By Andy Gately

Chocolate

The latest martial arts film from Thailand boasts both a female lead and director Prachya Pinkaew, of Ong-Bak fame. It took five years of training to prepare Jeeja Yanin for her starring role as an autistic woman who learns kung fu from Bruce Lee flicks to exact revenge on the men who ruined her mother. Get there early, and dress accordingly; geek drool may necessitate raingear.

Zack & Miri Make A Porno

Kevin Smith presents his latest comic effort in person, wherein two platonic pals (Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks) decide to ameliorate their mutual financial woes by making an adult film starring… themselves. What could go wrong? Phallic jokes coupled with relationship epiphanies are sure to ensue.

JCVD

Finally, a film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as something other than a kickboxer avenging his evil twin. Instead, he portrays a washed-up old B-movie star. While this may not initially seem like an artistic stretch, Van Damme is, if nothing else, extremely bold in throwing himself into a role which so critically examines his career. And without once threatening to “Double the Van Dammage.”

Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story / The Tingler (Double Feature)

New documentary examining the life and times of the legendary B-movie producer and auteur. Audiences are treated to his classic horror flick The Tingler, complete with electrified seat gimmick that shocks patrons at key moments in the film. Viewers convulsed in fits of hilarity at the film’s dated “frights” are advised to avoid wetting themselves…

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

A screening of this 1972 classic, uncut, in tribute to the 40 year anniversary of the series. Parents expecting more G-rated monkey business showed up with their kids for this fourth installment in the series only to be shocked by its graphic violence, political themes, and apocalyptic tone. Who doesn’t enjoy their political allegory thinly cloaked in furry suits and ape-on-man hate crimes?

The Good, The Bad & The Weird

Ji-Woon Kim (A Tale of Two Sisters) pays homage to Leone spaghetti westerns in this blockbuster from Korea. Featuring Jung Woo Sung in the Eastwood role, Lee Byun Hung (Hero), and Song Kang Ho (The Host, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) as the Bad and the Weird, respectively, this one looks to be a memorably stylized affair.

Donkey Punch

In this horror flick from across the pond, a group of twenty-something’s out for some fun on a yacht let the sex party get a little too rough, and simultaneously birth a new genre: Donkey Punchsploitation. Provocative trailers promise to deliver a night of much entwined nubile flesh plus humor just as black and twisted. But the real question is, will it serve as a frat house cautionary tale, or will it glorify the donkey punch?

Tokyo!

An anthology made up of three short meditations on Tokyo each directed by a non-Japanese filmmaker. Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-Ho, and Leos Carax contribute splashy punk rock vignettes set in the capitol city, affording Western audiences original, noncommercial glimpses of the frenetically paced metropolis.

Your Name Here

One of the more intriguing offerings, this one has Bill Pullman playing America’s greatest science-fiction writer, based on the life of Phillip K. Dick. He wakes up one day inside a world of his own literary invention, which anyone familiar with Dick’s fiction knows is a very bad thing. Expect alternate realities, parallel dimensions, space-time rabbit holes, and amphetamine-fueled paranoid mindf***s-a-go-go.

Fanboys

This one is set in an America few of us may be able to even remember, when the country and, indeed, the world, was living in a more innocent time. This is speaking not of 9/11, of course, but rather to the time before A Phantom Menace was released, back when Star Wars was still cool. Set in 1999, Fanboys concerns a group of sci-fi nerds who hatch a half-baked plan to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal an early version of the film. Written by Austin resident Ernie Cline in the eve of the actual Phantom release, this time capsule received the blessing of Lucasfilm, and as a result features appearances by Seth Rogan, Kevin Smith, William Shatner, and Carrie Fisher.

Muay Thai Chaiya

A period piece set in disco-era Bangkok, this film follows a group of friends as they struggle to prove themselves in the deadly world of underground Thai boxing. A B-movie flick with an A-list cinematographer (Wisit Sasanatrieng – Tears of the Black Tiger) is never a bad thing for genre fans; if only the Drafthouse concessions were as cheap as these thrills.

La Crème

Sure, it’s been winning festivals across the globe, but dig the plot summary: “Under the Christmas tree, unemployed loser François Margin mysteriously finds a jar of face cream that once applied, temporarily turns him into the most famous celebrity in France.” Sold. It practically writes itself.

Behind the Pink Curtain: Japanese Pinku Film Retrospective

Art never looked so good. “Behind the Pink Curtain” focuses on the “Pinku” film, where, in a kind of Roger Corman-esque atmosphere of artistic freedom, up-and-coming Japanese directors are allowed to delve as deep as they dare into the human psyche and experiment with the most transgressional cinema imaginable, provided they deliver the requisite nudity and gore that fans pay to see. The results are some of the most original and bizarrely radical creations in contemporary film. Just ask yourself, can you really afford to miss movies with names like S&M Hunter and A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn?

Ozsploitation Retrospective / Not Quite Hollywood

If Mad Max gets your motor revving, check out the entire wave of lesser-known Australian drive-in fare that spawned that post-apoc masterpiece of ultraviolent pop art. Also includes Razorback, Dark Age, Man From Hong Kong, Turkey Shoot (a.k.a. Escape 2000) and the documentary Not Quite Hollywood, which traces the insider history of the movement.

Deadgirl

When will high school kids finally realize that exploring abandoned sanatoriums is bad for the skin? The horror of growing up is rendered literal by debut filmmakers Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento, with a story about burnout teens looking for diversion and finding instead the hazards of messing with old mental hospitals, and we’re probably not talking asbestos.

The Chaser

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about serial killers, it’s that they just love mutilating hookers. This latest Korean entry into the mass murderer canon, about an ex-cop who must solve the mysterious deaths of escort agency girls, reminds us that this love is universal. What might raise this one above the pack is its status as a critical and commercial darling in its country of origin, and, with any luck, it will soon be showing jaded American audiences nationwide that a serial killer’s affection for prostitute butchery knows no borders, countries or creeds.

Rule of 3

Billed under the “Next Wave” category, this tale of sexual misadventure that takes place all within the claustrophobic confines of a roach motel looks to be a psychological thriller par excellence, and marks the directing debut of cult novelist Eric Shapiro, who will appear along with star Rodney Eastman for a little Q&A. When a freshman effort draws comparisons to a ‘darker Soderbergh or P.T. Anderson,’ it means it’s probably worth your time. And that you’re a sucker for hype.