Amy Davis

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones. Produced by Strand Releasing and Connor Jessup.

5.7/10

Commissioned for the 2019 30th Anniversary shorts omnibus, 30/30 Vision: 3 Decades of Strand Releasing.

A very special shipment of tainted pork arrives in Santa Fe, N.M., transforming anyone who eats it into a brilliant, but psychotic, braniac -- including a dimwitted bimbo and a punk botanist who can now hear her beloved plants.

5.9/10

A pretentious underground filmmaker struggles with his masterpiece while a scuzzy punkoid chick tries to keep her band from fading into obscurity.

6.5/10
6%

This film involves three interwoven stories with the only seeming connection being the delusions of the involved leads. In the first element of the film, a hot-tempered world tennis star loses endorsement contracts when the press outs him even though he claims the report is false. In the second, a talent-less woman struggles to make it in the world of fashion design or the music video business. In the last, an animal activist runs a dog-adoption agency and has an imaginary friend who appears in a St. Bernard suit.

6.5/10

West Side Story meets Rumble in the Bronx meets A Clockwork Orange. Bizarre tale of London, a lonely teen yearning for affection and a leather jacket who lives in a dysfunctional family home where the mother keeps popping and sexually playing with her other child, X-Ray, a member of a gang of Mods who are constantly at war with a gang of Asian Bikers. Amidst this turmoil, London and her soul mate M16 search for meaning in a phantasmagoria without it.

4.9/10

Terminal USA is the story of a Japanese-American family with more than their fair share of quirks. Ma (Sharon Omi) is stealing grandpa's morphine, Airhead sister (Jenny Woo) is having sex with the family lawyer, One brother (Jon Moritsugu) gets perfect grades but is hiding a secret gay love of skinheads, and the other brother (also Jon Moritsugu) is a wastoid druggie. The tension leads to an explosion of absurd violence as crazier and crazier things happen to the family.

6.8/10

Evoking the band-in-the-making masterpieces LADIES & GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, MY DEGENERATION is the story of three young women and their nascent band, Bunny Love. The Psychotronic Video Guide illustrates the basic plot: "The blonde bass player narrates, has visions of cottage cheese and canned half peaches and falls in love with a (real) pig's head." Featuring music by Vomit Launch, Gov't Issue, Bongwater, Poison 13, Fizzbombs and Halo of Flies.

7.4/10

Satire and deconstruction the high art scene with an eyeball-scorching onslaught of mind-blowing narrative madness and honey-laced pathos.