Iowa directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have been doing interesting work in their young careers, with The Bride Wore Blood their most accomplished to date. This time out, Beck and Woods go for a more stylized vibe in this neo-spaghetti western outing, with a memorable genre-appropriate score and some unusual touches in character and production design.
In less than two minutes, the faux-trailer for Tank, a grindhouse revenge thriller that director Christian Cisneros entered into the Grindhouse 101 trailer contest, is better than most straight to video thrillers that are released on a weekly basis. Sorry Eric Roberts fans!
In the near future, a cataclysm has torn civilization asunder, leaving only spandexed superheroines and bandana-wearing, muscle-shirted thugs to pick up the pieces. Into this shattered world comes Black Talon, a rookie superhero trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s death by teaming up with a pair of more experienced costumed crusaders.
A man who has lost his memory lives on the shore with his lady love; but dark forces, in the form of spies with secret agendas, are closing in on all sides in the wake of a major political assassination. Amit Tripuraneni’s Memories of Tomorrow is a muscular espionage tale with an emotionally tender core, bracketed by a pair of stellar performances.
Gwen is a young professional with a full plate, trying to juggle a boyfriend and a job, and struggling with both; like so many of us, she has to try to balance a dinner date with her significant other while taking on a ninja killer in the alley between courses.
Russ Emanuel’s Girl With Gun is a breezy action short with nice set pieces and some tongue-in-cheek humor. As Gwen, and her alter ego the Nightingale, Tracy O’Connor is bright and pretty and seems comfortable with the kung fu, but really can’t act a lick. Erick Holloway’s mild, and mildly confused, boyfriend, helps in support.
But Emanuel isn’t putting together an acting showcase; a martial arts fight featuring a trusty Ninja smoke bomb and a little Wire-Fu (which brought a smile to my face) is the centerpiece of the short.
What struck me is that this short seemed to be lifted out of a larger piece, and a more involved storyline featuring the saga of the Nightingale. I wondered if Emanuel, like many microcinema directors, intended this short to be a “calling card” for a feature centered around the same cast of characters.
If so, the further adventures of Nightingale would be welcome, and certainly would have its appeal among fans of comic-book heroes (with Nightingale’s nod to Black Canary and Birds of Prey in evidence) as well as martial arts affcianados.
Three and a half stars.
King’s Mob, a loose NYC collective of actors, filmmakers and musicians, spent three years constructing this ambitious, accomplished hard-core urban odyssey and the results, while ultimately uneven, demonstrate enough promise to inspire anticipation for their next project.
The intersecting plots focus on Jim, a self-described “spoiled suburban brat” now living on the streets of NYC and frequenting a local bar popular on the straight edge scene. The film unfolds over the course of three days and activities range from the mundane the practical to the intense and the fatal.
While it is apparent that the members of the mob really put a lot into this project because many of the actors are also credited as being on the crew, the project seems to be the brainchild of writer-producer Katie Nisa and writer-director Matt Pizzolo. Nisa also appears in a sizable role in the film.
Ultimately though, for all the ample energy and ambition that is apparent in the production, all the style and intelligence, the film takes the easy way out and concludes with a slam-bang explosion of excessive, over-the-top violence that is reminiscent more of “The Warriors.”
For all of the film’s attention to detail and hard-core realism the viewers should get more of an intellectual payoff rather than the cheap “we’re-so-tough, our-lives-are-so-intense” climax that feels almost tacked-on here.
Funky, original short from director Ramiro Hernandez features a guy sporting a mysterious prognoticating device on his wrist, a girl he is trying to pick up at a party, and two drag-racing teens, all whose destinies cross in one fateful night.
Hernandez directs with a lot of energy, and certainly penned an original tale that has a satisfyingly wry twist at the end. He rather deftly blends romantic comedy, sci-fi, and street drama into a story with its own internal logic. A handful of easygoing performances, across a variety of age levels, add to the vibe.
Where Hernandez stalls out a bit is in execution. Hernandez is certainly ambitious in his presentation, and pushes his vision through sometimes challenging shooting and editing. However, I felt the technical mastery wasn’t quite there for Hernandez at times, leaving a few rough edges here and there.
But I enjoyed 40 Seconds and Ramiro Hernandez’s unique voice, and look for more from this director.
Three stars.
Molly Hainline plays a violent, troubled street tough who, after a robbery, comes into the possession of a mysterious box that holds a dangerous secret in writer/director Daniel Heisel’s Boxed In.
After the robbery, Hainline’s character finds herself followed by a tall, brooding stranger (Michael Liu) who seems to be willing to do her bidding, allowing her bloody fantasies to run free. But the true cost of these desires isn’t revealed until the final moments, in a surprising twist that adds a neat element to a traditional story.
Although I thought Heisel’s dialogue clanked and sputtered a bit, he showed a sure hand in the director’s chair, offering a nicely-shot package of shooting and editing. Some decent FX and an appropriate score add to the overall production value.
I think Boxed In managed to be a notch above the usual micro-horror fare, with steady production values and a genuine surprise or two in the execution.
Three stars.
Three armed, hungry roommates wake up to realize there is only one waffle left for breakfast in this fun short filled with non-stop shootouts. Yes, there is not much story here. But one feels that this piece was not only made for fun, but mostly to showcase the FX skills of the filmmakers wrapped in an offbeat sense of humor.
Everything is decently shot, scored and edited (except for some abuse of strobe effect during action scenes) but the pyrotechnics are truly the highlight of Bullets Over Breakfast. The result is a mix of Tarantino, John Woo and even the Matrix: Characters dodging slow motion bullets breaking through the air, a whole array of different weapons, digital bullet holes all over the walls. It is a good marriage of live action with CGI. This is the result of good planning when shooting, having in mind the right choices for postproduction when you know exactly what you want.
The DVD is nicely packed with all sort of extras, commentary, bloopers, etc.
Overall while not very deep, Bullets Over Breakfast is fun, and a good short to take a look at if you are planning to do no-budget action. I look forward to see more from this group.
Three Stars
A secret cadre of fashion-forward super-agents try to uproot a covert alien invasion in director Jon Schnepp’s whacked-out short The Removers.
Schnepp never met a green screen he didn’t like, and uses them to their head-pounding fullest in this effects-crazed short. The plot, which glances across the surface of the visuals like a skipped stone, is more or less about a cell of spies who are trying to keep alien invaders from taking a statue that holds the last secrets of a dead race, and then there was some more but I may have had a seizure and blacked out. Suffice to say there was a steady stream of dimension-hopping and reality-warping, and some metal man-eating robots (I think) that popped out near the end, and maybe somebody blew up the moon.
The acting is nominal, as the characters go into a sort of “silent mode” at the beginning and communicate with subtitles throughout the rest of the short, though the makeup and costume design are notable. What is mainly on display here are special effects, and the joy Schnepp has in playing with his formidable toys is evident. How far an audience will follow Schnepp depends on how much the viewer is interested in the “everything but the kitchen sink” dose of special effects The Removers throws out there.
I felt The Removers was a fun roller-coaster ride, but is probably the best example of “style over substance” that I’ve come across in a long while. The off-kilter world Schnepp creates is worth a peek, but afterwards it will only resonate on your corneas, not in your mind.
Two and a half stars.