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.
It’s officially the summer doldrums, with no new weird releases daring to challenge the hegemony of Guardians of the Galaxy and its ilk. Even DVD releases have dried up. If you live in L.A., you’re golden; otherwise, just hold on until next week and hope things get better. Here’s what we’ve got to report on:
SCREENINGS – (Cinefamily, Los Angeles, CA, Fri. Aug 7):
Motel Hell (1980): “It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.” Those critters apparently include chainsaw wielding pig-men in this cannibal comedy cult classic with a couple of truly outrageous scenes. This is a midnight advance-release party/screening for the Blu-ray that comes out next week; the filmmakers will be in attendance. Motel Hell at Cinefamily.
FILM FESTIVALS – (Sundance NEXT Fest, Los Angeles, CA, Aug 8-10):
NEXT Fest is sort of “Sundance on tour”: the venerable Park City festival takes some of its greatest hits from the past year (and years past) to LA for special screenings, sometimes paired with a musical act. Of this year’s seven featured films, one is already past and three are already listed as “sold out” at the time of this writing, but the only one we’d be interested in still has tickets available for its Saturday afternoon screening. That film is Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, the Zellner brothers character study about a backwards Japanese woman mistakenly concludes that the movie Fargo is a documentary and sets out for Minnesota to discover the lost ransom money. Indiewire called it a “bizarre joy.” The brothers will be there to talk about their latest effort, joined by a very special guest fan: Werner Herzog.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
Phantom of the Paradise (1974): Read our review. Shout! Factory releases Brian De Palma‘s glam-rock version of the Phantom as a Blu-ray special edition with loads of supplements; confusingly, a separate disc of extras is included on DVD format rather than Blu—but the main feature is not on the DVD. Buy Phantom of the Paradise [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.