May @ 366 Weird Movies: PARTY AND GUESTS, Weirdness, DARK SHADOWS, J. SUEDE...

[Rev. Powell]

May we provide you with some more movie weirdness?

THE ADVENTURES OF BUCAKROO BANZAI ACROSS THE EIGHTH DIMENSION (1984): Certified Weird! "Any movie that successfully incorporates a band of rock and roll scientists, an invasion by aliens uniformly named 'John,' the Eighth Dimension, inexplicable watermelons, and Jeff Goldblum as a New Jersey neurosurgeon who dresses like a cowboy—while working inside the Hollywood system, with a $12 million dollar budget—has worked hard enough to deserve a space on the List of the Best Weird Movies ever made."

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012): "In the self-aware horror movie subgenre The Cabin in the Woods is unique in that it doesn’t just parody slaughter flick conventions, it honors them at the same time—speculating about why it’s so crucial that the slutty girl takes off her top, why the chaste chick must outlive her, and about why the killings are so formulaic and so… ritualistic."

LIPS OF BLOOD (1975): "For a movie about the living dead, Lips of Blood is lifeless. For a supposedly erotic movie, most of the time it just lies there."

FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1933):"This is clearly pre-Hayes code cinema with the winky hanky-panky in overdrive."-AE

[Rev. Powell]

DOGGIEWOGGIEZ! POOCHIEWOOCHIEZ! (2012): "It’s a non-stop assault of pop-culture canine iconography, often trippily manipulated (where else but in Doggiewoggiez!' 'The Dog Molecule' segment will you see a dog puffing on a tiny duplicate pipe version of its own head, that’s also puffing on itself?)"

SLEEPING BEAUTY (2011): "Like coyly spying voyeurs, peering from behind sunglasses or from the corners of our eyes a restaurant booth or a few coach seats away, we behold the participants gently unveiling their most damning personality quirks."-PD

PALINDROMES (2004): "The plot unfolds from there involving more pedophilia, a quest to assassinate the doctor who aborted her fetus, and a shootout in room 11 of a seedy motel, with Aviva switching from shape to shape, becoming more assertive and mature."-JU

DAMES (1934): "...when she is transformed into the Society Cosmetics model she literally morphs into hundreds of  decapitated heads floating in a crepuscular abyss."-AE

[JayJayM12]

If you liked DoggieWoggiez, I would definitely recommend checking out the other movies from Everything is Terrible!  We catch their live show whenever they come to town and have all their dvd's - great stuff!  The other movies are less "themed", but hilarious nonetheless...

[Rev. Powell]

If you liked DoggieWoggiez, I would definitely recommend checking out the other movies from Everything is Terrible!  We catch their live show whenever they come to town and have all their dvd's - great stuff!  The other movies are less "themed", but hilarious nonetheless...

I wouldn't be against it, but their discs are expensive at $20 a pop. I check out their YouTube channel fairly often for a free fix.

[Rev. Powell]

May we continue?

CAREFUL (1992): Certified weird! "If movies themselves could dream, their dreams would look like Guy Maddin movies: sludgy jumbles of styles, moods, and melodramatic preoccupations, composed of fragmented images made up from bits of misplaced, distressed celluloid."

MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA (1929): "...there is a paradox in that Vertov wants to limit himself to depicting reality, but so many of the images he chooses are fantastic and even surreal: a man with a movie camera standing on top of mountainous movie camera, a building collapsing on itself via split-screen manipulation, a plate of cooked prawns coming to life and slithering around."

GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933: "It jump starts in high gear fantasy mode with Ginger Rogers, dressed only in a skimpy outfit made of silver dollars (with one coin strategically placed over her crotch), singing 'We’re in the money.'"-AE

MEEK'S CUTOFF (2011): "...combines the absurdist, futile tedium of Beckett’s "Waiting For Godot," the eerie sense of a malignant grand design of Yellowbrickroad (2010), and the pensive, serenely surreal atmosphere of Housekeeping (1987). The result is unique and unsettling."-PD

[Rev. Powell]

We May be nearing the end...

CEMETERY MAN (1994): Certified Weird! "It’s a film criticism fallback cliché to describe an outrageously eccentric movie using the following formula: 'it’s [insert name of familiar movie or genre] on acid!' I’m not above recycling useful boilerplate, though: Dellamorte Dellamore is a George Romero movie on acid."

DARK SHADOWS (2012): "Jonathan Frid’s beloved, beautiful, complex, tortured Barnabas Collins has been morphed into a typically Burtonesque, overly made-up, funny pages version of the character, ripe for rendering into dolls and action figures."-JM

PEARLS OF THE DEEP (1966): "Although even Hrabal’s straightest stories contain small doses of absurdism (which show up in non sequitur dialogues or little narrative oddities), only two of these adaptations have conceits peculiar enough to form surrealistic pearls."

COMMON LAW WIFE (1963): "The downbeat, brutal ending, enhanced by gritty camerawork, is icing on this sleaze-o-rama cake... best enjoyed with a lot of company and plenty of cheap beer."-AE

[Rev. Powell]

May we finish up the month...

A REPORT ON THE PARTY AND GUESTS (1966): Certified Weird! "You spend the entire movie in a state of dread, certain that something unspeakably horrible is about to happen. It’s only after the screen fades to black that you realize it already did."

WHAT'S WRONG WITH BEING WEIRD FOR WEIRDNESS' SAKE?: "...have you ever heard someone criticize a comedy by complaining that 'it’s just funny for funniness’ sake?'"

DARK SHADOWS (2012) - A SECOND OPINION: "On the surface, Burton and Depp should have been as interesting a collaboration as Tod Browning and Lon Chaney, but the former team was composed of genuine malcontents coming from an actual freak circuit. Burton and Depp were birthed by Disney and '21 Jump Street.' It shows."-AE

JOHNNY SUEDE (1991): "By far, the weirdest thing about Johnny Suede is Brad Pitt’s Fabian-on-steroids pompadour."