This week sees several new releases hitting shelves from big budget comedies like Due Date and Megamind to smaller films like Fish Tank and Psych 9, but the largest grouping seems to fall under the foreign film heading. Lisbeth Salander gets an attractively packaged trilogy box-set, French gangsters run rampant, a Russian teen fights crime in a flying car, and two flexible women spend a sex and talk-filled night in a hotel room. So yeah… foreign films seem to be the way to go this week. Alien vs Ninja Everyone knows aliens and ninjas are cool, but for some reason no one thought to put them together until now. Not surprisingly, it took one of the creators of The Machine Girl to make it happen. And that association should also tip you off as to the tone and aesthetic of the movie… this isn’t a big budget, brilliantly scripted action pic. But it is a tale of warring ninja clans fighting each other in the woods of Japan until they’re interrupted by the arrival of an alien ship. The aliens onboard look like bipedal dolphins crossed with a bowling ball, and they’re hungry for Japanese cuisine. There’s a rather dull half hour early on, but stick with it for the final 45 minutes or so which is chock full of some ridiculously fun action, solid fight choreography, and some inappropriate touching. Check out my full review here.

The seventh annual Another Hole In the Head Film Festival is currently running in San Francisco from July 8th through the 29th. It’s a genre fest featuring domestic and international horror, sci-fi, and exploitation films, and it just may be the first and last chance to see some of these on the big-screen. There are thirty-two films at the fest this year, and we’re trying to see and cover as many as possible. (And by we I mean me…) Alien vs Ninja – directed by Seija Chiba, Japan; upcoming screenings 7/21 5pm, 7/25 7pm, 7/28 5pm Synopsis: Ninjas battle in feudal Japan (or at least what appears to be feudal Japan), but a fireball across the sky signals the arrival of a much more dangerous enemy. An alien creature has arrived and he’s hungry… for sushi! See, they’re uncooked Japanese people. Anyway, humanity’s future rests on the skills of the Ultra Ninja gang, but they’ve never faced a foe like this before. Check out our review after the jump…

Comic-Con is a fun event for film fans hoping to get their first peek at upcoming blockbusters and the stars behind them, but I’ve always been a lot more partial to film festivals. Why? Because film fests are all about actually watching films. (Yes, I know studios have recently started hosting screenings during Comic-Con but they still number in the single digits and they’re always future wide-release movies anyway.) Trailer previews and scenes are fun to watch at the Con, and while I won’t be attending this month I hope to get back again with the FSR crew next year. But a solid film festival trumps everything the Con has to offer by virtue of the number and variety of films available. The best fest, hands down, is Austin’s Fantastic Fest (which I’ll be eating, drinking, and breathing this September), but it’s not the only one worth watching…