AFM: SEE THE VIDEO SHELVES OF THE FUTURE

The American Film Market is coming from November 2-9 and it's the week when distributors pinch, squeeze, weigh and check the teeth of potential new acquisitions. Movies preen and turn on the runway, stand on their pedestals and strike a pose. Everyone gets excited about things like the US premiere of SHA PO LANG, or the screening of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's LOFT, or the 30-minute Thai reel that'll contain footage from the new Tony Jaa film, SWORD. But what about the other movies? The ones no one's heard about? The ones that'll turn up on the shelves at Blockbuster in eight or nine months? For your reading pleasure, here's a listing of what looks weird, cheap, off-beat and potentially fun:

DEEP SEA MONSTER: REIGO - a Japanese WWII, giant monster movie with a very, very long trailer featuring lots of silly hats. The plot description: "A heartrending love story that sinks into the beautiful blue south seas ... the battleship Yamato is confronted with a monster." Stick around for the end of the trailer when Kabukiman shows up out of nowhere.

1942 - THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT meets R-POINT in a Japanese movie about soldiers left behind in the haunted Malaysian jungle with one cameraman filming it all on scratchy old 8mm film. Check out some of the direct shot lifts in the trailer.

IN THE POOL - just what everyone needed: a neurologist who took lessons from Patch Adams. See the wacky trailer that almost makes it look good.

INNOCENT SEVEN - this one actually sounds good: mean parents take their kids to a summer camp where the brats will be sold to the black market for their organs...and it's a comedy.

TOMIE: BEGINNING & TOMIE: REVENGE - numbers 5 and 6 in the Tomie series...nuff said.

THE WIG - a Korean movie about, you guessed it, a haunted wig. As the B-52's would say, "What's that on your head?"

SCARED - a Thai flick whose catalogue synopsis speaks for itself: "A group of freshman are required to undergo a series of tests and games before they can enter the University. One by one the students begin to die. The price of their education is death. Pay to learn. Learn to pray. They're dying to get a good education."

HELL - Thai documentary filmmakers go to Hell. Let's hope they stay there.

Sorry to pick on the Japanese movies so much, but there were more of them there than anything else. Of course, some of these may be undiscovered classics, so prepare to have my opinion change when I actually see them.