, MD, AFI Silver Theater, 7/4):
Pierrot le Fou (1965): Read the Certified Weird entry! When the programmers at the American Film Institute’s east coast outpost heard that Jean-Luc Godard‘s cooly fractured road movie was recently named one of the 366 best weird movies of all time, they had to get it up on the big screen as quickly as possible. What better way to celebrate July 4 than with a French New Wave movie? Pierrot le Fou at AFI Silver Theater.
NEW ON DVD:
Francofonia (2015): A jumble of documentary footage, historical re-enactments, and fantasy sequences centered around the Nazis aborted attempts to loot the Louvre during WWII. Aleksandr Sokurov‘s spiritual successor to his Hermitage opus, Russian Ark. Buy Francofonia
Really Weird Tales (1987): A comic anthology parodying “Twilight Zone”-type TV shows: a lounge performer meets a girlie-magazine publisher, aliens mix with real-estate hucksters, and a woman is cursed so that everyone she loves explodes. From SCTV veterans (it stars Joe Flaherty, Martin Short, John Candy and Catherie O’Hara), this was originally a made-for-HBO movie. Buy Really Weird Tales
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Francofonia (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Francofonia [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.