By Matt Mueller Culture Editor Published Aug 21, 2014 at 12:36 PM

Late night is looking bright, as the Milwaukee Film Festival announced its 2014 selections for its Cinema Hooligante program, a midnight mix for fans of all things cult, crazed and – considering the after bedtime showings – caffeinated. 

This year's lineup is the most diverse since the program's initiation, featuring everything from classic comedies to a bloody brutal action film to a mind-boggling romance to Cinema Hooligante's first anime feature to a movie where a young girl eats unmentionable things (amongst other unpleasantries). 

Here are the eight picks:

  • "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb": On its 50th anniversary, the Milwaukee Film Festival and John Axford – former Brewer closer, current Pittsburgh Pirate reliever and permanent cinephile – present Stanley Kubrick's brilliantly black satire in beautiful 35mm. 
  • "Mood Indigo": The latest film from legitimately visionary director Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") tells the story of a romance turned complicated after the woman (Audrey Tautou) is diagnosed with a water lily growing in her lungs. Typical.
  • "Patema Inverted": Cinema Hooligante's first anime feature focuses on a society split between people who've lost their gravitational pull and dig themselves underground to  prevent floating into the sky and those above ground who cannot look up out of fear of the underground dwellers.
  • "The Raid 2": In case you missed it when it briefly came out earlier this summer, "The Raid 2" is a martial arts/gangster epic in which a whole ton of people get brutally kicked, punched, stabbed, kicked again, shot and kicked one more time just to be safe. It's pretty glorious.
  • "This is Spinal Tap": Arguably the greatest rock 'n' roll movie of all time hits the Milwaukee Film Festival stage. Witness the might and majesty of "Stonehenge" in 35mm.
  • "Time Lapse": A bendy time-travel thriller in which three friends discover a machine that photographs events exactly 24 hours into the future. 
  • "Wetlands" (warning: the linked trailer is NSFW): The raw, unvarnished story of Helen, an 18-year-old German girl who's utterly fascinated by her body, her sexuality and all of the literally messy stuff in between. Milwaukee Film programming manager and Cinema Hooligante co-programmer Jaclyn O'Grady notes, "You'll love it as long as you can get through it without throwing up." Share it with somebody you love, especially family! 
  • "Witching and Bitching": Director Alex de la Iglesia ("The Last Circus") returns to the Milwaukee Film Festival with this bloody comedy about a band of thieves who find themselves, as one does, in a village filled with angry witches with a bloody ancient ceremony to fulfill. 

For those wanting an extra hit of Hooligante, the Milwaukee Film Festival and Milwaukee Record will be hosting Bloody Sunday on Sunday, Sept. 28 from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. at The Hotel Foster. The event features Bloody Mary specials, free cold pizza and horror movies on repeat.

The Milwaukee Film Festival runs Thursday, Sept. 25 through Thursday, Oct. 9 at the Oriental Theater, Downer Theater, Fox Bay Cinema and Times Cinema.

Matt Mueller Culture Editor

As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.

When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.