The fourth reader review contest is over, and the winner is: Shane Wilson for The Tingler (read his excellent review here!) Congratulations Shane!
Next week we’ll be focusing on (relatively) new releases, starting with our latest 366 Underground entry, Race War: The Remake (2011), and following with the star-studded (Megan Fox, Mickey Rourke) fantasy flop Passion Play (2010), and ending with either Miranda July’s sophomore effort The Future (2011) or Antonio Banderas’ shot as an existential hard-boiled private eye in Tony Krantz‘s The Big Bang (2011). [EDIT: That should have read that we’ll definitely cover The Big Bang and either The Future or Passion Play]. To counteract all that newness, Alfred Eaker will travel back in time to finish off his series on silent Expressionist Paul Leni.
We discovered a theme in our weird search terms of the week: requests for info on movies we hope exist somewhere, but fear don’t. In the “that’s nice dear” category, we noticed what was either a weird search term or an idle confession: “i saw a movie in the late 70’s it was weird.” Getting into searches with just a bit more specificity, we tracked people looking for the lowdown on the following fascinating mystery films: “a movie about an alien parasite that likes paprika and has a big sexual appetite,” “late 60s sci fi movie about little orange monkeys,” “movie where people test on spinning machine and explode,” “shipwrecked breastfeeding movie,” and “japanese erotic movie ninja gets frozen.” Our favorite, however, was “italian horror nuns impaled ape;” at least, we hope that was a search for a movie, and not a headline in the Milano Times.
Here’s what the massive reader-suggested review queue looks like: Kairo [AKA Pulse]; The Guatemalan Handshake; The Seventh Seal; Primer; 200 Motels; Private Parts (1972); Saddest Music in the World; Mulholland Drive; The American Astronaut; Blood Tea and Red Strings; The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. II (for Lucifer Rising, among others); Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; The Bride of Frank; La Grande Bouffe; Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Even Dwarves Started Small; Bunny & the Bull; “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney” (assuming I can find it); Cinema 16: European Short Films; Freaked; Session 9; Schizopolis; Strings; Dellamorte Dellamore [AKA Cemetery Man]; The Hour-glass Sanatorium [Saanatorium pod klepsidra]; Liquid Sky; The Quiet; Shock Treatment; Tuvalu; “Zombie Jesus” (if we can locate it); The Bed-Sitting Room; 3 Dev Adam; Fantastic Planet; “Twin Peaks” (TV series); Society; May; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; Little Otik; Final Programme; Careful; Sweet Movie; The Triplets of Belleville; “Foutaises” (short); Johnny Suede; The Tale of the Floating World, Un Chien Andalou, Bloodsucking Freaks; Fellini Satyricon; Three Crowns of the Sailor; 8 1/2; Dororo; Lost Highway; Valerie and Her Week of Wonders; Dogville; Julien Donkey-boy; Amelie; The Ten; The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao; 1; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Tokyo Gore Police; At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul; The Trial [Le procès) (1962); Marquis; Hell Comes to Frogtown; Seom [The Isle]; Allegro Non Troppo; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; Lust in the Dust; Celine and Julie Go Boating; “Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life;” The Magic Christian; Black Cat, White Cat; The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T; Abnormal: The Sinema of Nick Zedd; Robot Monster; Nightdreams; 3 Women; “To Oblivion”; Rubin & Ed; Teeth; Vera; Weirdsville; Prospero’s Books; Inferno; Garden State; Persona; The Real McCoy; Rat Pfink a Boo Boo; Themroc; Candy (1968); Run Lola Run; Pink Flamingos; Buffalo ’66; Northfork; Weekend; The Room; Glen or Glenda?; Night of the Hunter; The Fox Family; Midnight Skater; Angelus; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; Twister (1989); Yokai Monsters, Vol. 1: Spook Warfare [AKA Big Monster War]; Britannia Hospital; This Filthy Earth; Conspirators of Pleasure; Piano Tuner of Earthquakes; Clean, Shaven; Bubba Ho-Tep; Sheitan; Innocence; “Chingsao the Clown”; Léolo; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Blue Velvet; ID (2005); Master of the Flying Guillotine; Yesterday Was a Lie; The Ninth Configuration; Love Me If You Dare; Forbidden Zone; The Cell; My Dinner with Andre; The Illustrated Man; Fando y Lis; Rampo Noir; Head; Christmas on Mars; “Broken Glass”; Videodrome; Air Doll; The Ossuary and Other Tales; Arrebato; Symbol; Wicked City (1992 live action); Barbarella; Picnic at Hanging Rock; The Cars that Ate Paris; The Boxer’s Omen [aka Mo]; Solyaris (1972); Portrait of Jennie; Salo, the 120 Days of Sodom; The Last Sunset (1961); Orpheus (1950); A Scanner Darkly; Safe; The Atrocity Exhibition; Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque); Slacker; Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell; Color of Pomegranates; Horror Express; Noroi; A Serbian Film (if ever released on DVD, which seems questionable at this point); Cutie Honey; The Shape of Things; On the Silver Globe; Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; 2012 Aficionado DVD Zine Issue #0; The Last Days of Planet Earth; “Charleston Parade”; Tales from the Quadead Zone; A Snake of June; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; The Neverending Story; Cat Soup; Jack and the Beanstalk (1974, Japan); Drowning by Numbers; Fudge 44; From Beyond; The Saragossa Manuscript; The Drifting Classroom; Brain Dead; Uncle Meat; Meet the Hollowheads; Nuit Noire; Screamplay; Grendel Grendel Grendel; Eyes Wide Shut; Twilight of the Cockroaches; The Ruling Class; Indecent Desires; Daughter of Horror [AKA Dementia]; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; Daisies; Beauty and the Beast [Panna a Netvor] (1978); Parents; Dark City; Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters; 1 Day; The Doom Generation; Black Devil Doll; Multiple Maniacs; Phantasm IV; and Vermilion Souls (2007) (depending on availability); Lovers on the Bridge; No Smoking (2007); Reflections of Evil; The War Zone; Gahjini; Natural Born Killers; The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb; One Eyed Monster; Reflections of Evil; Natural Born Killers; The Fountain; Save the Green Planet; Crimewave (d. Sam Raimi); Wool 100%; Murder Party; The Annunciation (1984); Funeral Parade of Roses; Stroszek; Primer; Bad Taste; Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Audition; The Fall; Me and You and Everyone We Know; Visitor of a Museum [Posetitel muzeya]; “Serial Experiments: Lain” (TV show); Darc Arc; Russian Ark; Genius Party; Watership Down; Tampopo; Goodbye Uncle Tom; The Idiots; Repo Man; Der Todersking [The Death King]; Titicut Follies; Mr. Nobody; The Shout; Rubber (this will probably jump in line and be reviewed early as a new release); “Premium” (depending on availability); Sleepaway Camp; The Pit (1981); Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams; The Falls; Spermula; Killer Condom; The Godmonster of Indian Flats; Perfect Blue; I Am Here Now; Sir Henry at Rawlinson End; The Bothersome Man; Moebius; Skeletons; Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song; The Brave Little Toaster; The Adventures of Picasso; Charly: Dias de Sangre (depending on availability); Meet the Feebles; The Adventures of Mark Twain; Tourist Trap (1979); Thundercrack!; SLC Punk; Anguish (1987); Buddy Boy (1999); Bliss (1986); La cicatrice intérieure; Avida (2006); Brain Damage; Amazon Women on the Moon; Chronopolis; Blue (1993); Metropia; Zachariah; Labyrinth; Battle in Heaven; The Taste of Tea; Evil Ed; I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse; Cafe Flesh; Buffet Froid; Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam [AKA Turkish Star Wars]; Rubber’s Lover; The Signal; The Baby; “Alma” (short); The Double Life of Veronique; “Chick”, Felidae; Spirited Away; Decasia (2002); Killdozer; Tommy; I (heart) Huckabees; Electric Dragon 80,000 V; Santa Claus (1959); Strange Circus; Mad Detective; Wild at Heart; Revolver; The Tenant; A Zed and Two Noughts; Litan (1982) (depending on availability); Dark Waters; La Razon de Mi Vida (pending English language DVD release); The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea; and Bernie (1996) (again, depending on availability).
Man, Passion Play really sounds kinda terrible…. Then again, anything starring Megan Fox, in my opinion, gets an instinctive groan.
But I would really like to see what The Future has in store! 😀
Having just watched the Melvin Van Peebles documentary “How To Eat Your Watermelon In White Company (and Enjoy it)” I really want to see a review for Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. The story itself is fairly straight forward but the editing is absolutely insane, and every bit of it was chosen for a reason. It’s like Trout Mask Replica in film form.