The popular Midnight Madness Programme at the Toronto International Film Festival has announced their highly anticipated titles for TIFF 2008. Programmed by Colin Geddes, the selections for this year include action flicks, Japanese metal music, a cult documentary, missing people, dead people, serial killers and much more. Keep reading for a preview of the more interesting films of the bunch, which will have festival goers up until the early morning… if they can sleep at all.

The opening night for Midnight Madness brings us French director Mabrouk El Mechri’s, hyper-realistic film JCVD. The acronym stands for the one and only Jean-Claude Van Damme, who stars in the film as… himself. In a world very similar to our own, Van Damme is just a regular guy, down on his luck and trying to make ends meet. He becomes caught up in bank heist and has to prove he can kick just as much ass in real life as he does in his films. With obvious meta references and intertextuality, expect something similar to Being John Malcovich - a look at what happens when celebrity and real life collide.

Japanese film Detroit Metal City promises to confuse and amuse, as the film follows mild-mannered country boy Souichi, who moves to Tokyo to achieve his dream of being a pop star. Unfortunately for him (and lucky for us), he becomes front man for hair/power metal band Detroit Metal City instead! Based on an extremely popular manga title of the same name, the film also features a cameo by Gene Simmons as Jack Il Dark, the metal icon Souichi must defeat in order to obtain ultimate metal supremacy. Rock on Tokyo!

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