The Weird Movies Thread
Weird
-Having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
-Deviating from the normal; bizarre.
I've sometimes been accused of having a taste for "weird" movies. Movies that are out of the ordinary, unconventional, surreal. Or simply confusing and bizarre. There's a certain charm with movies like House (the Japanese movie from the 70s, that is) that are just so plain bizarre that you can't help but laugh your way through it. While there are a lot of insanely good movies that are dismissed as, well, weird.
I suppose the most classic example of a weird movie would be the surrealist An Andalusian Dog from 1929. But Paprika is one of my absolute favorites - a surreal, messy and confusing movie, which also makes it the best interpretation of the weirdness of dreams I have ever seen in fiction. Also a lot of gorgeous animation.
So what are some really weird movies you have seen? Good weird, bad weird or however you prefer to define it.
-Having an unusually strange character or behaviour.
-Deviating from the normal; bizarre.
I've sometimes been accused of having a taste for "weird" movies. Movies that are out of the ordinary, unconventional, surreal. Or simply confusing and bizarre. There's a certain charm with movies like House (the Japanese movie from the 70s, that is) that are just so plain bizarre that you can't help but laugh your way through it. While there are a lot of insanely good movies that are dismissed as, well, weird.
I suppose the most classic example of a weird movie would be the surrealist An Andalusian Dog from 1929. But Paprika is one of my absolute favorites - a surreal, messy and confusing movie, which also makes it the best interpretation of the weirdness of dreams I have ever seen in fiction. Also a lot of gorgeous animation.
So what are some really weird movies you have seen? Good weird, bad weird or however you prefer to define it.
Post edited by JoenSo on
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Tekkonkinkreet would probably be considered weird. It starts like a fairly standard urban adventure movie, but goes into some metaphysical themes with strange imagery around the time the "Minotaur" is introduced. There might also be aliens? Its been awhile since I've seen it.
For another piece of surreal Japanese animation, there's always Angel's egg. Very slow and dreamlike movie. I really like it, even if I understand completely if people find it to be pretentious and over the top with its constant religious and philosophical symbolism. Directed by Mamoru Oshii too, the guy who did Ghost in the Shell.
https://youtu.be/r04X-ImELzc
https://youtu.be/a891D5_bGY4
When a depressed woman is burglarized, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves alongside her obnoxious neighbor. But they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K60kfc-k-8g
So my happy place movie is Brain Donors. It's very '90s in some spots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT0S71Sk88Q
It was made by the same people who did Airplane!, Hotshots, The Kentucky Fried Movie, etc. It's technically a remake of the old Marx Brothers flick, A Night At The Opera, with John Turturro in the role of Groucho Marx. There's just a constant stream of ridiculous physical gags and John Turturro just goes from one liner to one liner. The cab driver's the same guy who played the albino in The Princess Bride. Even 25 years after it came out, I find myself quoting it from time to time. Like I can't remember meeting someone, I'll say "Was I drunk and stupid and promised to marry you?" or if I haven't seen someone in a long time "I missed you so much, I went out and bought a woman that looks exactly like you."
Has anybody else seen Barbarella?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xo6FaypcpY
It's just so weird, I don't even know where to start with it. The zero G intro scene was really well done, especially it being the 60s, but damn. What's so strange, is that at the time it was considered liberating for women, because she was a woman that enjoyed sex and was a heroine, whereas today it'd be considered really sexist, since Jane Fonda's naked through a lot of it and a lot of other reasons.
https://youtu.be/Re5LoYKyGT4
There was a great bit the Venture Bros did recently, where 3 different character's coma dreams overlap. Hank's clearly Lando from Star Wars and the Action Man was the guy in the fur suit from the beginning of Barbarella. It was pretty hilarious to hear them compare how similar Barbarella is to The Empire Strikes Back.
CRT emissions are stimulating the pineal gland in some people, causing them to think, see, and do very odd things. Not a very good movie (even for the 1980's), but definitely weird.
If we're going back that far, Altered States is another strange movie. There are some very weird and disturbing scenes in that one. It's pretty good (though a bit dated).
I use to work in a movie theatre in the early aughts. It was a cross between a regular movie house and art house. So while we'd have something like A Beautiful Mind, or Lord of the Rings playing in one of the bigger theatres, we'd have Memento or Donnie Darko or Hedwig and the Angry Inch playing in one of the smaller ones that wouldn't fit more than 50 people. I got to see a lot of weird movies that way.
Charlie Kaufman is known for his odd movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich or Anomalisa. Anything by him, IMO is worth a watch.
Waking Life I remember as a trip both visually and mentally and was the first movie I thought of when I read the title of this thread.
Then you can go through Nicolas Cage's work and find a plethora of weird movies such as Bringing Out the Dead.
I'll think I'll leave it at that for now.
I actually did :P
It's been way too long since I saw Being John Malkovich, but Eternal Sunshine is one of those movies I keep going back too.
But would you define Memento as weird because of it's odd structure. Or Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which at the time, deviated very much from the norm of what a movie should be about.
I own both (BJM & ESotSM) but haven't watched either in awhile either. Although I now want to watch Waking Life again.
Magnolia is another odd film that people don't "get."
And now you have me on a mission to find this obscure movie that follows four people around, and each actor has their own camera that is on the screen at the same time and their camera never breaks away from them so you actually see what they are doing when something else is happening during the movie. It was very chaotic. I will find it eventually.
edit: still looking, but there is also Twin Falls Idaho about conjoined twins.
edit2: Found it. Called Timecode
trailer:
Half the purpose of this thread was that people say I like "weird" movies, as if it was a genre or something easily defined. So I wanted to see what others here found weird.
I did enjoy Memento (haven't seen the others you mentioned) and its unusual structure. I kind of like how it isn't very weird beyond the structure though. It reminds me of Pulp Fiction in that regard, a movie that just wouldn't leave much impact if they hadn't chopped up the scenes and thrown them around to create a whole other dramatic structure compared to if it was all chronological.
@Skatan I just saw that not long ago. That's definitely a good movie for the weird movie list. Keeps ya guessing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7KcWmWL6_Q
Bruce Willis does do crazy really well, and it's funny to see Nick Nolte as a cross dresser. It centers on a car dealership owner played by Willis who's losing his mind. His wife's nuts, and previously tried to kill herself (in the book she succeeded). The problem is he's such a well respected rich man around town, everyone just lets him get away with weird stuff and blowing it off as he gets crazier. I always love anything with Kilgore Trout in it, too, Vonegut's alter ego.
Yes, these are scenes from a real full-length movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa2W6EfM9pA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LlPUxI8QYs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8W9GlQ6h9s
TR