The whole month in one swell post.
VOTE!YOUR VOTE DETERMINES THE WINNERS OF THE 4TH ANNUAL WERIDCADEMY AWARDS: So vote!
WEIRDEST SHORT FILMS OF 2013: Vote!
CERTIFIED WEIRD IN JANUARY!ROBOT MONSTER (1953): "Where on the graph do 'apocalyptic alien invasion' and 'happy little bubble machine' meet?"
THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T (1953): Certified Weird! "
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is saturated with surreal Seussian imagery, from roller skating Siamese twins linked by their beards to an elevator operator with no nipples and no face."
SHANKS (1974): "
Shanks is the love child of two distinct, powerful personalities—the sophisticated pantomime of star Marcel Marceau and the genial gruesomeness of director William Castle—and like most children it exhibits traits from both parents, while finding its own unique personality.
Shanks doesn’t intentionally subvert genre conventions, simplistic morals, or storytelling rules; it’s simply indifferent to them, lost in its own world."
ANIMATION ATTACK!WATERSHIP DOWN (1978): "In this movie, based on Richard Adams’ 1974 bestseller, rabbits bleed, foam at the mouth and die—on camera."-SS
EVANGELION 3.0: YOU CAN (NOT) REDO (2012): "The series’ mixture of convoluted plotting, infuriating ambiguity, and biblical skewering is bizarre enough to make it recommended anime viewing..."-AK
BETTY BOOP: THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION, VOL. 2: "Neither the classic 'Minnie the Moocher,' Cab Calloway’s head flying through hell, nor the glorious jazz shorts are anywhere to be found, making the Essential moniker for these selections not entirely accurate... Quibbles aside, overall, these are excellent gifts..."-AE
FELIX THE CAT 1919-1930: "Felix the Cat predates Mickey Mouse by a decade but was just as popular in the 20s as Walt’s rodent was in the 30s."-AE
THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926):"What makes Achmed still unique 88 years later is animation entirely composed of cutout silhouettes. The result was one of the silent era’s most enchanting and captivating films."-AE
OVERLOOKED WESTERNSBRANDED (1950): "Compared to the likes of Ford, Mann, Boetticher, Peckinpah, or Leone, Rudolph Maté is barely a blip on the Western radar, but his
Branded is a worthwhile blip."-AE
DAY OF THE OUTLAW (1959): "Bruhn, like Blaise, is a dying breed---literally dying, from a gunshot wound received in a recent bank robbery. Stark tension permeates
Day of the Outlaw as Bruhn faces certain death while struggling to maintain control of his gang and the situation."-AE
AVANT-GARDE INSANITY FOR EVER MOZART (1996): "Everyone in the movie talks like an off-duty philosophy professor waxing poetic after two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon."
RUSTAM KHAMDAMOV: "DIAMONDS" AND "ANNA KARAMAZOFF": "It was important for him to show women, their beauty (Anna, the Uzbeki girls, the girl living with her brother and insane granny, who is old and ruined by her madness yet still beautiful, even the 'Motherland' neighbor, and a woman in cemetery – they are all beautiful!), to show the ETERNAL FEMININITY of the cruel world, the world so similar to nightmare."-IG
ODDBALL INDIESIRON DOORS (2010): "...asks the gross, but mesmerizing, question: if you were locked inside of a concrete room for days with no hope of escape, how long would it take before you started drinking your own urine and eating maggots to survive?"
THE BANSHEE CHAPTER (2013): "With a plot hinging on the CIA’s MKUltra mind control experiments and bits of fringe lore about the endogenous hallucinogen DMT, 'numbers stations,' and H.P. Lovecraft references thrown in for seasoning,
The Banshee Chapter might have been scripted by paranoid paranormal AM radio host Art Bell."
THE TRUTH ABOUT EMANUEL (2013): " Despite some slightly distracting budget CGI, a lovingly constructed dream sequence works as an emotional and symbolic centerpiece. Along with one glancing shot that introduces some subjective ambiguity into the entire scenario, that dream gives the film just a touch of weirdness, although there’s not much here that will stretch the aesthetic boundaries of anyone who’s seen an independent film or two in their times."
7 FACES OF DR. LAO (1964): "He opens his show with a stock footage barrage of fireworks that represents the colorful but tame cabinet of wonders. A wavering-voiced Merlin makes flowers grow instantly and an inch-long sea serpent swims in fishbowl. But then things get crazy: behind one curtain a seductive faun beguiles the librarian with a dizzying tune on the pan pipes, and behind another, the evil real estate mogul encounters a serpent with his face."-TD
