Weird Anthology

 

 (themoviedb)

WILD TALES-2014-This is a bizarre black comedy anthology Argentine-Spanish co-production with a ensemble vast. A pre-credits story (“Pasternak”) deals with a plane load of passengers all connected by knowing the same man named Pasternak. In the second, “The Rats”, a waitress meets a customer, a loan shark, who drove her father to suicide. She doesn't know what to do but the cook has an idea. In the third “The Strongest”, a man with a flat tire is terrorized by a driver he insulted earlier. Their fight results in a sardonic ending.

 In “Little Bomb”, a demolition expert runs into problems when his car is towed. His wife wants a divorce, he's arrested then fired from his job. When he uses his expertise to get revenge, well things change. The next and most serious one, “The Proposal”, involves a prominent man who wants to pay his gardener to take the blame for his son's hit and run murder. Everything snowballs but this has too much of an abrupt ending. It ends with “Till Death Do Us Part”. At her wedding a bride finds out that her husband had an affair with one of the guests. It turns into a wedding no one will ever forget.

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France

 

 

 

 (imdb)

A TASTE FOR WOMEN-1964-Jerome (Guy Bedos), a writer meets Violette (Sophie Daumier) by accident and falls madly in love with her. Many stupid events happen when he's around including two murders. It all leads to a secret sect that eats women. I found this black comedy from France very annoying and unfunny, but you might like it.

 It's the only feature directed by Jean Leon, assistant director to Alain Resnais on HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR and LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD.

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Simon

SIMON-1980-Some brilliant but twisted geniuses (including Max Wright, William Finley and Wallace Shawn) manipulate the USA fixing TV ratings, creating diseases, doing bizarre research on cross breeding a man with a cockroach and talking about a Nixon substitute who came back from China. They get a lot of info from a computer named Doris (the voice of Louise Lasser) and are kind of like forerunners of modern day computer hackers. They decide to create “an alien” using eccentric college professor Simon Mendolssohn (Alan Arkin) as their guinea pig. Through drugs and a sensory deprivation tank and the help of a phony female doctor (Madeline Kahn) they manage to change him. After he becomes a media sensation with his ego driven demands for making a better world, the group try to destroy him but only wind up losing their intellect to a gas that makes them dumb, dispensed by an Army general (Fred Gwynne). Dr. Becker (Austin Pendleton) the head of the institute wants to kill Simon but he winds up trapped on a rocket-ship headed into space! Simon and his wife (Judy Graubart) run away and are taken in by a religious cult that worships TV. He starts his own pirate network and delivers a crazy philosophy (He's right about many things!). 

This is a great but overlooked black comedy criticizing TV and the obsession with junk culture co-written and directed by Marshall Brickman, a former head writer of THE TONIGHT SHOW who wrote several Woody Allen films (SLEEPER, ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN) . Dick Cavett and David Susskind play themselves.

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Cold

COLDBLOODED-1995-A weird emotionless bookie named Cosmo (Jason Priestly) is, for some reason, promoted to hit-man by his new Mafioso boss (Robert Loggia). He becomes the protege' of the present hit-man named Steve (Peter Riegert) and proves to be better than his teacher. He kills various people (including one of the film's producers Michael J. Fox in a cameo) and falls in love with his yoga teacher (Kimberley Williams). Eventually he wants out of "the company" but doesn't find it that easy to do.

This is a strange black comedy that has some funny moments especially from Riegert who's great but Priestly to me seems to channeling Johnny Depp in his performance and the conclusion isn't very good. Director Wallace Wolodarsky wrote MONSTERS VS. ALIENS.

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