WARNING: The following movies are Art Films. Do NOT expect to be entertained, only enlightened.
L’Age d’Or (1930) The second Dali/Bunuel collaboration. You’ll admire the orgasmic toe-sucking sequences.
Bunuel’s Simon of the Desert (1965). A holy man stands atop a pillar to be closer to God, effects miraculous cures, and palavers with the Devil. Even by Bunuel standards, the ending of this one is pretty flipped out.
Warhol’s My Hooker (1964). Three-quarters of it’s shots of a bronzed muscleboy exercising on the beach, the rest is two queens wrapped in towels sitting on beach chairs watching him. Their bitchy commentary makes up the soundtrack.
Maya Deren’s Meshes of an Afternoon (1945). Sex, death, and repetition, repetition, repetition. But in a GOOD way.
Rene Clair’s Entr’Acte (1925). SEE well-known composer Erik Satie float through the air!
Stan Brakhage’s Sirius Rising (1963). Stan’s dead dog, lying in the woods and decomposing. Shot over a period of months.
Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967). A room. 47 minutes worth of slow zoom into a small photo tacked to the far wall. At one point someone comes in and turns on the radio, which plays part of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” At one point, someone comes in and dies.
Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet (1930). An artist finds that the mouth has come off his painting and attached itself to his hand, so he fellates himself. There are flying lessons, and a hermaphrodite.
I don’t know how weird this one is compared to the others suggested here (most of which I’ve not seen), but Clay Pigeons with Vince Vaughn was pretty “off.” I must say I thought it was hilarious and engaging, despite the fact that I found it pretty disturbing as well.
I am continually amazed by my lack of originality! One of the reasons I don’t post often is that someone always comes up with the quip, info, or comment that I’m formulating as I read the posts.
I thought for sure I would be the only one who’s seen Fantastic Planet and The Last Wave.
I would also echo the more popular Brazil, Repo Man, Lost Highway (disliked it the first time, but I watched it again. The images really stay with you), Naked Lunch, The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, A Boy and his Dog, Jacob’s Ladder, City of Lost Children, The Stunt Man, Freaks
.
I do have a few that haven’t been mentioned -
Parents - Peels back the Thin Suburban Veneer (made me fall in love with that funky live version of Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White by Perez Prado)
I am continually amazed by my lack of originality! One of the reasons I don’t post often is that someone always comes up with the quip, info, or comment that I’m formulating as I read the posts.
I thought for sure I would be the only one who’s seen Fantastic Planet and The Last Wave.
I would also echo the more popular Brazil, Repo Man, Lost Highway (disliked it the first time, but I watched it again. The images really stay with you), Naked Lunch, The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, A Boy and his Dog, Jacob’s Ladder, City of Lost Children, The Stunt Man, Freaks
.
I do have a few that haven’t been mentioned -
Parents - Peels back the Thin Suburban Veneer (made me fall in love with that funky live version of Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White by Perez Prado)
Please excuse me if this one comes through twice, the board crashed when I posted this a while ago, and after clearing my cache and reloading the page I didn’t see it
A Cult classic. It’s a Terry Gilliam film so you know it has to be wierd. This guy is in the future and he hates his job and hates being alone. He gets rescued by Robert Denero who is a airconditioning repairman.
“Reflecting Skin”-
It’s set in some praire in the west and is about a kid who grows up with just messed up adults all around him…there is a lot of symbolism.
“Gummo”-
A “white trash” neighborhood is terrorized by two teenagers. It’s a strange movie that is worth talking about afterward.
“This is my BOOMSTICK! It’s a twelve gauge, double barreled
Remington pump. Next one of you primitives touch me…BAM!”
If you can get past Theresa Russell’s bad acting, then Track 29 is a weird one. It includes a rather young Gary Oldman. Come to think of it, much of Nicholas Roeg’s stuff is on the odd side.
Those who are dancing look insane to those who cannot hear the music.
One-of-a-kind, custom-designed Wally sig available on request.
I’m not sure this is really “surreal” but it is definitely not your run of the mill Hollywood plot line. Basically it’s about an African bushman and his tribe who encounter “civilization” for the first time when a coke bottle falls from a plane (or something… it’s been many years) flying overhead. The bushman decides to return the bottle to the “gods” he is sure it must have come from and encounters Western civilization in his quest to return the bottle. Complete with African bushman dialogue! And once you’ve seen it, you’ll be delighted to know that the movie spawned a couple of sequels too!
–I am Soren Kierkegaard.–
“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.”
Let me tell you that Blood of a Poet didn’t enlighted me. It did, however entertain. I laughed from my belly at the direction and editing. The special effects were quite “special” (that doorway looked nothing like a tub, right?). And they could not have found a worse, more pompous, fem to play the “poet”, could they have? My friend and I were quite entertained mocking him on the screen and “fellating” ourselves with sock puppets with large mouthes drawn on them.
Anyway, it was Cocteau’s first film. . .
He got quite a bit more enlightening with Orpheous. Perfected the journey-through-the mirror bit.
Eve, if you like German Expressionism, I would deeply recommend The Best Film of All Time to you: Herzog’s Heart of Glass!
Thanks, Sake, and I am tickled to the white meat that you have adopted my suggestion for your sig line! Just hope Wally doesn’t find out I’m workin’ his corner . . .
Has anyone mentioned The Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” yet?
evilbeth I agree completely on City of Lost Children. A work of sheer, unadulterated genius!! I love that movie!
I did also really like Brazil, but I don’t think it was as good as Gilliam’s more mainstream 12 Monkeys, which was a really excellent movie, and even had some great acting by Brad Pitt, of all people!
In the same vein as Amazon Women on the Moon, Kentucky Fried Movie would be a good choice for humor.
I’ve heard great things about a movie Cervaise recommended, The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, I’ve been searching for it on video for a long time.
SqrlCub’s suggestion of Akira is a pretty good idea too if you like Anime.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time…
…but then again, so did the atomic bomb.” -Charles Sismondo
Brazil
Prospero’s Books
Pi
Being John Malkovich
The Stunt Man & 21 Monkeys (though I would not call them surreal – definitely strange, though)
Naked Lunch
I would add:
The Shout
Edward Scissorhands
Walkabout (not surreal, but strange and good)
Barton Fink
Good movie, bad pun, and I think I had the same argument.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
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