Grotesque weirdness...

Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:57:44 GMT

With just a few scenes, Martin Arnold shows us how Andy Hardy films and other movies by Mickey Rooney have actually very incestious and psychopathic things going on.

Angst

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:49:04 GMT

The horror film which inspired Gaspar Noé's Irreversible and you can definitely see it from the great use of gliding crane shots. Story: A madman gets released after years of sitting in jail. He goes to a bar, eats and drinks and then goes on to kill a family of people (an old lady, a young woman and a retarded middle-aged man) before he is caught again.

Even though the murder scenes are almost numbing in their blatant nihilism and are certain to give the weaker viewers bad dreams, I personally think the most sickening aspect of this film are the two scenes where the protagonist is eating sausages with mustard - and it's all photographed in a very tight close-up and on the soundtrack there's nothing else but the sounds of sloppy munching.

Beat the Devil

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:30:10 GMT

Bogart, Lorre and others travel - or should I say, mostly do NOT travel - around Africa doing absolutely nothing and cracking very lame and stupid jokes, probably very, VERY drunk. Anyone with a common sense should not enjoy this but luckily I'm not one of those people.

Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:33:45 GMT

A weird porno film. Very hot Snow White learns to please her men with the aid of seven dwarves. Meanwhile the prince learns how to please his women by fucking his cousin, while his father, the king, shouts at him: "CAN'T YOU EVEN FUCK PROPERLY! SHOULD I SHOW YOU HOW IT'S DONE?" And the evil step-mother of course abuses black slave men.

The Black Panther Warriors

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:51:03 GMT

One of the most batshit insane movies ever made. Watch with a group of friends, very, very drunk and with lots of good food. Mysterious photographs appear even though no-one has taken them! Lots of hilarious Chinese rape humor! Hong Kong bay literally explodes in not one but two scenes! Dozens of ninjas getting shot! Murdering masses of people using just a couple of decks of playing cards!

This trailer spoils many good things about the film, so watch at your own risk (then again it includes the super cool theme song of the film too!).

Black Sunday

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:49:09 GMT

John Frankenheimer has of course always been a little insane but this film takes the cake. It starts as a typical political thriller. Enter the king of hammy actors, the wonderful Bruce Dern and Robert Shaw with a bizarre Israeli accent. Then, 30 minutes before the ending, add a completely idiotic sequence where a zeppelin with a bomb is attacking Super Bowl while Robert Shaw jumps from a helicopter on the top of the zeppelin, Frankenheimer cuts the film like he has a rabies and everything is topped off with probably the lamest special effect explosion ever.

Cinemania

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:28:41 GMT

After watching this little documentary you actually feel pretty good about your movie hobby, I guarantee you. You at least do not collect worthless promotional paper cups and store them everywhere in your house. Or imagine being a character from a Godard film or something.

City of Women

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:13:46 GMT

My good friend Nosoki once said that this film includes the best scene in cinéma history ever. It's the one where Marcello Mastroianni sits in a car with young women who are having a good time listening music and dancing on their seats and Marcello is not having any good time.

Otherwise it's just Fellini being Fellini - I can't even remember what was the point of this film but who cares, it's Fellini in his dream-like circus mode - and at his best.

The Cremator

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:11:44 GMT

The Cremator

L'Inferno

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:20:11 GMT

A silent film version of Dante's Inferno (for most of the people the most interesting part of Divine Comedy). Almost every picture in this is like a huge, beautiful painting which has come to life. And if I have to tell you why the visions of hell are grotesque I suggest you stop reading this list and go play Kimble or something.

Kimble: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimble_(board_game)

Detective

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:38:12 GMT

There's a lot of weird Godard but this post-modern film noir mishmash takes the cake. Jean-Pierre Léaud runs around as an incompetent detective doing nothing while a boxer practices for a big game by using his girlfriend's tits as punching bags and eating a giant toblerone. There's also a cameo by Alain Cuny for no reason at all.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:44:14 GMT

Easy Come, Easy Go

Electra Glide in Blue

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:16:44 GMT

A story about a (also literally) little guy who wants to achieve something far more bigger. And he is of course working as a cop so someone can find some sort of a message here if s/he so wants. The whole film has an aura of weirdness around it, something which just cannot be explained simply because it's not using cheap surrealism to convey its message. Maybe it's the charming naïveté in the center of the film, maybe it's the somehow quirky atmosphere. Someone asked me how this is grotesque. I refer to the part 3 in Jean-Pierre Gorin's description: "Laughably original or weird, absurd." This certainly is laughably original and absurd, although this is not a comedy or an unintentionally funny film. Instead it's a cool cult flick which brings a weird smile to my face and it's also beautifully photographed.

The Eternal Jew

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:16:25 GMT

Vicious, absurd, disgusting, boring nazi propaganda. Definitely worth to see because of that though.

Forty Guns

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:00:07 GMT

Samuel Fuller has always been insane, tap dancing on a fine line between art and pure exploitation. Forty guns has lots of six to ten minute takes which take your breath away - pretty neat considering that the whole god damn film is just a one big penis joke. Everywhere you look there's not-so-well-hidden messages about psycho-sexuality with guns representing masculinity and women wanting to fondle them. Forty guns and the heroine Barbara Stanwyck has banged them all - the hero doesn't want to be the number 41. There's nothing else to it. But at the end, Stanwyck has her way and the hero actually SHOOTS HER.

Goodbye, 20th Century

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:50:09 GMT

A Macedonian arthouse post-apocalypse film about governmental downfall and the state of man in modern times. As the poster suggests, also includes Santa Claus with guns.

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches on

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:54:37 GMT

A documentary about a Japanese WWII veteran who released fake gay pornography pictures about the emperor and was thrown into jail. After his release he discovers that during the war, while he was in custody for bad behaviour, his squadron located in a remote island was eaten by high-ranking officers. He finds this out by beating (or rather, trying to beat) his ex-officers to a bloody pulp and cursing like a madman all the while the camera crew and director capture everything on film.

Even Dwarfs Started Small

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:13:31 GMT

Watching a short person laughing himself almost to death while he, in turn, is watching a camel taking a shit really makes you think weird things, doesn't it?

Fingered

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:36:36 GMT

A man jerks off and then he proceeds to finger and fuck super sexy Lydia Lunch in this Richard Kern... eh, classic (?). Then Lung Leg almost gets raped and the film ends.

Food

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:27:57 GMT

For Jan Svankmajer people really are what they eat...

Ghoul Sex Squad

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:31:38 GMT

Some Chinese vampires run away from their master. Then they fuck.

I think this picture sums it up pretty nicely:

The Green Berets

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:50:24 GMT

John Wayne decides that making a pro-Vietnam war movie in a plastic studio enviroment with George Takei, lots of black-faced statists depicting Vietnamese and a dozen of testicle-faced idiots as his sidekicks is a good idea.

History proves him wrong.

Also, considering the geography of Vietnam, the sun is setting in the wrong direction in the last scene. I mean, how fucking ignorant can you be!

The Hair

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:26:33 GMT

A Finnish exploitation remake of Pierrot le Fou. This is of course a better film because it adds all the things which Pierrot le Fou didn't have, for example a side plot about female armpit hair and the main character turning into a Super Goof when he swallows a peanut.

Harpya

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:25:40 GMT

A man is followed around, stalked, by a weird half-bird, half-woman creature in this horrifying short film. The creature depicted is extremely creepy and the disorienting stop motion technique doesn't make it easier to digest at all.

Hellzapoppin'

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:08:00 GMT

A musical in a film which in turn is in a film which again is in a film which is in this film. All the actors fall to Hell at the beginning and Elisha Cook Junior must write a new script and despite his good efforts gets riddled with bullets, as usual. The main characters turn invisible at will and just destroy everything for no particular reason. This movie is like Marx Brothers on crack.

House

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:51:17 GMT

Couple of teenage girls go to have a fun time in a haunted house. Then bunch of weird shit happens like a man turning into a car-load of bananas with a hat and a piano eating one of the girls.

This thing was a huge hit in Japan. It goes to show that even though the country in question has some tremendous flaws, they also knew at some point in history what real cinéma is - a thing which Finns definitely have not known.

Inglourious Basterds

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:12:12 GMT

Quentin Tarantino throwing a big cake in the viewers' faces.

Inside

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:12:58 GMT

A madwoman is trying to cut a pregnant lady's belly open to get her baby. There's so much blood in this outrageous film that it becomes a part of the scenery.

Jesus Christus Erlöser

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:34:43 GMT

Klaus Kinski has a nervous breakdown on a stage where he is trying to perform his Jesus monologues. The audience starts to heckle him and Kinski starts raving mad, then just quiets down when he can't take it any more, almost crying. All the aspects of human emotion from humility to rage are on a display here.

Kill Point

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:19:24 GMT

Probably anything that can be done wrong in film-making is on display here. The script doesn't make sense, everyone (especially Leo Fong as the protagonist) is miscast and they act like they are sleep-walking, the editing doesn't make sense and the director was probably drunk. An excellent film.

Paganini

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:40:13 GMT

Klaus Kinski plays violin and all the women in the world want to have sex with him. Then we cut to horses running in slow motion. Because women are like horses. In slow motion.

Lady Terminator

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:15:56 GMT

Indonesian Terminator rip-off, except that Terminator is a sexy woman and instead of a robot she is an incarnation of an evil goddess which just acts and looks totally like a robot. She also has a circular saw in her pussy and likes to fuck men to death. Goofy, idiotic fun with non-stop laughs and hell of a lot of violence.

Laura

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:08:18 GMT

This film is so over-the-top that if you can't see the weird aspects of it, I really can't help you. The hero falls in love with a corpse and even after the girl comes back from the dead we really can't shake the feeling that she isn't really alive, that she is really just a walking zombie. And that feeling is not helped at all with the fact that Vincent Price is also in the cast.

Turkish Star Wars (aka The Man Who Saves the World)

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:23:44 GMT

Pretty self-explanatory I think. A trampoline is the best thing in the history of movie special effects and stolen material from original Star Wars is put to good use.

The Major and the Minor

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:56:45 GMT

The whole plot is revolving around the fact that Ray Milland wants to fuck a child.

Nosferatu in Venice

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:29:40 GMT

Klaus Kinski again, the third time. This time in a sequel to the wonderful film Nosferatu which Kinski made with Werner Herzog. But this time the vampire throws old ladies out of the third floor windows and chases young women down the hallways like in some kind of a slapstick comedy.

The Nutty Professor

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:25:23 GMT

Jerry Lewis turns with the aid of a magic potion from the nerdy professor to a suave playboy. The playboy is of course modeled after the former partner of Lewis: Dean Martin. This thing alone makes this a weird, weird, almost schizophrenic depiction of the love-hate relationship the two men had.

One Got Fat

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:26:58 GMT

An educational film about the traffic rules. Young kids wearing monkey masks cycle around the town and get killed with various gruesome ways because they 'monkey around' and don't pay attention to other traffic. Only one child survives and he gets all the cake and candy he can eat for not getting himself killed. Includes a narration by character actor Edward Everett Horton.

Operación 67

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:24:26 GMT

Mexican wrestler super hero is probably a novelty for most of the people in itself and Santo is the greatest of them all.

But the first Santo made in colour is the best of all the 52 Santo films ever made because it's the one with most exploitation elements in it - tits, violence, funky music, cool suits, wrestling... It's still not a great film, even on exploitation standards, but still a lot of simple-minded fun. If you are interested in Santo but only want to watch one film made by him, it better be this.

Orpheus

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:21:03 GMT

Probably the definition of visual grotesque in film. People walking through mirrors, a wind machine and a back-projection represent a trip to the netherworld, messages from Death can be listened with a radio...

Pekko ja poika

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:28:27 GMT

Pekko is a Finnish version of Ernest. You know, a big, a bit dumb, goofy guy in series of cheap-o movies which get regularly shown on television on the mid-day hours when no-one watches tv except little kids and old people. Then those same shitty movies get praised by nostalgia-filled people who really think that movies they saw as a kid are still good because of their nostalgia.

Except that Pekko films are STILL shown in Finland on prime-time and enjoyed by thousands and thousands of viewers every single fucking time. Needless to say, all the films also suck bull's balls, except this third part which was probably made on drugs because it references Fellini's 8½ and has lots of very surreal images like Pekko flying.

Phantom of the Paradise

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:58:05 GMT

An exploding parody of music business (mostly glam and prog rock), a phantom of the opera rock version which references heavily Orson Welles' Touch of Evil.

Portrait of Hell

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:53:23 GMT

Portrait of Hell

Pähkähullu Suomi

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:07:50 GMT

60s Finnish comedy made to celebrate Finland's 50 years of independence, meant to be enjoyed by the whole family, but inspired by Jerry Lewis and the French new wave, especially Louis Malle's Zazie dans le metro, although this story is not about a little girl in Paris but about an American hair oil millionaire in Finland.

Very funny, totally bonkers and anarchistic road movie parodying Finnish cliches like sauna and nationalism, spy films, Italian and American stereotypes, celebrities, arthouse films, popular culture, breaking the fourth wall and anything you can think of.

It doesn't translate fluidly to other languages because there's a truck-load of inside jokes in it, but I would still recommend it for every foreigner who wants to learn something about Finnish mentality. One of the best Finnish classic movies and definitely the best film of Spede Pasanen, the legendary Finnish comedian.

I've watched this at the Sodankylä Midnight Sun Film Festival 2011 at four o'clock in the morning in a circus tent with other, drunk, Finnish people and with the director Jukka Virtanen also in the audience. It was definitely one of the best experiences I've ever had watching a film.

Raped by an Angel

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:19:07 GMT

There are of course dozens of Hong Kong films which are not for the women, children or other weak-minded people who get disturbed easily or are bound to hurt their feelings because of the crude humor so explicitly used in these films.

I think Raped by an Angel is one of those Hong Kong cat III movies that take the cake though. It's a sleazy serial rapist exploitation with very black humor and over-the-top Simon Yam as a gangster sidekick for the brave and cute protagonist Chingmy Yau. Girls get raped and girls get killed but finally the revenge is very, VERY sweet.

The ending of the movie is so grotesquely insulting, so much in bad taste, that you can't do anything but laugh. Or feel insulted if you don't have any sense of humor.

Runaway Train

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:23:21 GMT

Two guys escape from the prison and the warden goes personally after them. Eric Roberts and Jon Voight act like they are on drugs and I really have to wonder their Oscar nominations: was the academy bribed or something? The whole film is based on a script by Akira Kurosawa which has been altered by the cult crime novel writer Edward Bunker (who also portrayed Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs). The result is in a weird way entertaining, disjointed, stupid and smart at the same time.

Samaritan Girl

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:37:36 GMT

In this film Kim Ki-Duk starts to parody himself. Everything is so damn hardcore that it doesn't even make sense anymore and you can't do anything but laugh. And when you see that the main character's car has a register plate number SIX SIX SIX because, it's like, very meaningful and shit, you know that you have taken a plunge into super silliness.

Santa Claus: The Movie

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:22:27 GMT

Santa Claus lives in the north pole and his workshop is a collection of dwarves, bright and shiny lights and colours and shapes which would make Salvador Dali feel dizzy.

John Lithgow wants to kidnap Santa and ruin everybody's favorite holiday (It would be a disaster that the rich children wouldn't get any presents from Santa on Christmas eve, don't you think? Fuck Jesus, go Santa!) because he was mistreated as a child.

At the end of the film, instead of being forgiven, Lithgow is launched into space to die a lonely, cold and horrible death. Because of the absurdity of the whole thing, it's the best family X-mas movie there is.

Sensuela

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:19:44 GMT

An innocent northern girl goes to a city and becomes a prostitute. Lots of random stuff happens. A man bites off reindeer's balls. The reindeer, which is obviously fake, starts screaming and the sound is dubbed by a human male. All the dialogue in the film is dubbed in Finnish even though all the actors are Finnish. Suddenly at the middle-way the whole film turns into an advertisement of Finnish culture (sauna, lakes and so on) for the foreigners, even though the film itself is sleazy Lapland sexploitation... kind of... stuff. And a LOT of other weird happenings.

She

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:30:39 GMT

In this post-apocalyptic barbarian movie the ONE AND ONLY Bergman, Sandahl Bergman, jumps around in skimpy clothes and fights with bikers and vampires, meets a bearded man in a tutu who acts as a help for a mad scientist and almost encounters a sailorman straight from Monty Python.