When Tim Burton tackles a cinematic subject, you know the results are going to be artistically anarchic. From his fascinating short films Vincent and Frankenweenie, to his big budget takes on Batman and the Planet of the Apes, this iconic filmmaker finds the idiosyncratic soul in almost all the material he approaches. The results are always visually inspiring, quirky, arcane, and wholly original. So it’s a shame that his 1996 epic Mars Attacks! Never reached a wider audience. In an odd twist of fate, the film had the unfortunate luck of following Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich’s more serious interstellar invasion film Independence Day to the Cineplex. Indeed, after seeing the world decimated by pissed off extraterrestrials, Burton’s subtle apocalyptic satire just didn’t seem quite as funny, and audiences stayed away in droves. By doing so, they missed a sensationally subversive sci-fi comedy. Based on a controversial Topps trading card set from the ‘50s and ‘60s, Mars Attacks was an EC Comics approach to the mainstream popcorn extravaganza. It combined riffs from the seminal ‘70s disaster films with lifts from the likes of Stanley Kubrick (Jack Nicholson’s Peter Sellers-like dual roles) to the blaxpolitation classics of the era (complete with Pam Grier and Jim Brown in prominent roles).

But it’s the Martians that make the biggest impression here. Utilizing an early version of CGI, and the extensive physical effects his films are known for, Burton gave what could have been your standard alien bad guys a distinct dimension all their own. Aside from looking exactly like their cartoon counterparts, these slapstick spacemen with the corpse-like demeanor were a constant source of sensational sight gags. In fact, instead of purely playing the villainous antagonists that the cards conveyed, Burton’s ridiculous rogues were a gleeful Greek chorus, mocking the Earthlings in all their human faults and foibles. The Martians manage to play on each and every one of mankind’s sinful slights, from the military’s unreasonable arrogance (as expertly exemplified by the late great Rod Steiger) to the shady sexual secrets inside the corridors of power. Indeed, with the latter, Martin Short gets a chance to shine as a Presidential Aide who attempts to bed a decidedly dim hooker who’s actually an alien in disguise. With its irreverent approach and stellar production design, Mars Attacks! is a marvel. It remains one of Burton’s most slick, satisfying efforts.

It’s sad that Jerry Lewis has become the punchline to an endless array of farcical French jokes. Buried beneath all the old school mugging and silent slapstick schtick is a truly gifted filmmaker whose inventive ideas behind the camera didn’t always translate to guaranteed hilarity in front of it. Want proof? Take the crazed comic’s 1961 forgotten masterwork, the bachelor boychick as maid to a mass of Misses entitled The Ladies Man. Certainly, the clothesline premise seems too disjointed to be potent. It was only Lewis’s second film as a director and it had, at its center, one of the largest and most expensive sets ever constructed for a feature film. Lewis demanded and got a full size, scale model dollhouse-like home built inside one of Paramount’s soundstages, an amazing monstrosity containing four separate stories, a grand concourse, several open-walled bedrooms, a series of serpentine staircases, and an old-fashioned elevator running up the side. Shown in several severe long shots by Lewis (who is obviously proud of the perspective it gives the film), this art department masterpiece is stunning to behold.

Just like David Fincher’s desire to have an entire Brownstone mock-up to work within for Panic Room, Lewis uses this amazing effigy very effectively. Anyone wondering why he is often cited for his technical prowess with a camera and a crane need only look at The Ladies Man to determine the filmmaker’s dexterity. Lewis’s lens moves in and out of his man-made half-mansion, passing around absent walls and shooting through glassless mirror frames to give the story a kind of crazy, fairytale feel. Combining primary colors with intricate artistic touches, The Ladies Man is a marvel to behold, a film rich in visual flair and even more powerful production value. Naturally, any movie runs the risk of being overshadowed by such a substantive stunt. It would take a larger than life star to survive within the labyrinthine layout. Lewis is, of course, that more than sizeable superstar. Thankfully, he avoids the obvious love affair possibilities to keep the film focused on the crazy and the crackpot. The result is something sincere and silly - and undeniably Lewis.

For anyone who thinks that all Goona Goona movies are alike, a trip through this particular Cannibal Holocaust should quiet those concerns once and for all. Far more graphic than other jungle jive, but with an actual message method to its miscreant madness, this is one of the best Italian horror films ever—all for reasons that have nothing to do with terror or the macabre. Ruggerio Deodato has made a geek show as Greek chorus, a strident social commentary on the state of the news media glossed over with gore and gratuitous animal slaughter. While it is truly tainted, sickening stuff, one does not feel as filthy as say the experience of watching the last few minutes of Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox. Both movies trade in the same sort of revolting imagery, but one film wants to play with the parameters of cinema. The other is just out for a splattery good time.

But Cannibal Holocaust isn’t just a gut-munching gross out. Though it may seem odd to say it, Cannibal Holocaust is really a disgustingly dark comedy, a savage satire on the media and the methods it would stoop to in selling a story. Deodato was way ahead of his time here, attempting a Network-like denouncement of filmmakers and journalists who would rather “create” news than simply report it. We laugh at the moments surrounding the fictional Alan Yates and his team of intrepid psychos. It is hilarious how quickly they revert to rape, murder, and disgustingly deviant behavior, all in an attempt to “go native” and have the locals provide them with some sensationalized footage. Sure, the entire last act of the film (where the Blair Witch-style material from their final “adventure” is screened by the TV executives) is laughable, a kind of perverted pantheon of over-the-top elements. But Deodato uses this approach to both condemn and codify his characters. We need villains in this kind of film, and Alan and his pals make the perfect cannibal bait.

That is why Cannibal Holocaust is a much better film than its imitators and inspiration. It is still repugnant and sordid, but most of the misguided grotesquery is in service of a very sound message. The truth is that Cannibal Holocaust is a good movie gunked up by elements that are either unnecessary (monkey brain eating? Please…) or unexplained (the way in which the natives function among themselves is left to a lot of confusing speculation), a true milestone of moviemaking that is sadly slandered for issues far outside the main purpose of the narrative. As long as you are prepared for the repugnance, you will more or less enjoy this graphic, gritty cinematic experiment. Its reputation is well deserved.

What is it about this deliriously dopey 1990 comedy that makes it so endearing? Is it the saccharine statements about child rearing, the touchy feely subtext which suggests that biology and procreation cures all marital ills? Is it the simple story of a misunderstood orphan who finds love and compassion with a kindhearted couple? Perhaps it’s the third act switcheroo that tosses aside the difficult youngster at the center of the story for a bizarre turn by Seinfeld‘s Michael Richards as the world’s silliest serial killer? Maybe it’s the sloppy, stupid slapstick or adolescent level gags. Whatever the case, the reason Problem Child truly holds such a staggeringly sweet spot in all our culpable cinematic consciousness is because of its star, the unbelievably obtuse child actor, Michael Oliver. Never before in the history of underage thespianism has one kid crammed so much staggering badness into a single perplexing performance. From his razor wire voice that’s a combination of ventriloquist dummy and flu-ravaged coloratura, to his cardboard as character trait stiffness, and you’ve got the perfect remedy for the precocious, stage mothered bratling that’s typically featured in such hackneyed family fare.

Oliver’s illogical iconography, honed from haphazard hardwood that’s just as flexible, was a perfect contrast to the late John Ritter’s warm geniality, Amy Yazbeck’s harpy haughtiness, and Jack Warden’s walking fart joke. Together, they melded into the kind of crack comic company that could take a page of dialogue and actually infuse it with energy and excitement. Otherwise, this was a sitcom without the shrewdness, which is all the more odd when you consider that it was scripted by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the pair who wrote the wonderful Ed Wood, The People vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon (granted, they also penned the pathetic Agent Cody Banks and the unnecessary That Darn Cat remake). Even actor turned director Dennis Dugan can’t fully be blamed for the baffling incongruities here, as he went on to helm the amazing Marx Brothers/Three Stooges redux, Brain Donors. No, it’s all Oliver, his penguin in a pottiness shining above and beyond all the other rancid elements in this hair brained humoresque. While the inevitable sequel went for the gross-out, stay with the original Problem paradigm. It offers the most addled thrills for your comedy cache.

Outlaw Prophet is dead brilliant. This low budget journey into the center of David Heavener’s evangelistic mind is as flabbergastingly inventive and bizarre as the universes created by other obtuse auteurs like David Lynch and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Like a cinematic carpet sweeper, Heavener casts his narrative net to the four winds and sweeps every last potential plot point and storyline strand out of Haroun’s sea of stories. In one film we have all of the fictional sci-fi melodramatic filaments: aliens, space, computers, radio waves, telepathy, shape shifting, brainwashing, device implantation, foster children, abandonment, trailer trashing, pre-school runaways, grilling, picking, grinning, sinning, salvation, ham radio, strange frequencies, reality television, ratings, Van Dykes, morphing, mutations, zombies, kung fu, car wrecks, The Bible, the Antichrist, the new Messiah, death, rebirth, angels, demons, disco, adoption and bad children’s programming. Yet somehow, Outlaw Prophet makes all of these divergent elements coalesce into a fine mist of monumental moviemaking. NO, really.

It takes a rare and refined talent to get this all to work, and yet Heavener finds a way to make his cockeyed Christian vision, as well as his rock and roll musicianship and personal faith, serve the final cut. What he manages is a kind of innocent idiot savant con job, an entertainment flim flam where, instead of grade Z direct to video VHS filler, you receive a strangely evocative substitute for typical street preaching channeled through an outrageously original independent movie mentality. This director dives into the same pool of sermonizing - one spicing up the brimstone with all manner of special effects and action figure permutations - that other deity die-hards indulge in. The result is an addled allegory about the second coming of Christ carved out of a reality show spoof, a smattering of Turkish Star Wars, and a whole lot of crappy hair metal. Toss in the Devil as an evil TV producer (there’s a stretch) and a trip to a zealot BBQ and you’ve got the kind of cinematic Stilton that satisfies as much as it stinks.