Cinema of the Abstract 2019-2020 Awards Part 3

For Part 2, follow the link HERE.

And now for the long and final post.

The Duck Wandering into the Void Award for Least Expected Moment

There are no major plot spoilers but if you want to see any of these without any context, skip this award. For those staying, this and the next one will be more light hearted, beginning with those scenes in productions whether good or bad which will cause me to scratch my head and wonder about the fact they even came to be. Oh, and before anyone asks, the award's title comes from On the Air (1992), which could have gotten many mentions in this award and the other.

 

The exorcism of Coca Cola in How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal (2018)

 

Honourable Mentions:

The many appearances of ducks in On the Air (1992), including one entering a darkened void that is never explained.

The episodes of Serial Experiments Lain (1998) where in one is a montage of various real life conspiracy images with voice over, the second involving another montage set to a guitar solo symbolising a computer being downloaded into a brain.

The Baby Merchant song from Cop Rock (1990)

A young man defecating a knife into a toilet in Hallucinations (1986)

Eating humanoid dancing cockroaches in Cats (2019).

A woman giving birth to a full sized man in Xtro (1982)

Chicken head guitarists and Satan crooners in Showgirls 2: Penny's From Heaven (2011)

An apple appearing near your bed, then telling you it intends to kill you and your roommate in Hobo with a Trash Can (2015)

Mahatma Gandhi's psychedelic freak out on raisins in Clone High (2002-3)

The comically extended end credits of Wicked World (1991)

Mermaid sex in The Lighthouse (2019)

Puppet deer attack in Rise of the Animals (2011)

Caveman shanking in Surviving Edged Weapons (1988)

 

The winner is also a nominee in the next, but it deserved the award: literally in the middle of Eugene Green's "short feature", this very dry and sweet film suddenly has a Portuguese priest, under the belief with government officials that the American import of a brand of cola is evil, exorcise a bottle. Green is a very idiosyncratic and very dry director, but if there ever was a sense of his humour, this was perfect as well as being legitimately weird.

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Moment of the Year

I decided to not include Psycho (1960) and the shower scene, because that would be unfair. Also this award is for all the interesting and memorable moments (and one MVP) that deserve a nod, more designed for moments that amused me or come from work which. Likewise before, there are no major plot spoilers included or only vaguely alluded to, but if you wish to come to the work I have covered this year blind, skip this award:

 

The locker room death in Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)

 

Honourable Mentions:

The final shoe pun related conclusion in On the Air (1992) with avant-garde dissonant jazz, Ian Buchanan with a robot voice and shoes being waved aloft in a mass dance.

Camelo Bene as two monks from Our Lady of the Spheres (1968)

The exorcism of Coca Cola in How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal (2018)

"Who Killed Captain Alex: The Musical" in Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010).

Otley (1968) and the driving test car chase

Richard Dean Anderson convincing a gunslinger to not shoot him by offering to introduce him to his publisher in the pilot episode of Legend (1995)

The bloodbath that ends the remake of Suspiria (2018)

The final episode of Point Pleasant (2005) when the shit hits the fan.

Cop Rock (1990) breaking the fourth wall and admitting it has been cancelled.

Petscop (2017-2020) when it reaches Episode 11 and introduces the "Demo" segments

The bedroom disturbance in The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

 

Created clearly to cash in on the phenomenon that was the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, the first sequel to the 1980 Prom Night, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), could have easily been a cheap dream logic horror move with no creativity. So much however was, enough that it could have easily been in the weirdest category if it was not against such strong competition, and it deserves as well to have this award because, for one of its sequences, the execution and content have been permanently etched into my mind. It does start with a slight sense of gay panic, so be warned as that might upset some viewers, in which the lead character (a girl possessed by the vengeful ghost of a prom queen from the fifties) flirts with the female victim. Thankfully, this can be brushed aside for a scene which is legitimately creepy, and borders into the area of the erotic-grotesque. Involving someone being stalked in the women's changing room, first you have to credit lead actress Wendy Lyon who, when it was never written as such in the script, was willing instead to play the scene with full frontal nudity, which changes the tone of the scene and makes it creepier. Then you thank everyone who created the denouement, including a riff on a roll n roll song lyric and a gruesome moment involving lockers, which ends the scene as one of the most distinct and effective scenes from the eighties era of horror cinema for me. The film itself was a huge surprise to return to, and this sequence showed why.

 

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The Most Underrated Project

O Fantasma (2000)

Honourable Mentions: Tetsuo The Bullet Man (2009), Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), Xtro (1982), Youth Without Youth (2007)

Sadly not every film will get a prominent place in these awards, so this one is designed for everything that I covered, an "Abstract" work or not, that was accidentally ignored.

Honourable, honourable mentions include: the IMAX 3D spectacle film Haunted Castle (2001), which is a long forgotten piece of spectacle entertainment I cannot help but still think of with its dated CGI and being a literal ride in first person form; Plan 10 from Outer Space (1995), the first encounter with American independent director Trent Harris who has won me over with his eccentric take Mormonism and aliens, followed by his very micro budget but utterly entertaining Welcome to the Rubber Room (2017); and Epidemic (1987), a fascinating first step for Lars von Trier in what would become his Dogme 95 movement in the next decade after, a micro budgeted meta apocalypse film where von Trier himself and screenwriter Niels Vørsel accidentally cause the end of humanity when researching for a post apocalypse film about a virus ending the world.

Whilst von Trier's film is the better work, I have to give the first slot however to Francis Ford Coppola's completely strange and unique period magical realist tale Youth Without Youth (2007), his return after a long absence in which his technical craft is still exceptional, whilst his tale of Tim Roth being struck by lightning and acquiring super human gifts is as emotional rich as it is as mad as a box of frogs. And whilst the first sequel was terrible, the original Xtro (1982) was great. Also as equally bizarre, but whilst Youth Without Youth was an auteur with creative control, Xtro is a rare case of the producers influencing its weirdest and most interesting details among other factors. Like a curious, really screwed up metaphor for divorce and when an absentee father returns and destroys the family, Xtro has depth to it and a lot of other material that is mind boggling. Since I am at it, I admit to that I enjoyed Xtro 3: Watch the Skies (1995) though it is not on the list.

In the same camp, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987) looked at the original film, a Canadian slasher, decided to instead become a follow on to the popularity of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and become a strange, mind boggling spectacle of weirdness, a really startling locker room pursuit and Michael Ironside. Sadly the second sequel, Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1990), whilst only available in a cut form for the most part and worthy of a re-evaluation in respect of this, missed the tone entirely.

Definitely following the ideal of this award, as a huge fan of director Shinya Tsukamoto, I finally got to the divisive Tetsuo The Bullet Man (2009), and whilst the flaws are visible, I argue that even as the weakest of the Tetsuo trilogy it is still proof of his talent. Showing his transition to the 2010s, whilst it does come off like a silly monster film at points, it still has the intensity, the Chu Ishikawa score and enough in its form that it still stands out proudly.

Beating it to the top spot however is a film that sadly was marginalised from the other awards and needed some credit, João Pedro Rodrigues' O Fantasma (2000) was the Portuguese director's debut, following the curious sexual obsessions of a male garbage truck employee, and did not pull back his punches in being explicit in the sexual content, in being provocative (such as our lead finding a police officer handcuffed in his own car and decided to wank him off in a prone state), and being even grimy. The film is a character piece not necessarily driven by plot, somehow ending up with our lead in a homemade gimp leather suit crawling around a landfill, and how you get to that point is entirely for the viewer to learn of. Rodrigues is definitely a director of interest to me now, and whilst his films have sadly been unavailable, films have (wink wink) been available on MUBI's Library service, created in May 2020, and hopefully means his work will become more easily available to explore for the blog.

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Music of the Abstract:

As is part of my other blog 1000 Anime, music is a very important aspect of the Japanese animated medium, and likewise to ignore for cinema and other motion picture media this important piece of their construction any longer would be embarrassing. For this award, I am being open to pre-existing music being chosen, and also including an adaptation of an opera as well.

And there are many admirable honourable mentions. We Are The Strange (2007), whatever you think of it as a micro budget animated film, had a great score nonetheless. Serial Experiments Lain (1998), one two television series to be talked of, is known for its opening theme by British rock band Bôa, but its eerie industrial and electronic score by Reichi Nakaido also fits material just on the cusp of horror. The 2018 remake of Suspiria may be a divisive production, but alongside falling in love with it, it wisely never attempted to remake Goblin's incredible score either, instead letting Tom Yorke of Radiohead carve his own unique take on the material. Finally, one should mention Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010), entirely for the fact that the panpipe rendition of Seal's Kiss of a Rose is as iconic as many other factors within the Ugandan epic for its fan base.

 

12. Death Metal Zombies (1995), a no budget zombie film, managed to get some pretty good music from Relapse Records in spite of its no existent homemade production, and even the bizarre tracks stand out. It also introduced me to Amorphis, which is a huge success on the film's part.

Track to Listen to: In the Beginning by Amorphis

11. Whilst an infamous production in Trent Reznor's career, one whose grotesqueness feels ill-at-ease to the version of Nine Inch Nails I have come to them as in terms of a band, the short film Broken (1992) is nonetheless backed by the titular EP. By itself, it is likely more known of even for people with limited knowledge of the band and Reznor due to how, even as an EP, it has carved a popular reputation in his career. Songs like Happiness in Slavery are huge hits, and when the short works like that song's accompanying segment, the effect is startling.

Track to Listen to: Gave Up by Nine Inch Nails

10. One of the secret weapons of YouTube series Petscop (2017-20) was its score, a work that was made available in part of creator Tony Domenico's finale for the series, a challenge to have created in both trying to replicate a Playstation One era videogame but also suiting what becomes a complex psychological drama in a very unconventional format. He succeeded well.

Track to Listen To: Listen to the Whole Album (It's the epilogue to Petscop on its YouTube page)

9. For any flaws Tetsuo The Bullet Man (2009) has in context of Shinya Tsukamoto's trilogy, no one would hopefully complain about Chu Ishikawa's soundtrack, the audio equivalent of an industrial nightmare that is as much part of the trilogy's power. An additional bonus, and befitting a previously mentioned inclusion, is the main theme by Trent Reznor with is arguably his first collaboration with Atticus Ross. Those two would go far afterwards.

Track to Listen To: Main Theme by Nine Inch Nails

8. Arguably the most divisive film in Jim Jarmusch's career, the soundtrack to The Limits of Control (2009) is a perfect accompaniment to how you should treat the film. Mostly drone metal, including a cameo by LCD Soundsystem, it is a sub genre of metal about pushing a single guitar riff as prolonged as possible, once compared to raga being played during an earthquake. For a film which takes an assassin film and stretches it to a minimalist extreme, this type of soundtrack with its who's-who of drone metal innovators is befitting the material.

Track to Listen To: Farewell by Boris

7. The Needle (1988) was a vehicle for Viktor Tsoy, an iconic figure in rock music in Eastern Europe, tragically dying at a young age not long after the creation of this film. The Needle if nothing else was a testament to his charisma, a figure probably not known in the slightest outside that region sadly, especially with the fact that, with his band Kino on the soundtrack, the film is also a testament to the great music he created.

Track to Listen to: Gruppa krovi (aka. Группа крови) by Kino

6. One of the reasons that I have allowed use of pre-existing music is because, well, most would be baffled Lasagna Cat (2007-2017) is on the list, but in one of its creators Fatal Farm's best and cheekiest moves, they used the entire Philip Glass composed soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's Kundun (1997), which raises questions of "borrowing" another project's entire soundtrack but was bloody inspired to say the least.

Track to Listen To: Escape to India by Philip Glass

5. Don't Hug Me. I'm Scared, a YouTube success that has scared and fascinated many, also happens to be an admirable project by creators Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling. A pastiche of puppet shows, with production value that few online videos have, it also decided to have musical numbers which are as iconic as the horrifying material inside. The music has been made available separately on the likes of iTunes, but they work fully when next to the visuals, so watch the series if you have not. Watch it again after reading this if you already have.

Track to Listen To: The Love Song [Don't Hug Me Episode 3]

4. Thankfully for John Zorn's soundtrack to The Golden Boat (1990), whilst it is not available to stream, he made it available alongside most if not all his career through CDs and on iTunes, his unique and odd soundtrack to one of Raul Ruiz's only American films part of the compilation Filmworks 1986–1990. A unique film in the Chilean director's career for just the amount of important figures on and behind the camera in the film - Zorn, Katy Ackey, Jim Jarmusch etc. - the score is an appropriately strange jazz piece to match a deeply strange film.

Track to Listen To: Main Theme to The Golden Boat by John Zorn

3. Cop Rock (1990) is sadly seen as an exceptional failure in television history, a notorious attempt by Steven Bochco, King of cop dramas, to make one that was also a musical but without losing the dark and adult subject matter. Chances of an actual soundtrack being available are slim, unless secretly snuck online, but for every song which was terrible, I can think of a lot that were successes. Not just the Baby Merchant song either but just for those created by Randy Newman including the title theme.

Track to Listen To: Cop Rock (Under the Gun) by Randy Newman

2. Moses and Aaron (1975), at least the version that Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet made, more than likely does not have an original soundtrack album, which means anything I will link to would not really match in the slightest their interpretation of Arnold Schoenberg's original unfinished opera. As a production, it is unique in context to this list, Schoenberg's three act opera set after the Book of Exodus when Moses comes into conflict with Aaron, his original representative to help push his ideals of God, over what that message and ideals should be, before you even get to the fact the directors created an actual ending to their version too. As also one of the most idiosyncratic films in these directors' career, which is saying something for how difficult and unique their work was, likewise this is unique music that you experience as much as the film is in itself. Especially with the chosen cast, the opera is thunderous and startling to hear.

Track to Listen To: Best to investigate the entire opera, be it online or in one's preferred form, then link to any specific piece of the composition.

1. Psycho (1960) is not my favourite Alfred Hitchcock film in the slightest, which is why controversially it will not top many of the lists. But only a madman would however give the award to anyone else but Bernard Hermann's iconic and startling score. The list itself is hilarious to consider - only here would you have Arnold Schoenberg and Philip Glass against music by the notorious shock metal band Anal Cunt and Randy Newman - but it just proves that, between heavy metal to opera, pre-existing music to original compositions, the choice of a score is a difficult task but one that can succeed if you chose it rightly. Psycho is the best example of this. We never view showers since 1960 without thinking of Herrmann's strings.

Track to Listen To: Prelude by Bernard Herrmann

 

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Best [Not Abstract] Film/Project

Antigone (1992)

Honourable Mentions: Otley (1969); The Needle (1988); Psycho (1960); Swept Away (1974)

 

Not everything I have covered qualified for "abstract", so for those titles, they deserve their own moment in the sun. There are a few titles worth mentioning. Three television series - Point Pleasant (2005), Clone High (2002-3) and Legend (1995) - come to mind. Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010) has already gotten a bit of love already. Two have yet to be mentioned however. Benzina (2001), an Italian LGBT crime drama about two women having to try to hide the body of the mother of one of them, is of its time aesthetically, but is a film that if uncovered today should get a lot more love. Hell House (2001), a film that definitely should be rediscovered, is a documentary on the Evangelical equivalent to the haunted houses found on Halloween, meant to scare people to God and in cases have been controversial, especially the one we see here ran by a Church that once reinterpreted the Columbine High School shootings for one of the exhibits. Having to open the assortment of problems of their ideals, their thoughts, their controversial ideals like their anti-gay views, but also their moments of humanity and weakness, this open minded documentary, where the one openly confrontational attack on the hell house is from young patrons rather than the production itself, is very good.

Also tackling a really controversial subject, most will only know Swept Away (1974) for its terrible 2002 remake with Madonna. The original by Lina Wertmüller, a prominent female director in the seventies who sadly has never had any of her work released in the United Kingdom baring this one, is uncomfortable as it deals with politics, misogyny, power roles and even sexual violence, but it is compelling and morally dark in a way, from a female director-writer, where you are aware she is making these difficult choices to make the viewer uncomfortable. 

Psycho (1960) is a film most people will know of. I personally find it is not Alfred Hitchcock's best, especially as there is a period in the middle act where it does feel flabby due the plot structure, but it is still an important film and when it is good, its reputation is deserved. The Needle (1988) is tragically a film most will not be able to see, a Soviet era post-punk film that, from the end of that era before the Iron Curtain fell, feels distinct and bursting with rebellious passion. Otley (1969), from that odd and rewarding era of British cinema between the late sixties and the seventies, until and even after the funding from American studios disappeared, would have encapsulated the great BFI Flipside label if it had not been released by another Blu-Ray/DVD company Indicator instead. A James Bond and spy film parody, baring one single line which has not dated well at all it is still sharp and stands out considerably in the present day as an underrated gem, for its dark sense of humour, sense of absurdity among real London locations, and a cast full of heavyweights including Tom Courtenay and Romy Schneider that won me over.

The winner however was one of the last I covered for this year, Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet stripping away all artifice for Antigone (1992) but still keeping a dramatic weight to the material. The film is arguably one of their most assessable films, whilst very unconventional, for the mere fact that it tells a full tale of dramatic weight, based on Ancient Greek legend, but keeps the directors' attitude to not compromising in their aesthetic and filmmaking craft. Within the recent years, especially through MUBI and an American distributor Grasshopper Films, we have been thankfully had the duo's films become more readily available, so hopefully one day this particular title among others will be easier to see. [Such as MUBI at least in the United Kingdom if you are subscribed to their streaming service.]

 

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The Abstract Hall of Fame (Class of 2019-20)

Winners:

Raul Ruiz

Jean Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet

 

This, like the Honorary Award at the Academy Awards, goes to the figures who have contributed to the "Abstract" (or at least the ideals of this blog), and have been covered a great deal. In the future, I hope to expend this beyond directors to other fields - actors, writers, even figures in areas like production design and music - as long as they hit a requisite qualification (i.e. at least one film on the Abstract List or enough special about them) to qualify. Especially as I have more interest in themed runs of films and productions being covered, more names added to the ballots until I have to actually create a post for them all.

This year is devoted to three very high brow art cinema creators who have plenty of films and productions left to cover. Straub and Huillet are thankfully having their day in terms of their cinema being restored and made available. Raul Ruiz is sadly maligned in my honest opinion, one of my favourite directors but barely available baring VHS rips you have to track online. Any promotion of his, and the trio's work in general, even on this tiny blog is worthy. Straub and Huillet, whilst very strict and extremely minimalist, showed completely experimental bravery with their work. Ruiz's cinema, and everything else he touched, is very unpredictable at its best, a fever dream where nothing is to be predictable. He is arguably even now a sacred figure for the blog in terms of true abstract and unique cinema and motion pictures....and he made over a hundred productions according to his IMDB (and still counting), so I have a lot to cover.

 

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Best Abstract Film/Project

And here we are...the last award, for titles which even if they did not get on the Abstract List itself, were all candidates, all together in one final category. There were many titles which missed the list. That Most Important Thing: Love (1975), Suspiria (2018), Not Reconciled (1965), A Paper Tiger (2008), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Petscop (2017-2020), Moses and Aaron (1975), In Fabric (2018) and The Limits of Control (2009) all missed out to heavy competition.

 

10. First on the list, Rubber's Lover (1996), has embarrassingly been ignored throughout the entire series of blog posts which I can only blame on myself. Shozin Fukui's monochrome cyberpunk film, about underground and illegal experiments on psychic powers, is an uncomfortable and dark production to watch, at times gruelling in its willingness in sound and imagery to pummel the viewer senseless. It is however, because of this why it is also such a spectacular production to witness. It deserves, if anything, a re-discovery.

9. Horse Money (2014) is also difficult, but for very different reasons. Finally getting worldwide attention, or at least availability, in the 2010s, Pedro Costa changed drastically in his work from his debut Blood (1989) to this, a minimalist tale worked on with the real life occupants of Fontaínhas, reinterpreting their real lives stories (acted out by them, like with his regular star Ventura) in a dreamlike haze here in Horse Money with shadow drenched set pieces. It is gorgeous to witness, and rewarding when you unpick its pieces.

8. Two for the price of one, Raul Ruiz's The Wandering Soap Opera (2017) and The Golden Boat (1990), which have been covered earlier on equally in these lists, are a fascinating pair worthy of being seen. Raul Ruiz is one of my favourite directors, tragically one difficult to actually see, so any encouragement to have films like this released is virtuous for this goal. They make a perfect duo anyway, as The Wandering Soap Opera was first shot in the same era of The Golden Boat only to be fully constructed a long time afterwards, both a piece of his career interlinked.

7. The Phantom of Liberty (1974) is not a film as talked about in Luis Bunuel's later career compared to his other work, but from the later surrealist period in France, Liberty is definitely one of the strangest of them. Like an anthology of interconnecting absurdities and scathing ideals, it begins in the Napoleonic Era, and yet ends in the seventies with the French police storming a zoo with fired shots. How you get there is the magic and black hearted humour of the film.

6. On the list of productions that need to actually be made available to the public again legally is On the Air (1992), David Lynch and Mark Frost's failed comedy sitcom about a fifties variety show which goes wrong every live broadcast. Seeing Lynch, even if he only collaborated partially, have a very silly sense of humour is humbling, to know that even the man who made Lost Highway (1997) really likes a Dad pun, and his collaborators from the Twin Peaks era, having to try to copy him, fell onto some of the deeply strangest material they could ever produce.

5. Also in dire need of availability, though screened on Amazon Prime of all places, is Our Lady of the Turks (1968). Again, Carmelo Bene's work needs to be made available, with this, his debut, utterly alien to a lot of modern day world cinema, but captivating both when it is sincere and also insane.

4.  Hukkle (2002) is also captivating as a production, György Pálfi's audio-visual mystery standing out as something to admire.

3. Also proudly an Eastern European production, On Body and Soul (2017) takes a romantic drama, and through very unconventional plotting and circumstances, creates one that is even more beautiful and sweet as a result.

2. The Lighthouse (2019) is a popular film, but with good reason, a rare hit that even intrigues someone like me. Again, as mentioned previously, that Robert Eggers managed to get a film like this made from a mainstream studio is a rare and mercurial thing, and that it has succeeded enough that parodies appear on even the newest Animal Crossing video game is a blessing. Certainly you could not go wrong with what is part cautionary tale of being stuck on an island with only booze to keep you company, also a strange nautical horror film I would argue is supernatural, but of the weirder sort that skulks of the side. Most of the film does not even need to evoke the unnatural in the slightest to crawl down your neck, whilst drunken madness unfolds and Willem Dafoe breaks out words rarely used in modern English just in response to Robert Patterson criticising his cooking. And, whilst "jellicle cats" appearing in my brain has silliness to it, "never kill a seagull" occasionally pops into my head but with greater weight and glee to it in comparison.

And yet, in this case, the winner is a television series. Not a film, but the animated television series Serial Experiments Lain (1998); when I first saw the series as a young adult getting into anime, I did not like it at all, but a decade later I finally came to appreciate this mysterious gem. It is not quite horror, but has plenty of uncomfortable moments of tension and body horror, and it is science fiction but with a premise grounded in urban reality that, dealing with the internet back in a period where concepts like web forums were in their infancy, are amazingly relevant still alongside its existential ideas. It also looks unique in context, even if an early adopter of the computer assisted animation, thankfully just before the 2000 or so period where many television series looked awful, but eerie and cool in its aesthetic. We also have to thank Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) as, being also a cross over hit that gets picked up on Netflix, its success in its home land of Japan is arguably responsible for these brave little experiments in television anime, Evangelion's own idiosyncratic (and controversial) moments allowing the likes of Serial Experiments Lain to exist. It was an early work covered last year, the second covered actually behind The Phantom of Liberty, but thinking about it, as someone who had grown fond of the show over the years already, it deserves the title even over some strong competition. That a television show dominates over the list of films I have covered is not a detriment to cinema, but that the moving pictures for the open minded are rich and diverse in abstract gems.

 

And with that, Year Two ends, and Year Three soon begins...

Cinema of the Abstract 2019-2020 Awards Part 2

Part 1 can be found HERE.

 

Best Acting Performance(s) for Men

Anthony Perkins (Psycho)

Honourable Mentions: Camelo Bene (Our Lady of the Turks); Wilhem Defoe and Robert Patterson (The Lighthouse); Sam Neil (In the Mouth of Madness); Mark Walberg (I Heart Huckabees)

I like to separate the acting segments for men and women entirely because, if you do not, you can leave many great figures maligned and not even getting a nod in respect, something which can be a detriment especially for giving best acting performances for women when, with understandable reason, not differentiating the category could be done deliberately to avoid marginalising women as separate. Hence, even here I have a long list of figures that deserve recognition, tackling both categories beginning with the men.

In some cases it can be that you have to recognising the entire acting trope in some cases too. The male casts as a whole for The Phantom of Liberty (1974) - which has European powerhouses like Michel Piccoli among its production - and for Cop Rock (1990) need to be mentioned, the former a canonical film, the other the maligned television bomb, but both cases where, be it Luis Bunuel or a bizarre annual of American television, you have to be prepared to act for the unexpected.

Likewise, Géza Morcsányi as the male lead of On Body and Soul (2017) has to make a very idiosyncratic romantic drama stand out when it has a very peculiar setting and premise, in an abattoir between two people of drastically different ages where they share the same dream about being deer in a frozen woodland. Carloto Cotta, in Eugène Green's "short feature" How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal (2018), has to play two characters in a curious real life incident in the history of acclaimed titular Portuguese poet's life, the driest of comedies, whilst Tom Courtenay, as much a beloved theatrical actor as he is in the motion pictures, had to be the heart and soul of the idiosyncratic Otley (1969), a parody of the spy films of the era where he is a literal deadweight who sofa surfs into a conspiracy involving assassins who live at farms or gets into a car chase during his own driving test. Also, if we are talking about whole male casts who have to work with the unexpected, On the Air (1992) with a cast including Ian Buchanan and Miguel Ferrer had to make an eventually doomed comedy from David Lynch, which was strange from the get-go, funny with its random tangents and silly humour. Finally, whilst a controversial real life figure, Klaus Kinski was also a great actor when motivated and, playing one of the more saner figures in That Most Important Thing: Love (1975), he is tremendous whilst also playing a man bellows Shakespeare's Richard III on stage whilst dressed as a samurai.

Another case of having to work in odd territory was the case for an actor who could easily be dismissed, especially as unfortunately a film like The Happening (2008) would hang him out to dry with its scenes of actors fleeing the wind, but is the first figure officially getting recognition on this list. Mark Walberg, whose career from being a rap artist to an actor has been idiosyncratic and with some misfires that could easily lead you to dismiss him, stole I Heart Huckabees (2004) and became the heart of a project which could a) have been a pretentious farce about existentialism and philosophy, and b) only be known for director David O Russell infamously snapping at actress Lily Tomlin during the production. Out of everyone in the film, and that includes one of the best actors of French cinema Isabelle Huppert as a nihilist French philosopher, Walberg as a fireman psychologically scarred by the 9/11 bombings managed to be utterly sympathetic and hilarious at the same time, becoming obsessed with environmentalism but still a macho guy whose only real way of expressing his emotions is by getting angry, something which he pulled off with aplomb.

In a very different film, where the weirdness is proudly on display, Sam Neil is an actor who is very much appreciated, a necessary lynchpin to make John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1994) work, a hybrid of a meta narrative and Lovecraftian cosmic horror which is at times knowingly absurd, but is helped considered by Neil even when his character finally loses his mind. Deserving the place together, in a two person film that is entirely dependent on them in The Lighthouse (2019), Wilhem Defoe and Robert Patterson are exceptional. Defoe is a veteran who has proven himself, whilst Patterson has now proven himself to be a great actor of his generation. He could have easily fallen due to the Twilight franchise, where he was frankly poor in, but at the start of the 2010s after that franchise, he proved his talent and, thankfully, a taste for acting in films this idiosyncratic.

In terms of madness onscreen personified, Italian stage performer Camelo Bene in his own directorial debut, Our Lady of the Turks (1968), is on an entirely different level. Structured around a knight who, existing now out of time, who has rejected his God only to be followed around by a female saint who has come down from Heaven, Bene's willingness to emote for his own work undercuts any argument of egotism completely. He can be subtle here, he can scream like a mad man, and in the most haunting sequence, he plays two monks, screaming and squealing and smashing an egg perfectly over his egg and placing into a bowl without spilling contents onto him, all which feels appropriate for the sequence, all profoundly exceptional.

The only reason Bene does not get the award is that, whilst I do not consider Psycho (1960) one of Alfred Hitchcock's best films, Anthony Perkins' performance as Norman Bates is one of the best male performances in any of the auteur's career. Sadly, this role would pigeonhole Perkins, a sad thing to consider as in the role itself, he is magnificent. Subtly so as, having read the original novel of Psycho, which I found utterly surpassed by the film adaptation, a list of stereotypes that were painted onto the original version of Norman Bates were thankfully thrown out for Perkins to play instead a shy but likeably nervous figure, someone with charisma and even charm, until you unfortunately brought up his mother and the weight of psychological damage the character has. Notoriously, having covered both in the same review, Gus Van Sant cast Vince Vaughn in the role in the 1996 remake, and whilst Vaughn tried his best, you were also had an unfair task for him, an albatross over his neck that Anthony Perkins was perfect in the role and would be impossible to outdo.

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Best Acting Performance(s) for Women

Romy Schneider (That Most Important Thing: Love (1975))

Honourable Mentions: Alexandra Borbély (On Body and Soul (2017)); Astrid Ofner (Antigone (1992)); Naomi Watts (I Heart Huckabees (2004)); Janet Leigh (Psycho (1960))

There are also a few figures I wish to mention here that did not get on the main list. The female cast of Cop Rock (1990) likewise had to shown their performance dexterity where you could go from a serious plot point to singing in a scene, whilst everyone in On The Air had to likewise work around that cancelled television show's oddness. Likewise it could have been easy for Dina Meyer's character in Point Pleasant (2005) to be the stereotypical older seductress who chases other women's men, only for the plot to complicate things, as this is a soap opera if the female lead was the daughter of Satan, and because Meyer's performance is admirable. And to be controversial, two nods to adult film actresses for their un-doubtable charisma. Nina Hartley in the softcore oddity Bubbles Galore (1996) showed why she is held as the intelligent spokeswoman for pro-sex feminism from a veteran of the industry; Liberté sexuelle (2012), an actual pornographic film, just showed how surprisingly charismatic and good at acting Liza Del Sierra is, with the added factor that few actual actresses, like she and Hartley, would actually have real sex on camera too.

SPOILER WARNINGS, also I have to mention Tilda Swinton in the strange reinterpretation of Suspiria (2018), having actually plays two roles which defy gender, one the head of the witch cult and the other an old man in heavy prosthetic effects. There is a reason she has become a cult of personality in cinema in general, both for talent and because few human beings, like taking this challenge, can have this in her career but can also claim to have been both in a Marvel comic book film and a Bela Tarr production.

The actual honourable mentions are a fascinating group. You forget since her career has been mainly been mainstream productions how good Naomi Watts is, where her role in I Heart Huckabees could have been dumb, but she carries it off with such charisma. As someone who made her breakout in Mulholland Drive (2001), occasionally she returns to this area of idiosyncratic storytelling, like in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and see how good she is. You forget in general Janet Leigh, beyond the notorious twist of Psycho which has argubly cemented her image in cinema, still has to carry off a morally complex female character you are drawn to before Alfred Hitchcock pulled the rug out from under us all, which she succeeds to fully. I am baffled that Astrid Ofner never acted in any other films beyond Antigone, where in a Straub-Huillet production with legitimately great acting from everyone her as the titular figure manages to stand the proudest in, though she thankfully went on to have a career as an editor and a director. Most have probably not seen On Body and Soul (2017), which means ignoring one of the best performance of someone with emotional (learning) disabilities in Alexandra Borbély, playing a character that could have just been "weird" but is utterly enrapturing in a strange but beautiful love story.

Borbély was going to get this reward...only for Romy Schneider in That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) to just storm in with a performance where she literally gives her all. A spectrum of emotion drawn out with power that was captivating. ‎Andrzej Żuławski is fascinating in that, for all the chaos and madness of his films, he had a lot of striking performances from his female cast in his career, so I would not be surprised that, with Schneider's one of the best of them, that another cast member from his films got a nod. Thankfully, this role lead to her getting the universal praise and awards she deserved.

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Best Director:

Carmelo Bene (Our Lady of the Turks (1968))

Honourable Mentions: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub (Not Reconciled (1965)/Antigone (1992)/Class Relations (1984)/ Moses and Aaron (1975)); Ildikó Enyedi (On Body and Soul (2017)); Peter Strickland (In Fabric (2018)); György Pálfi (Hukkle (2002)); Pedro Costa (Horse Money (2014)

Is it controversial Alfred Hitchcock is not on this list for Psycho (1960) let alone the top spot? Again, Psycho is not my favourite Hitchcock film and, after some revision, I decided to give the award to the most innovative directors. As someone who does actually believe in the auteur theory, whilst recognising just how important everyone on a production is, be it television or cinema or a homemade web production, this award should go to someone who stands out for something radical. Hitchcock, whilst a very mainstream director, if he ever appears again has enough films in his career where his skill be recognised even if a Honourable Mention.

Hence, this list also does not include some huge figures and some admirable creators. All of the following - Raul Ruiz (The Wandering Soap Opera (2017) and The Golden Boat (1990)), Andrzej Żuławski (That Most Important Thing: Love (1975)), John Carpenter (In the Mouth of Madness (1994)), Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse (2019)), Luis Buñuel (The Phantom of Liberty (1974)) and Ulrike Ottinger (Ticket of No Return (1979)) in any other context could have won this award if I had not seen some pretty big heavyweights over the year. Controversially, as someone who actually adores the film, I also have to nod to Jim Jarmusch for his very divisive but unique The Limits of Control (2009). Also, I have to give a nod to Natsuka Kusano as, whilst her film Domains (2019) is not perfect, as her debut it stands out as something truly unique. This idea of the debut will come back in this category again in terms of someone making an impact with his or her first work, but Kusano really deserves a nod. Personally as well, Nabwana I.G.G. for his Wakaliwood productions deserves a mention just for all the hardship and work he had to go through just to make one film, let alone many and found a studio, even if the productions themselves are open to the fact they are ridiculous ultra-low budget action films.

Nonetheless, the actual honourable mentions are admirable and all of them are created by figures make one-offs. Pedro Costa, long into his career, fully enmeshed in his subject matter; Peter Strickland continues on his idiosyncratic genre subversions that are utterly strange and unique; Ildikó Enyedi returning to cinema after a long absence in a brilliant production; and György Pálfi, in his own film debut, making a true unique creation in dire need of a rediscovery. Also, it cannot be stressed, for all the difficulty of their work, how Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub have contributed to innovative cinema just for having four very different films brought up for their nomination. Be it a Franz Kafka adaptation, a minimalist adaptation of Greek legend by way of Bertolt Brecht, an opera and a novel adaptation which depicts all the content in ultra minimalist form, either four of the films are admirable with patience, and no one else has made films like any of them.

But I had to choose Carmelo Bene. Our Lady of the Turks (1968) lulled me into a false sense of security, having seen some of his films before, only to be a sudden thunder bolt of emotion and energy. Every director on this list, even those which are freely available, deserves more attention, but Bene especially is in dire need of a proper accessibility in his cinema for work this good.

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Best Non-Theatrical Project (Abstract or Not)

Serial Experiments Lain (1998)

Honourable Mentions: On the Air (1992); Petscop (2017); Cop Rock (1990); Don't Hug Me. I'm Scared (2011-16)

As more television and non theatrical productions are being covered, thus an award like this one is a necessary, though as you the reader will have seen already and will see later, they are not disqualified from the biggest awards. You will also see a common thread of cancelled, one season shows as they are easier to ingest, an anime production which, in the Japanese animated industry, tend to have a lot of one season productions alongside the long running successes, and my increasing interest in the innovations of web based productions. You are less likely to waste time when you get to season six and the show jumps the shark, as happens in long form television.

Even here, there were titles not mentioned such as Point Pleasant (2005), which is what happens when you combined a teen soap opera with a satanic horror drama; an imperfect show, but one I was engaged by. Clone High (2002-3), once it hit its stride, became a legitimately funny series, also a teen soap opera but about a school of cloned historical figures, and Legend (1995) took the western action show and added steam punk content, but is mostly a stand out for its likeable and memorable characters. Lasagna Cat (2007-2017), whilst this year will be the last re-reviewed titles will be allowed on the ballot, did not get on the list because, actually, two other YouTube based productions deserved the nod instead.

Naturally, my tastes though went for some of the stranger productions in existence, whilst my open mindedness to internet work lead to two big surprises. Cop Rock is not a highly regarded series, but when it did get a DVD release from Shout Factory in the United States, a release I proudly imported to see and cover, there have been more positive thoughts given to the show from professional writers, especially in light to how progressive and unfortunately close to reality its drama was about the police and racism still. Tragically, it is a 20th Century Fox license, like Point Pleasant, so the House of Mouse will sit on it now. One title inexplicably never re-released to even DVD is On the Air (1992), the David Lynch comedy show which is as peculiar as that sounds. Don't Hug Me. I'm Scared (2011-16) is pretty well known, a famous web meme as a dark parody of a children's show, only to become more idiosyncratic as it went along. Less well known, but a delight, was Petscop (2017), a faked re-imagination to the YouTube video format of the "Let's Play", only surrounding a game the creator made themselves and becoming the subtlest of horror stories.

The winner however is the one anime, sadly something that is neglected on the blog for the simple reason that, having another blog called 1000 Anime, all the Japanese animation is covered there. Hopefully that will change in the future, but speaking of unique and idiosyncratic television, Serial Experiments Lain with its still precedent take on online culture and strange atmosphere is a title even non-anime fans should investigate. Titles like this are why I have always lent closer to anime over other forms of television, a title that even if it was shown long after midnight in its original context, as it likely was, is so unique and risk taking it is captivating.

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The Most Innovative Production

In contrast to the Weirdest Award, here I want to give a place to those unique productions (be they television, cinema etc.) which stand out for something truly distinct even with structures that have been seen before. There are two entries from it returning, but this is also for the work between the avant-garde and outside the norms of conventional production which are unique in many ways. Like the other list, this has is structured different on paper because this in itself also is one of my fascinations with the moving image and worth indulging in.

Controversially, I am giving an honourable nod to Cop Rock (1990) because, whilst not always succeeded, it is a unique and admirable attempt at two drastically different genres, between a cop drama and a musical, did work in wonders when it succeeded. Even how the show ended when it was cancelled, by the cast breaking the fourth wall and singing a final song about being cancelled, is a distinct moment only that show can claim.

5. More consistently successful and starting the list of nominations properly, it is both sad I have not talked about A Paper Tiger (2008) at all until now, from the late Columbian director Luis Ospina, and that it is a very difficult film to see too. On paper, a mockumentary is a common genre nowadays, but it becomes unique here because Ospina creates a fictional documentary on a fictional artist/subversive so well, and with so much detail, it raised the bar to an entirely higher level.  Just in terms of acquiring, an international cast of figures to play people in this figure's life, and even include a segment based within the notorious Italian cannibal film Cannibal Holocaust (1980) which is credible, A Paper Tiger was a delight in what it executed.

4. Whilst A Paper Tiger was made with clear planning, Raul Ruiz's The Wandering Soap Opera (2017) comes from the circumstances that the Chilean director made films as he breathed air, with a history of filming productions from acting classes he also worked on, and that after his death he is a director still premiering films into the 2020s. Whilst not the most radical production, a series of vignettes in his native Chile full of black humour, this deserves a place for this history and that, working as much as a tribute to his work through his widow Valeria Sarmiento's own craft, it is a fascinating and unique production in context to this.

3. Truly unique, the debut of Hungarian filmmaker György Pálfi, Hukkle (2002), proceeds to tell a tale of suspicious deaths in a rural community entirely through visuals and the soundscape of the environment. From a mole's eye view of the world from underground to an incredibly rich and diegetic soundtrack of noises, Hukkle is a film that needs to be rediscovered and was a great beginning for a director who after this, with Taxidermia (2006), did not stray away from the provocative for his career.

2. Petscop (2017-2020) in presentation and context was a fascinating one-off. A project for YouTube, it started as a parody of Let's Plays, a format on that site of watching other people play video games, in this case an unreleased Playstation One game, only to turn into a horror tale without need for jump scares, overt violence or clichés, becoming progressively unique and eerier when the player figure becomes more uncomfortable and he, never seen but only his voice heard for the most part, uncovered more secrets in the unfinished code which were uncomfortably close to his own life. The episodes, varying in length, take a huge step from Episode 11 for the better, where the structure gets stranger as new options and controls are found. It is a magnificent production and CAN BE FOUND HERE, as anyone with the free time should take a chance on a one-person homemade production this clever.

1. However, I must give it to Not Reconciled (1965), Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub's novel adaptation not missing any detail or plot point of importance, but condensing it all under an hour's length. The result, which would require two viewings to try to grasp, is amazing in how simple its structure is and how radical it still is today. I have covered many films from them, not always successful, which were unique but Not Reconciled is the one above all else that showed how much they innovated.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Cinema of the Abstract 2019-2020 Awards

Part 1

A second year of these awards, and not only is it a nice breath of fresh air to be indulgent, it feels more important as I considered not even having this, only to realise the necessary to stop and focus on the last year. The delay means that the "year" is between June (18th) 2019 and the middle of June 2020, but the detail of what stood out among so many reviews, and what was gained, is worthwhile regardless pedantic timing.

Ahead of myself, I will say that I intend to take a new subtle direction with the blog, nothing drastic at the moment but that I am going to clean items up. The updates to Blogger.com itself have influenced the look of the work itself, but in terms of what and how I am covering material, I have already detailed this HERE but want to add a new detail. Even from that, I have reconsidered ideas from that blog post to streamline the entire blog further. Until that point where those ideas take full effect, let us close "Season Two" with all the fascinating details of the period.

By starting off with the less the memorable work covered, but hey, start from the bottom and work our way up.

 

Most Disappointing

The Summer of the Massacre (2011)

Dishonourable Mentions: Blubberella (2011); Swept Away (2002); Double Down (2005); Xtro II (1990)

With any series of reviews, you will unfortunately come across some disappointments. I have decided, as last time, not to use the term "Worst" as it feels cruel and unfair to use the term.  This is more so as, subjectively, no film can be the worst even if on a large consensus if it can be proven to have one fan. These for me are those that a) were undermined by the weight of expectation or b) really missed the mark badly. Also, yes, I covered Cats (2019), which has already become a notorious failure, but it still did not get on the list. I would gladly revisit the film, and I have to confess to even having fond memories of it, all in spite of it having been dreadful on that viewing and the fact that, trekking to a cinema to see how bad it could be, it led to me being stuck walking home at night afterwards. This is all because of how "jellicle cats" can sometimes pop into my thoughts unexpectedly.

As for the list itself, morally the remake Swept Away should have taken the award. For its first half it is a serviceable, if inferior, take on Lina Wertmüller's intentionally uncomfortable film on gender politics from 1974. What Guy Ritchie and then-wife Madonna's English language remake did afterwards, with a tale of a chauvinist working class man and a spoilt wife of a rich man stuck on an island together, is wrongheaded and even kept in the mock attempted rape scene for what is now meant to be a sincere tale of doomed romance. The film is one of the most tone deaf projects one could ever conceive, full of utterly putrid syrup in the midst of it which stinks of complete egotism.

But, you have a lot of competition. Xtro II is a rare case of a film even its director hates, belonging to that category of films borrowing from Alien (1979) its entire plot but not doing anything remotely of interest. Double Down (2005) was my first Neil Breen film, and yet even as a defender of very divisive low budget work, it was effectively Breen making himself a hero by way of a convoluted hodgepodge of humanitarian ideas and not a lot of interesting content; the only interesting aspect is that, with its monologues from its director-start over metaphorical imagery, this was effectively non-budget Terence Malick is you think about it hard enough if no way near as good. Blubberella (2011) was unfortunately my first Uwe Boll film on the blog, and whilst it seems pointless to punch down a director everyone else punched down, the sad folly of making this shot-by-shot parody of another of his films, but without preparation or time as research suggests, lead to him fall into some egregious and even tasteless jokes. Blackface tastelessness to be blunt, which should have been idiotic back in 2011, but is worse now to consider in 2020.

The Summer of the Massacre (2011) sadly takes the first position however as, whilst finding a soft spot of special effect creator and director Joe Castro, the film was an unbearable experience above the others. A slasher film anthology with the record for the highest body count has one huge artistic choice, to be as nihilistic and grotesque as possible, that made it tediously awful to sit through. Even if the artistic style, a Bosch-like hell of post-computer effect collage, is compelling to witness, the attitude and tone became unendurable without any point to it. It is a sad award to give out as a result as another film on the list involving Madonna should have won it, but this sadly turned out worse.

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The No-Budget Award

Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010)/Crazy World (2014)/Bad Black (2016)

Honourable Mentions: Hallucinations (1986); Terror Toons 3 (2015); Scary Movie (1991); Death Metal Zombies (1995)

The title might offend some, who might prefer "Micro-Budget", but this award is named after the podcast No-Budget Nightmares, which was entirely responsible for my interest and open-mindedness to this type of cinema, to which this award is hence a tribute to the show.

Why do I watch these films? Unpredictability and their sense of hard earned filmmaking on little budgets. Death Metal Zombies (1995) is the stereotype for what this type of cinema is, a shot-on-video zombie film with homemade production and goofiness, but it lives up to that title and even managed to get a soundtrack of actual death metal to boot. In contrast, it can be debated that Scary Movie (1991), not to be confused with the 2001 parody film, is not as low budget enough to qualify, but it would be a shame to not give this long unavailable regional production one nod in this series of posts. Entirely built around a single idea, that there might be a killer hidden themselves in a haunted house and a character as our lead who is already of a nervous disposition before he learns of this, Scary Movie works as a low budget horror film. Not complex in narrative, not unpredictable, but idiosyncratic and moody and all you could wish for.

In complete contrast, Terror Toons 3 (2015) really is the kind of mad production that is an acquired taste, in the same grimy ballpark of The Summer of the Massacre (2011) but thankfully, from Joe Castro as well, contrasting that earlier production by being so much intentionally stranger and having a sense of humour, even if it is a grotesque humour that will put some people off. Meanwhile, Hallucinations (1986), in which three young men, with no other resources or cast members, shot this horror film on video at home, is both strange but also has everything that encapsulates these films' instinctual motto, that they originated from ordinary film fans like myself managing to put a production together regardless of their restrictions.

But one film director and his home community above every other has to take the prize. A studio which takes that motto, and became an honest-to-God fairy tale that happened in real life, a timeline shown in three films taking the prize all directed by Nabwana (I.G.G.) Isaac Geoffrey Godfrey.  Never was there a beautiful tale, than the community of Wakaliga, and their Wakaliwood studio, throughout the 2010s than when Who Killed Captain Alex, a low budget action film made in a community where they literally had little resources, exploded online in popularity and a sincere love thankfully took over than irony. The timeline is skewered as Crazy World came after Bad Black, because it was premiered in a final version in 2019 at the Toronto International Film Festival, but they show the progression and love I.G.G. clearly put in his work. So this award rightly goes to the commandos of Ugandan action cinema.

 

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Best Production

The Lighthouse (2019)

Honourable Mentions: Serial Experiments Lain (1998); Psycho (1960); Don't Hug Me. I'm Scared (2011-16); In Fabric (2018)

Also it is worth mentioning is Our Lady of the Turks (1968) and Horse Money (2014), two wildly different types of films that could have easily taken this award, which as my award is a nod to all aspects to production from the cinematography to the production design itself.

All the films that have gotten honourable mentions are such a diverse selection, which shows just what "production", and the craft of everyone involved in any project, can entail and should not be ignored. From all the various forms of animation used in Don't Hug Me. I'm Scared to Psycho in its original context, a risk in Alfred Hitchcock's career that required him to film in monochrome with the camera crew from his television work, to Peter Strickland's alien and weird horror film with tinges of British hauntology and Serial Experiments Lain, the one TV series on the list, being an anime series which was allowed to be experimental whilst working on a television schedule, this is a fascinating handful to watch to see how, in live action and animation, diverse and unique productions can look.

The winner The Lighthouse really encapsulates this in creating its own world, a pre-20th century reality, of nautical Lovecraftian horror which went out of its way to even use archaic camera equipment from the early 1900s to having a 1.19:1 aspect ratio. Again, any of these projects could deserve the award; The Lighthouse admittedly wins because somehow this film was released by a major American studio in 2019 and was a success without compromise to its vision.

 

 

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The Weirdest

And now for one of the indulgent awards, as I have always adored the Weirdest in cinema, and culture in general, and I relished this as much as last year to write even if structually this looks very different on page to the other awards.

How do you define the weirdest in a blog about the abstract? A question asked in the first award posts, but the answer was simple then and now - those works which truly baffle in their existence, whose histories are peculiar, or are weird by purpose or accident. It is an award where some of the most abstract and even surreal work might not even appear, because this list is designed for the "weird" of what I have covered is less about the mood, but the stories and contexts for work that baffle the mind instead.

It is also the category with probably the biggest list of candidates, leaving some off due to the size of the list.  Our Lady of the Turks (1968), Camelo Bene's first film, is a strange and surreal odyssey, but I would consider that it is not "weird", even if it does have the peculiar sight of Bene injecting his own buttock in the middle of the outdoor section of a cafe. The Bride of Frank (1996), a true obscurity of no budget filmmaking from New York City, is practically as rancid as most of its content deliberately is, a peculiar slice of tangent ridden weirdness. And Rinse Dream's Nightdreams 3 (1991), whilst will be seen as a disappointment after the aesthetically rich adult films like Cafe Flesh (1982), is still the less conventional porn film you could watch in its continuous repetition and extreme level of limited production value. It also says a lot that Xtro (1983), Hallucinations and Ticket of No Return (1979) did not even get on the list either, and many viewers not used to this type of cinema would find them strange.

 

15. Speaking of adult films, what does one say of Batpussy (1973)? No one can confirm who made it, what the actual names of the amateur cast are, and how it came to be. The only way someone has possibly confirmed where it was made is due to a tattoo on the lead male's buttocks. All we know is that it is likely the first parody adult film, in which Batman is now a woman who travels by way of Space Hopper, that the main couple's bickering is a little bit close to home, and that a print was discovered in an old closed cinema. That print became an obsession for the company Something Weird Video, and now we can watch it in a 2K Blu Ray Restoration. If that isn't weird, what is?

14. Speaking of inexplicable, explain how television studio NBC came to creating Steel Justice (1992) as a television pilot? A cyberpunk dystopia is one thing that can sell as a premise, with a stereotypical moody male cop, but then you add an ageless wizard trying to teach him how to be able to grow small things into large things. Then add that the cop has a toy robot dinosaur possessed by the soul of his slain son, which when turned big in the conclusion is an excuse to use real life spectacle Robosaurus as existing spectacle, a literal machine-vehicle hybrid used in spectacle shows to crush cars and project fire from its flamethrowers. Not surprisingly, this did not get a full season, but God only imagine how they would try to write episode 2.

13. Terror Toons 3 (2015) came as a grimy, sick and compelling bizarre surprise. I revisited the original 2002 Terror Toons out of a curious sense of nostalgia, fully aware I hated the film when I watched it a long time ago, but softening to its existence as an adult regardless of it not being my cup of tea. Thanks to Terror Toons, its director Joe Castro, an obscure and prolific micro budget director who works as well as a practical effects designer, is in my radar to watch as much of his work as possible and cover it, particularly out of a growing fascination with individuals like him who make many films over the years in this territory. It is also as much because of this perplexing mash-up of a film-long massacre of a hospital, and a perverse take on Little Red Riding Hood with added werewolf cock and homoeroticism, a concoction that drilled itself into my brain. The aesthetic alone, an early Carcass grindcore album cover for Saturday morning cartoons and done with digital collage, is something you have never witnessed.

12. Managing to be even more horrifying - how has an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats (2019) managed to get onto this list? Oh boy, how could it not, from the controversy surrounding just a trailer, to director Tom Hooper's misguided idea to create digitally realistic cats sculpted from their human cast members, to the actual experience of the production when watched. From the fact the premise is twisted the longer you think about it - a death cult when humanoid cats win the chance to die in a talent contest - to all the sudden intrigue of an alternative early cut with the buttholes on the cats un-erased which became a Twitter phenomenon in early 2020, I find myself every time thinking about Cats being amused and delighted by it. Rarely do mainstream Hollywood disasters really qualify as strange, but this managed to be a rare example of such.

11. Continuing on with music, Broken (1993) in its mere existence is strange. When a famous musician, Trent Reznor, feels so trapped in his record contract he felt he had to have a fake snuff film horror short commissioned to accompany his angry industrial metal album, it is not something you commonly see. Even the history and elusiveness of the creation when you include it in the short's narrative, that it has never been properly released or how many times Reznor has been aware of it being "leaked" over the decades, (secretly by himself in many cases), adds to its bizarre nature as a production.

10. Raul Ruiz deservedly gets a place on this list, and like last year when he got on this list, it is two films for the price of one. The Golden Boat (1990), one of his only American films, is bizarre as a dreamlike and dark tale of a killer who doesn't die, shoes in piles being discovered on the streets of New York City, and Ruiz taking clichés from American television and soap operas and mangling them. The Wandering Soap Opera (2017) structurally has a poignant but added oddness; long after his death in 2011, Ruiz is still having films premiere in film festivals because he made so much and because his widow Valeria Sarmiento, bless her as an accomplished film maker in her own right and editor of many of his productions, is uncovering unfinished projects and releasing them in a final form. This, a project from a filming workshop, has the added poignancy of being the first time he stepped back on Chilean soil, an exile from his homeland, whilst still being as strange as The Golden Boat, between people developing eggs out of their armpits and soap operas about people watching soap operas.

9. Even Raul Ruiz though might have found All This and World War II (1976) perplexing though. As it is a 20th Century Fox project, unless the rumours are true the prints were destroyed after its theatrical run, this is another title that the House of Mouse are going to sit on and do nothing with. It would be difficult to try to sell why it even came to be mind though, and I would not be surprised that, even if Hell froze over and we got a public release, many would watch it without scratching their heads. Blame the attempt to cash on Beatlemania, even into the seventies after the Fab Four split up, as it led to their music being rerecorded by the likes Rod Stewart or Keith Moon, spliced to a visual archive history of how World War II started and ended. It is one of those projects I cannot believe actually existed. Rob Stewart barking Get Back whilst Nazi goose-stepping footage is manipulated to make them look like they are retreating is at least creative; trying to explain I Am The Walrus covered by Leo Sayer over the Pearl Harbour attack or the Americans in the Pacific War in combat is absolutely perplexing, and that is just one such example.

8. Tusk (2014) is another "mainstream" film which is strange in its existence. If it had just been an ironically bad film as I had been led to presume it to be, where Kevin Smith came up with the premise on an episode of podcast, getting fans to vote whether to make a walrus based horror movie or not, then I would have not covered Tusk unless out of morbid curiosity. That he decided to make a film that is sincere in its darkness, both in the gruesome practical effects and the psychological drama it involves, but also has an extended dialogue about poutine causing extreme diarrhea is a juggling act that got the film on the list.

7. Sincerely made and entirely without potential irony, Surviving Edged Weapons (1988) is an instructional training video for police officers about tackling knife and bladed weapon attacks. Not a parody, an actual instruction training video few might know of, and I only know of because some people have created a little cult around it. The testimony is sincere, and it should be respected for its thought and emotion on the subject. The video also starts with a caveman shanking another one with an edged weapon and gets stranger from there, hence why it is here. From unexpected Satanic panic set pieces to a literal wig splitting, this instructional video is compelling as much as cult film viewing as it has to be admired for its heart on its sleeve.

6. Some may consider it cheating to include an entry from last year's class on this year's category again, and next year I am banning rewatches from these awards. Before that rule comes into play, let us cheat once because last year I mentioned how I was still thinking of the web series of Lasagna Cat (2007-2017), feeling my review back then (multiple parted too) was not good enough and deciding to return to the project here. Here I can close the book on this massive Fatal Farm project, still in hindsight on of the most ambitious and peculiar projects for the web you can find, in its ambition in the second season, that came ten years later out of the blue, to a five plus hour final episode which ends on a gruesome reincarnation metaphor for the Garfield newspaper strip. It is something so magnificently unique it does deserve to cheat and appear twice. 

5. On the Air (1992) managed however to be even weirder from merely a few episodes because, whilst he only directed the first episode and wrote the last, it is a cancelled David Lynch television series where he was allowed to make a comedy. It has all his idiosyncrasies and peculiarities but with a new touch that, after starting the series on a high in the pilot, his Twin Peak era collaborators had to try to follow him. They managed to, and with increasingly added numbers of ducks along the way, this comedy set on a ninety fifties variety show is weird.

4. Following from this, the next two entries are the micro budget oddities. Wicked World (1991), which has gained a Blu Ray release from American Genre Film Archives, is a problematic film at times, trying too much in its extremity and with a dated view on political correctness, but from the lead actor of Things (1989), this Canadian exploitation production is a strange production. Built over multiple decades, cut and placed together with an erratic pace, and an end credit sequence as prolonged as the choking sequence from Hip Hop Locos (2001), it became one of the highest ranked films this year in terms of the Abstract Rating and for good reason.

3. Just beating it however is Love on a Leash (2011), also from an actor who on her own imitative created a shot on digital film, as erratically put together but from the 2010s in which a princess and a frog fairy tale is depicted with emotional whiplashes, incredible amounts of darkness before you get a happy ending, and an annoying jokey voice over for a talking dog.

2.  In terms of a premise that managed to stand higher above everyone else than this however, Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998), in which he remade Alfred Hitchcock's seminal thriller shot-by-shot, is undoubtedly one of the strangest projects to have ever been executed. It is a deeply flawed, baffling and yet a production which, as someone who admires the original film but does not consider it Hitchcock's finest, has a compelling nature to it trying to update not only the premise but update it in (almost) exact replica as a cinematic séance. Again like Cats, but a significantly better film for all its failings, this is a rare Hollywood production which does confound in its existence.

1. What is the only thing above it and everything else, the project whose history is so weird that it wins the award as well as built its notoriety over the years before I encountered it? One of the most notorious and strangest productions to have come from mainstream American television, in which the king of gritty cop shows, executive producer Steven Bochco, decided to make another for the new decade of the ninety nineties but make it also a musical. When Cop Rock (1990) plummets, it is embarrassing, but when it succeeds, it is spectacular. Trying to still tackle police corrupt and crime in Los Angeles, uncomfortably prescient to the Rodney King beating and following riots that would take place in Los Angeles only a few years later, it is ambitious with one of its main plot threads being a corrupt cop shooting an African American suspect dead, but also has songs shown in elaborate dance sequences between ballads to hip hop. Even today due to the unfortunate issues we are still tackling in terms of racism and the place of police, this show has managed to stay relevant, even if there is also a song about selling babies on the black market. The contradiction makes it still peculiar to sit through, and when it was good, I found it deserved so much more praise than it ever got back in its day.

 

To Be Continued....