Eight Oddball Movies From 2013
Not every film is a critical or commercial success. Some are just too weird, and that's exactly their appeal. Here's a collection of 2013's most off-beat, pig-filled, bikini-laden, Keanu Reeves-driven movies that are guarenteed to last with the Ain't It Cool News-cats.
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‘Metallica: Through the Never’
Trip, a young Metallica roadie, is dispatched on an urgent mission during his employers' tour. But what seems like a simple assignment quickly becomes a surreal adventure. Through the Never plays like a concert movie spliced with a drug-fueled fantasy, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
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‘Escape From Tomorrow’
Randy Moore's horror-ridden fantasy was shot entirely on DSLR cameras in the middle of bustling Disney World. (Really.) This sci-fi sex dream follows Jim (Roy Abramsohn), a middle-aged dad who ducks his family vacation to follow two giggling French girls through the amusement park. But before long, the Magic Kingdom turns into a manical nightmare.
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‘Oldboy’
Purists complain that Spike Lee's film (not joint – it was a work for hire job) has nothing on Park Chan-wook's 2003 original. But the movie is still something special – and totally off-the wall. Josh Brolin stars as Joe Doucett, a man imprisoned by unknown captors in a motel room for 20 years. On his release he meets Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), a kind woman who nurses him back to health before things get really weird.
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‘Man of Tai Chi’
This Chinese-American martial arts film stars Keanu Reeves – who also directs – as Donaka Mark, the orchestrator of an underground fight club. He recruits Tiger Chen (Tiger Hu Chen), the sole student of master Ling Kong, to fight in brutal, no-rules combat for cash – an offer that presents a major moral conflict for the tai chi prodigy. Fans, meanwhile, are not conflicted – in less than three months on demand, the film has earned a staggering $1.5 million.
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‘Before Midnight’
Single-handedly redefining the rom com genre with this threequel to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, director Richard Linklater reintroduces viewers to star-crossed lovers Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) nine years later. They've both settled into the joys (and pains) of married life, and are on extended summer vacations in Greece. Co-written by Linklater, Delpy and Hawke – a team well known for their precisely-written ramblings – they capture the dynamics of a long-term relationship with a verisimilitude rarely seen on the silver screen.
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‘Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus and 2012’
In this road movie, Michael Cera leaves the complacent George Michael behind to play the highly neurotic Jamie, an American who's obsessed with tripping on the Chilean San Pedro cactus. One night at a party, he asks another Yankee, Crystal Fairy (Gabby Hoffman), to join him. Too bad she's an absurd world-traveler with a penchant for nudity and talking to rocks.
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‘Upstream Color’
Primer director Shane Carruth returns with this sci-fi-ish meditation on the nature of human existence, which stars a man and woman linked together by an ageless parasite that's also destroying their lives. Confused? Carruth characterizes it as the "worm-pig-orchid life cycle." Thanks, pal.
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‘Spring Breakers’
Kids writer Harmony Korine subverts Disney princesses Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez – alongside fresh faces Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine – in this Tampa Bay-set spring break movie. Shot like an art house film with boobs, butts and body shots, the story centers on four girls who rob a restaurant to fund their college vacation. They get into trouble and find themselves at the mercy of Alien (James Franco), a gun-slinging, drug-dealing rapper who wears cornrows and plays Britney Spears on a white piano.