Just a STRANGE Movie

[RobertScorpio]

Are there movies out there, that you have seen, that are just...well...strange. You know, you see it, and you are left with the thought "What the hell was that?"

I saw one such movie YEARS ago when it came out. I had forgotten until it was on MAX HDTV last week or so. Its called AFTER HOURS. Its about some dude (played by Griffen Duhne?) who lives a nerdy life. He meets this girl at a diner (very cute and young Rosanna Arquett) and agrees to meet her at her house to buy one of her roomate's paper weights. Huh? Exactly my point!

Well..the next thing you know he is stuck in this crazy area of New York trying to stay out of the clutches of a crazy mob that thinks he has been breaking into their homes, stealing their stuff...

This movie is crazy, and yeah, most likely not SCIFI. But it has such as TWILITE ZONE feel to it, why not???

What strange movies have you seen that really defy all attempt to make sense of (Godzilla vs Gigan does not count!)

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Sephiroth]

Paprika, it's a movie about a dream thief, i thought i was having an acid flashback about halfway through the movie

 

[Temis the Vorta]

After Hours is a very good movie but not really strange. You want strange, check out Ken Russell's movies like Salome's Last Dance or The Lair of the White Worm. Or Peter Greenaway: The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and Her Lover or A Zed and Two Noughts. Also: Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.

And there's always David Lynch.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Ahh, After Hours, one of the quintessential underappreciated gems from the 80s. And a Scorsese, no less! I once wrote a lengthy essay about it, and it's still somewhere in my movie blog, but hey, the blog's German - so linking to it would be rather pointless.

So you'd like a taste of the strange?

Temis recommends Lynch, and I heartily second that. The Elephant Man and The Straight Story while certainly good are pretty much, well, straight - not strange. All of his other movies are mind-bending to a certain degree. If you want to go the whole hog, start with Eraserhead and that short movie collection that's out on DVD. That'll screw you up good.

If you're into weird, non-Japanese animation, there's a French sci-fi gem from the early 70s: La planète sauvage (Fantastic Planet) by René Laloux.

And if you're like, 'But I wanna be weirded out, like, totally', then watch Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz. Basically the longest fiction film ever made, its first 14 hours are pretty much straightforward, albeit deliberately slow and repetitious. The two-hour epilogue is a masterpiece of surreal cinema that has never failed to throw anybody a curve. You go inside the head of a man driven mad, time and space collapse (Lou Reed on the soundtrack of a film set in Weimar-era Germany), violently beautiful images pummeling you, full of darkest foreboding.

Movies are grand.

 

[Mistral]

Liquid Skye. Its got lesbians, heroin and aliens-how can you go wrong? Oh, and his name is Griffen Dunne, I believe.

Repo Man. or Naked Lunch. Both weird.

 

[Frodo Lives]

No one's mentioned Zardoz, yet?

 

[Shintaek]

IMO, any movie made by Andriy Tarkovsky.

No one's mentioned Zardoz, yet?

Yes Zardoz was one weird movie. Since it's made in the 70s I forgive the confusing (I was 11 when I saw it) plot; but not Sean Connery's red outfit.

After Hours is a very good movie but not really strange. You want strange, check out Ken Russell's movies like Salome's Last Dance or The Lair of the White Worm. Or Peter Greenaway: The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and Her Lover or A Zed and Two Noughts. Also: Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.

And there's always David Lynch.

Heheh thanks, I finally know the title of that weird movie with the painted nude woman after I looked it up.

 

[Forbin]

Griffin Dunn.
Yeah, I kinda remember that film. Very odd. I was definietly into the adorable miss Arquette at the time.

 

[Evil_Kirkneivel]

I'll go for Pi (1998) [directed by Darren Aronofsky] and City of Lost Children (1995) [directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet].

Two of my favorite strange movies.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I think Southland Tales may be the most recent example of such a movie.

 

[Deckerd]

Pi

whoosh, over me.

 

[Kirkman1987]

^

yes, Pi is very good. I was confused the whole time, but fascinated. I love bizarre movies.

I second David Lynch, just about everything he's made is pretty surreal, especially Eraserhead. In addition to his movies, be sure to check out his TV series Twin Peaks as well. It's not as out there as many of his films......it has a plot you can follow, but a very twisted one. It's one of my favorite series. I also reccomend the British sci-fi series The Prisoner.

Crispin Glover's films in his "What Is It?" trilogy are downright offensive in thier oddity. Prepare for topless women in ape masks manually stimulating a man with cerebal palsy.

and Donnie Darko takes a couple viewings.......

 

[Brian]

and Donnie Darko takes a couple viewings.......

.... before you decide that it's completely unfathomable and just stop trying, lol.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

Videodrome's pretty odd.

But the great-granddaddy and master of strangeness is Federico Fellini. Lynch wishes he was as weird and as artful as Fellini. Check out
Satyricon, La Dolce Vita, and most of all 81/2.

 

[Starbreaker]

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes. It's as out there as it gets.

Inland Empire

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Walker starring Ed Harris...seems like historical drama but it's actually all one strange 80's political cartoon/dark comedy. Directed by the guy who did Repo Man. (It makes Repo Man, which I like, look like a normal movie)

But hey, Rene Auberjonois is in it.

 

[Ben Sisko3]

The Last Wave by Peter Weir.
Mulholland Dr. by David Lynch.
Lost Highway by David Lynch.
The City of Lost Children by Caro and Jeneut.
Pi by Darren Aronofsky.
The Navigator by Vincent Ward.

 

[TheArsenal]

And there's always David Lynch.

And of David Lynch there's Inland Empire. A film as strange, opaque and non-linear as anything I've ever seen. Yet, somehow, very good.

 

[TGTheodore]

Videodrome's pretty odd.

Yep, that's the first one that came to my mind.

Wonder if they'll do a remake with Blue-Ray instead of VHS? Won't be quite as weird, will it?

BTW, it is "Griffin Dunne." (As opposed to "Michael Dunn.")

--Ted

 

[melancholymecha]

Paprika, it's a movie about a dream thief, i thought i was having an acid flashback about halfway through the movie

you mean the anime right ? I loved it!

End of Evangelion was bizarre, even after I had it all explained to me it still is.