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What weird shit have you watched recently: part three

Janina Matthewson

• 5 min read
Still from animated short showing a male and a female stick figure standing on scaffolding looking at an angry sky
World of Tomorrow

Posts about weird shit will continue until morale improves. Morale will not improve whilst the horrors continue.

Sometimes all you can do in the face of a world descending ever further into chaos and strife is watch someone's fucked up art. So here we are again. More weird shit 2k26. More weird shit forever.

I've already talked about Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching (free on YouTube) and if you have not watched that recently, I must insist you watch it. But what else is there, what other weird shit have I been watching recently?

Still from Dark City showing Jennifer Connolly dressed in black, looking back over her shoulder to where a creepy man in a black coat and fedora is standing outside the window.
Dark City (1998)

I keep forgetting I watched Dark City (1998) and when I remember I'm still not entirely sure it was real. It's a very strange SciFi noir that I don't know how to describe without spoiling. It's both basically The Matrix made on five dollars and nothing like The Matrix. Rufus Sewell is there, and that's always a good time. It's not exactly good, but it is a weird fever dream, and sometimes that's what you need.

Still from Kind Hearts and Coronets showing Dennis Price in the forest holding a hunting rifle.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) feels like it's primed for a great remake and it's disappointing to hear that the remake (How To Make a Killing) is mediocre. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm expecting it to be similar to Black Bag – a film that needed to be vicious and was merely insolent and self-satisfied. Kind Hearts is vicious and that is delightful. Tonally it's not quite my vibe – a little slow and staid and way too reliant on the voiceover – but there's so much fun stuff going on.

Still from Stray Dog showing Toshiro Mifune in a white flat cap holding a gun beside Takashi Shimura. Both men look off to the right.
Stray Dog (1949)

We watched High and Low (banger) last year ahead of Spike Lee's remake (bad) and since then we've been trying to watch more of Akira Kurosawa's noir. Stray Dog does one of my favourite noir things: have a detective become obsessed with something no one else really cares about. In this case, it's his gun, which a pickpocket steals from him. From there its a meandering search to get it back, a tour through the consequences of it being stolen, and the consequences of him refusing to let it go. Also Toshiro Mifune simply the most handsome man ever to live, maybe?

Still from Redux Redux of Michaela McManus standing in the desert watching a man burn alive.
Redux Redux (2025)

Full disclosure: I did not love Redux Redux. But I appreciate the swing. It's an indie scifi film about a woman travelling through universes killing the man who killed her daughter over and over again. For me it gets too bogged down in the lore (many such cases) which is a real shame, because it starts really strong and I like to watch women do violence to men.

David Attenborough sits on a beach
Ocean with David Attenborough (2025)

Ocean with David Attenborough isn't weird, necessarily, I mean it's David Attenborough, but worth talking about, worth watching. I think all the more worth it because it's weirdly optimistic for a documentary about how seriously we've fucked the ocean. Also amid the fury at extraction capitalism and the destruction it's wrought on the seabed, there are so many freaky little guys to see!

Still from River showing a Japanese man standing in the street holding a straw broom.
River (2023)

I honestly thought I'd already talked about River but I can't find it and so I need to talk about it now so I can do a follow up. River is a very low budget Japanese time travel movie, written by Makoto Ueda and directed by Junta Yamaguchi. Like, very low budget, like it feels very much like a movie that was just made by some guy on a spare weekend. It's about an inn in the middle of the country that gets stuck in a two minute time loop. It's very fun and very charming, but not quite as good Ueda and Yamaguchi's previous film:

A Japanese man holds an Apple monitor showing his own face in two iterations, while two other Japanese men look up
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020)

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is also about time travel in the extremely short term. A guy who owns a cafe realises that the monitor in his flat upstairs is connected to the monitor in the cafe downstairs two minutes in the future. He tells his friends, hijinks ensure. It is also so low budget it feels like it was just made by some guy on a free weekend, and because it feels like that it really shows how really all you need is a thoroughly thought out script.

Still from Wings of Desire showing Otto Sander sitting on the shoulder of massive gilded statue of an angel.
Wings of Desire (1987)

We've been on a Wim Wenders kick since Perfect Days and Wings of Desire was showing at the Prince Charles, a delightful confluence of events. It's hilarious to me that someone tried to do an english language remake of this and ended up with City of Angels – an off brand Nicholas Sparks romantic drama – when the original is so unconcerned with plot. More than anything else, it's a study in the fact that human beings are fascinating. Every single one of us, worthy of attention and compassion.

A traumatised looking stick figure with a 6 on her head walks through a yellow land
World of Tomorrow (2015-????)

I've mentioned Don Hertzfeldt before, way back ages ago, after watching It's Such a Beautiful Day. We've been meaning to watch World of Tomorrow, his ongoing webseries ever since and we finally did it! Persistence pays off, baby. It's about a toddler who is visited by a clone of herself from the far future, and it is beautiful and funny and melancholy and deeply fucked up. I recommend it! More art that makes you wonder if the person making it is ok in 2k26!