So this is weird. Leave it to Marilyn Manson to end up making some unusual documentary/trailer/music-video/short-film that it difficult to explain, and leave it to Shia LaBeouf to unexpectedly be at the center of it.

This first flashed on gossip radar two nights ago at the out-of-nowhere film’s premiere, where Manson caught eyeballs because of his date, Narcissister. The female performance artist is most famous for making it onto America’s Got Talent briefly but she’s got a history of sexually-driven, award-winning performance art (some of which resembles George Clooney’s device in Burn After Reading). At the premiere the other night. she showed up in her usual plastic Barbie-style mask and wig, but in a dress that didn’t do much to cover her business (see below, if you dare).

What’s even more unusual than that though, is that the event they were attending (along with celebrities like Jon Hamm) was for a project called Born Villain, which is a book and DVD collaboration between Manson and Shia LaBeouf that covers LA street art and the production of Manson’s next album. The collaboration sprung from Manson’s interest in a short film LaBeouf made for Kid Cudi (who is apparently into unusual music videos as a habit), and apparently the interesting time the two spent together around LA.

Now that the film has screened, the pair have announced a limited edition DVD/Book release that you can pre-order and in turn be invited to a 18-And-Up screening and book-signing on September 1st. There’s only 150 of these things, so if you’re interested and in LA, I’d hop on it. There’s not much for detail about the whole thing, save for a pair of overwrought statements from the two…

“Locals Rule. I think. Odd, living in L.A all my life and taking for granted my environment, my city. But one night, just a few months ago, I bumped into Marilyn Manson at one of my locals and together we crawled the city a bit; where he lived, where I lived, where we ate and drank and were we have been entertained. We traveled the roads to those places on streets that had become too familiar. And then I reflected back on that brief journey and traced that trip (with photographs). I connected buildings and streets, freeways, storefronts and trees with a BORN VILLAIN at my side. Here it is but with a little mood music to set my mood.”

—Shia LaBeouf

“Shia is in some ways an art rapist. He doesn’t take no for an answer. He has a vision that develops rapidly like a virus, and overwhelms you. Not since Hitler has there been such propaganda for something. This time it was my face…”

— Marilyn Manson

There’s also an odd street art campaigning component, which I noticed thanks to chewer Andrew Hawkins.

I’m interested to hear more about this collaboration (which frankly seems to define “pretentious”), and to see what kind of chops LaBeouf shows behind the camera. He’s always come across as an actor with bigger concerns and ideas than just acting, though that has usually manifested itself as smarmy bullshit in interviews. If this ultimately is promotion for an album, I’d expect this to show up online in some form one of these days, so I’ll be keeping my eye out for it…

You can learn more about the origins of the project here (thanks to JoBlo).

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