April @ 366 Weird Movies: UNDER THE SKIN, GOODBYE UNCLE TOM, NORTHFORK, more!

[Rev. Powell]

April showers bring running punks, pranks, butt-monsters, doppelgangers, dystopian elevators, indies, and Biblical deluges.

RUN LOLA RUN (1998): Certified weird! "Stylized within a heartbeat of its life, Lola is as proudly and defiantly artificial as Franka Potente’s Strawberry-Shortcake-with-her-head-on-fire dye job."

MUSHY VEGETABLES (2006): "Nobody will love Raymond anymore after seeing him cheer on the dairy-based psychological torture of an innocent lifeform in Mushy Vegetables, an irritating Estonian exercise in arthouse provocation. What was family-friendly comedian Ray Romano (working under the obvious pseudonym Andrei Romanov) thinking when he agreed to take a small part as an alien-terrorizing sadist in this Baltic bowel movement?"

NOAH (2014): "When it was first announced that Paramount had given Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) the green light to tell his version of the Noah story, many familiar with the director's work wondered how he and frequent collaborator and scriptwriter Ari Handel were going to interpret it."-AE

BAD MILO (2013): "...by being more thoughtful and probing than the usual movie about butt-monsters, it passes up a lot of scatological opportunities, which may explain why it failed to wow the midnight movie crowds. This is a case where the movie might benefit from a less tasteful approach."

ENEMY (2014): "[Director Denis] Villeneuve shows an ability to evoke a panicky existential dread that rivals David Lynch and fellow Canadian David Cronenberg, while Enemy‘s concern with the frailty of identity places it somewhere on the venerable Persona spectrum."

HELLEVATOR (2004): Reader recommendation! "A dystopian future civilization lives in a vast underground complex where each floor represents a different part of society, from housing and schooling up to more sinister departments, culminating in the mysterious and never visited 'top floor' that is implied to be both above-ground and possibly mythical."- JH

DIFFERENT DRUM (2014)/LUCKY (2014): "This horror short opens with Louisa Torres engaged in studious research when she’s rudely interrupted by Dillon Schueller. Rather than create another monotonous imitation, Lucky pays homage to a genre without succumbing to sloppy fandom."-AE

[Rev. Powell]

April showers us with poop-eating, humanity's last mortal man, animated humpback whales, strange-colored body tears, non-conformists in paradise, ten-minute beach slut intermissions, and classic western (anti)heroes.

PINK FLAMINGOS (1972): Certified weird! "About a 300 pound woman (played by a man) living in a trailer who is harassed by a couple of 'jealous perverts' because she is anointed 'the filthiest person in the world,' Pink Flamingos is a parade of hard-to-swallow, tongue-in-cheek perversities played out in an unreal subculture where society’s values have been turned on their head. It’s the ultimate stoned, amoral underground atrocity, an obscenity shouted at the normal world by angry freaks."

MR. NOBODY (2009): Certified weird! "The opening is confusing, the moral ambiguous, and reality won’t sit still; it’s got unicorns, godlike children, helicopters delivering the ocean, a future world where everyone has their own genetic pig and psychiatrists are known by their facial tattoos, and a malformed sub-reality where everyone wears argyle sweaters. It’s unique, unforgettable, and utterly marvelous."

FANTASIA 2000 (1999): " While lacking the innovative qualities of its predecessor, which was one of the first–if not the first–films recorded in multichannel sound, Fantasia 2000 is a (much) shorter, faster and more kid-friendly variation on the original, all of which does not necessarily make it better. Nevertheless, the film is both amusing, and, during the Stravinsky and Respighi sequences, surprisingly stirring."-SS

THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS (2013): "Cattet and Forzani seem to have opened up a big book of experimental film techniques and just took a stab at every trick they happened upon. Some sequences are marvelous, including a dream wherein Dan becomes stuck in a time loop, meeting and killing multiple versions of himself over and over."-AK

THE BOTHERSOME MAN (2006): "...rich with astute and pointed social commentary on our materialistic society and the importance people place on conformity over freedom in life. Not to mention that it’s devilishly funny!"-JH

ACID HEAD: THE BUZZARD NUTS COUNTY SLAUGHTER (2011): "I recommend Acid Head to anyone who loves nothing, and anybody who just can’t get enough self-loathing packed into a 24-hour day."-EY

THE GUNFIGHTER (1950): "What makes Peck effective in the role is his against-type awkwardness. Several antagonists correctly observe: 'Ringo doesn’t look so tough.'”-AlE

WILL PENNY (1968): "The central performances and an intelligent, sensitive script are the strengths of Will Penny; however, Gries’ television-like visual direction and an embarrassingly melodramatic performance from Donald Pleasance are noticeable flaws."-AE

[Rev. Powell]

Finally, April showered us with beautiful nude aliens, slavery mockumentaries, and flooded Montana towns.

UNDER THE SKIN (2013): " We must connect how the silent biker is related to Scarlett Johansson’s character, what purpose the abducted men serve, what prompts the protagonist to abandon her hunt, and why she seems to be struggling with her alien body. All of this information is made available to us, if we pay attention."-AK

GOODBYE UNCLE TOM (1971): " There are acres of naked brown flesh on display, as human chattel is herded from place to place; especially unforgettable is a scene of hundreds of nude extras, newly arrived from Africa, battling each other to eat slop from a trough. These scenes feature nudity on an epic scale that's rarely been achieved in the movies."

NORTHFORK (2003): "While I’ve managed to find a lot to complain about here, Northfork is really a beautiful looking and meditative movie, and one that is capable of pulling out a few weird surprises from time to time (like the wooden dog creature on stilts, and the odd guessing game the evacuators have to play to order a meal at the diner)."