Smash Cut

A movie mash-up that could happen, er, “Only In My Dreams” is ready to chomp up home theaters in the form of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. What’s it about? Read the title! Need to know more? It stars brooding, would-be tough guy Lorenzo Lamas, former pop wonder Deborah Gibson, and a slew of not-so-special-yet-thoroughly-enjoyable creature effects.

Don’t believe me? Feast on the tasty trailer below.

Scott Adkins. Who’s he, you ask? Well, he’s the Brit-born actor/martial artist who plays the monstrous Weapon XI at the end of last weekend’s box-office smash, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. (Nope, that wasn’t Ryan Reynolds.)

But if you ask me, the more unfettered (in name and narrative) Ninja will show off Adkins’s impressive skills much better than that Hollywood franchise. Made on an indie shoestring by fan-fave director Isaac Florentine, Ninja stars Adkins as Casey, a Westerner studying ninjutsu in Japan. His talents prove so formidable that he’s asked by his sensei to go to New York City to protect the legendary Yoroi Bitsu, a sacred armored chest that contains the weapons of the last Koga Ninja.

Ludicrous? A buncha baloney? Yeah, probably, but so was Wolverine, and this flick at least promises to be more action-packed and exciting. Don’t believe me? Then check out the trailer below.

Hisss is the name of the newest film by Jennifer Lynch, a filmmaker who’s probably going to forever be known — much to her bemusement/annoyance/happiness/chagrin — as the daughter of David Lynch. Or, more unfortunately, as the mind behind the critically and commercially lambasted erotic thriller, 1993’s Boxing Helena.

That’s too bad, because Ms. Lynch seems to be blossoming into an interesting artist in her own right, and proof of that metamorphosis is the trailer for her latest effort, a sensuous Bollywood-styled horror/fantasy starring the ravishingly gorgeous Mallika Sherawat as a snake woman who’s able to take on human form and wreak havoc amongst mankind.

The Official Hisss Website doesn’t have much on it yet, but keep checking it for updates in the future. And take a look at the trailer here, thanks to the good folks at Twitch.

Maybe you wouldn’t even want to, if the above one-sheet poster image is any indication.

One Eyed Monster, in case you must know, is a horror/comedy spoof that stars porn legend Ron Jeremy as an adult film star (gee, no stretch there) whose…uh…”member” (hinted at in the title, dontchaknow) ends up terrorizing the production’s cast and crew when it’s possessed by a nefarious alien presence.

Check out the not-particularly-safe-for-work trailer over at the Official One Eyed Monster Website. The film drops on DVD on April 28.

I guess this is almost like an artist going full circle.

Back in 1992, techno virtuoso Moby sampled a cue from the score for weirdmeister David Lynch’s cult smash TV series “Twin Peaks” in a hit club track entitled “Go”.

Now Lynch himself has collaborated with Moby by directing an animated music video for “Shot in the Back of the Head,” a song that appears on the latter’s forthcoming album Wait for Me.

The video might not immediately strike you as “Lynchian,” but stick with it: it’s still pretty cool. I mean, not many people make love stories about a man and a disembodied head.

Check it out below.

Oh-so-indie filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is back with another completely out-of-left-field opus. The Girlfriend Experience is his latest drama that promises to take us on an fictionalized but highly detailed inside look at the intimate escort/call girl “transaction” reflected in the movie’s title. The young lady providing said experience is played by none other than adult starlet Sasha Grey.

Check out the preview below.

Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has always been a combination of daring arthouse filmmaker and boundary-pushing provocateur, whether depicting a melding of sex and religion in 1996’s Breaking the Waves or reveling in the taboo-busting behavior of the protagonists in 1998’s The Idiots, which offered everything from the very un-p.c. mimicry of mental deficiencies through full-on penetration coital footage.

His latest movie, Antichrist, seems equally geared to raise effervescent kudos and angry rants alike. At its heart, it goes into standard supernatural horror territory: a grieving couple (played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) retreat to their cabin in the woods to mend their hearts and their troubled marriage, only to find sinister forces at work which could lead to an even more hellish existence. Sure, plot-wise it could be right down there with 2006’s remake of The Omen, but as the new Antichrist trailer shows, von Trier might be willing to cross some Hollywood-safe bounds that could make the film as edgy as one we’d normally expect from him.

Watch the preview below.

Some of ya’ll may not realize it, but master weirdo director David Lynch has a filmmaker daughter, Jennifer Lynch. The reason why you may not know of Jennifer’s existence is that she hasn’t made a movie since 1993, which was when she was basically booed out of theaters with her not-so-auspicious debut, the psychosexual thriller Boxing Helena. However, as middling as that film was (I personally wouldn’t consider it a total disaster, but it was hardly unnerving or profound either), it’s surprising to me that Ms. Lynch basically dropped off the face of the filmmaking planet.

Until now.

Surveillance marks her return to the big screen, and she even brings along her pop’s “stamp of approval” via his Executive Producer credit. In addition, Bill Pullman, who headlined David Lynch’s moody, phantasmagoric 1997 effort Lost Highway, is along from the ride.

Scheduled for VOD on May 29, along with a June 26 theatrical run, Surveillance seems to truck within relatively standard, genre-safe boundaries: a couple of Feds are investigating some brutal murders, and must uncover the truth that lies hidden within the Rashomon-style distortions from different eyewitnesses to the horrifying event. But if the trailer is any indication, the movie should plunge viewers into mindscapes mirroring the surreal, unsettling realms for which Daddy Lynch is famous. Surveillance also stars Julia Ormond and, one of my favorite actors, Michael Ironside.

You can watch the trailer here.

Back in November of last year, I blogged about one of unpredictable Canadian indie director Bruce McDonald’s newest efforts, a foray into horror cinema called Pontypool. The trailer I linked at the tail of that posting basically emphasized generic “horror” bump-in-the-night kinda stuff, but considering it’s Bruce McD. — a quirky filmmaker if there ever was one — I figured it was probably a tad misleading.

My gut reaction seems to have been on target as a newer preview promoting the film’s impending release seems to play up more of the “semiotic”/language-driven side of the work, though not in a pretentious or off-putting way. The movie’s take on the “zombiefication” of people — via a virus that’s seemingly spread by the English language! — carries an added punch considering that the protagonist is a yapping, Pontypool-based radio DJ covering the mass reports of escalating carnage. As a result, he is, quite possibly, spreading the “disease” simply by doing his job.

Take a look at the new theatrical trailer here. Pontypool is slated to open on March 6 in limited release.

Back in 1961, a film distributor dubbing itself the Art Theater Guild started up in Japan to bring edgy European cinema to the country’s masses. I guess the organization — which came to be known as the ATG — got bitten by the movie-making bug and found influence in the esoteric foreign fare it released, because in 1967 the Guild started to independently produce its own feature films.

The movies made by ATG were innovative, experimental and quite often taboo-busting, dealing with a myriad of controversial subjects including incest, homosexuality, and anarchy. Some of Japan’s most highly-regarded directors, such as the always provocative Nagisa Oshima and the avant-garde Shuji Terayama, had their first tastes of international recognition through the work they made for Art Theater Guild. And yet, the distributor/production company is still relatively unknown, even in its native Japan.

The daring folks at New York’s Japan Society are hoping to rectify that oversight, starting today, February 18, with their series “Shinjuku Ecstasy,” which is named for the ATG’s main theater, the Shinjuku Bunka, which allowed countercultural artists of all stripes to gather, create and exhibit their ground-breaking work.

The series runs until March 1, and you can go here to check out the schedule and buy tickets. Some of the highlights include the groundbreaking 1969 queer cinema feature Funeral Parade of Roses (pictured at the top), and 1971’s rebelliously-titled Throw Away Your Books, Let’s Go Into the Street, which probably deserves your time and money just for its name alone! You can toss some molotovs and let flashbacks melt your brain while you watch the psychedelic English-subtitled trailer for the latter here.