I am not a sports person, so I do not like movies that revolve around the subject. You could say The Novice is about rowing. However this is a very intense experience way beyond what most athletic films have to offer. The tension reminded me of a horror movie at times. Lead actress Isabelle Fuhrman is fantastic in this. You probably won’t like her character much, but it all clicks together in the end. This is a challenging watch, sometimes infuriating. When the credits roll though, I hope you will see it is also a work of seriously thought provoking and original filmmaking.
Not available on Blu-ray.
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This is the second of Sergio Leone’s groundbreaking westerns, which often gets overshadowed by The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I understand why, but I just rewatched For a Few Dollars Morerecently and was blown away. What I love about this movie is that it does not drag at all. As much as I enjoy The Good…, this feels a lot more relentless in its pace. There’s still plenty of artful shots, beautiful cinematography, and emotional scenes, but my interest and attention never wavered. Fantastic acting, music, and intense action sequences make this a thoroughly entertaining experience. It’s a standalone film, not a sequel to A Fistful of Dollars, so give it a watch, or rewatch if you’re like me and had never seen it in its original cinemascope format. This is top-tier sweaty, dark, and violent Anomalous Cinema.
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Kevin Bacon is not a child molester, but he plays one in this movie. It might just be his finest performance too. Bacon is Walter, who is trying to make a life for himself after 12 years in prison, and that guy from Footloose makes you feel just about every emotion in the process. Yes, it’s an uncomfortable ride, but the difficult subject matter is expertly handled by first-time director Nicole Kassell (who went on to work on several excellent TV series). Discomfort can be good, sometimes even great. I rate The Woodsman a 10/10 work of Anomalous Cinema.
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This film is based on the real life criminal Michael Peterson, who became his alter ego Charles Bronson in prison. Nicolas Winding Refn is very hit or miss for me, but this one was a pleasant surprise. The film is weird, dark, violent, and thankfully not as deliberately paced as much of Refn’s other work. I also didn’t really notice Tom Hardy until I saw Bronson. He’d been in several movies before, but he absolutely blew me away in this role. This is 100% pure uncut Anomalous Cinema.
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This is a very good military action film based on true events from the US occupation of Afghanistan. I actually rewatched the full movie before writing this and it remained an intense experience. The first half is mostly plot and character setup, but thankfully none of it drags. The action gets veryheavy around the one-hour mark. After watching The Outpost it’s a wonder anyone survived. On a lighter note, Clint Eastwood’s son Scott and Caleb Landry Jones (from Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral) are both excellent in this.
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I had zero interest in this at first. Then a friend, with admirably bizarre taste, recommended it. Listen to your weirdo friends people! Reality is a dramatization of the questioning and arrest of whistleblower Reality Winner in 2017. The interesting part is that the movie uses the actual FBI audio (and audio transcripts) as source material, in real time. That might sound dull, but it gets into some borderline David Lynch levels of bizarreness. Also the way the filmmakers handled the redacted parts of the transcript was genius. I went in knowing very little about the actual case, which may be the best way to experience this movie. Either way, check out this seriously original work of cinema.
Not available on Blu-ray (Release Date TBD).
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This is a very good, unpredictable, dark comedy thriller of sorts. Two former friends are awkwardly put back together and, since at least one of them is mentally ill, bad things happen. Thoroughbreds will not be for all tastes, as it revolves around two privileged white girls who are arguably insufferable. Thankfully Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy are excellent and made it all work for me. This is also one of the final appearances of actor Anton Yelchin (1989-2016) to whom the film is dedicated – RIP.
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A man’s wife is in an insane asylum, so he gets a job there to try to help her escape. It figures that the oldest movie I love, and one of the weirdest, is from Japan. Leave it to The Land of the Rising Sun to be an early adopter of strange cinema, and to keep cranking it out for almost a century. This was made one year before the first movie with sound, and three years before Un Chien Andalou was released. You’d think that Japanese audiences would have been utterly baffled by this film, but supposedly it was a hit. There’s a ton of unusual imagery, including many beautiful superimposed images and other innovative tricks to replicate hallucinations. The film also features some deep concepts that are expressed without a word. A Page of Madness is simply a work of art that demands to be seen by any fan of Anomalous Cinema.
I’ve desperately hunted for another ‘20s film to recommend on this site. There are several very good movies from this era, but all of them have dull dramatic parts, or other flaws which make them ineligible. Yeah, I know, I know, Un Chien Andaloubut it’s a short, and every art school kid has already forced it under your nose. Unfortunately many silent movies are now lost, there was probably a real mind-blower among them. I truly hope that some weird masterpiece is available that I’ve missed. Here are some 1920s movies, a few rather obvious, that are definitely worth your time if you watch them with patience: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Destiny (1922), Faust (1926), The Hands of Orlac (1928), Häxan (1929), The Man Who Laughs (1928), Metropolis (1927), and The Phantom of theOpera (1925).
Available on Blu-ray from Flicker Alley (search eBay), but the quality seems a little dubious.
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I do not like musicals. I avoid them like the plague. However when asked what my favorite musical is, I never hesitate to say Marat/Sade. Supposedly the old Marquis really did stage plays using inmates at the Charenton Asylum. I seriously doubt any of them were as amusing and fully realized as this one, but it’s fun to ponder. I’ve seen this multiple times over the years, including a 35mm print, and own the soundtrack LP. Patrick Magee is one of my all-time favorite actors, and here he plays a perfect Sade. The only reason I give this film a 9 out of 10 is because… it’s a damn musical.
Not available on domestic Blu-ray.
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This is an art film comedy about an ensemble of gastro themed noise performance artists. It has “gory” elements too, but it’s not really a horror film. Need I say this one is definitely not for everyone? Flux Gourmet is the latest from Peter Strickland, the director of the excellent Berberian Sound Studio and In Fabric. It’s deliberately paced, and on the long side, but I found it refreshingly original. The electronic score is fantastic and occasionally heavy and aggressive. This is the most Anomalous movie I’ve recommended in ages, so give it a try.
If you are a fan of Anomalous Cinema, please consider supporting this site by donating any amount (even $1.00 is appreciated) via Venmo @vergeoflight / Cash App $vergeoflight / or Paypal at this secure link. A Paypal account is not required. Thank you.
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