Jon Moritsugu
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.
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.
Sex and drugs-getting hooked and getting off –can be addicting. For Drew (Brad Hallowell), eking out a mundane life in Waterville, Maine, it is resisting the illicit pleasure in New York; for Mistress Datina (Philly), it means operating a sex and drug den to cope with her life. In his visually and sexually stimulating film, director Verow introduces multiple characters and overlapping narratives that portray the physical and emotional faces of addiction. For Rob (newcomer Rob Ordonez), drugs and sex are means of finding a bed to sleep in every night – while they provide Christian (Michael Vaccaro) a means of dealing with his helplessness and loss. A writer records these characters and their unforgettable stories. The themes are universal, but the possibilities are endless.
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.
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.
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.
“We're a bunch of spoiled teenagers with nothing better to do than sit around and talk meaningless shit. Let's face it. All we'll be doing for the next 75 minutes is smoking, drinking wine and complaining about not having anything to do.”
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.
Underground homage to Easy Rider about two girl bikers with bad attitudes who wind up on the wrong end of evil Cruella's shotgun.
A brief glimpse of the living conditions of the titular snackwhore.
Part AC/DC, part Jacques Derrida. An experimental film made as a response to the critical theory aspects of the filmmakers degree and academic film criticism.
Satire and deconstruction the high art scene with an eyeball-scorching onslaught of mind-blowing narrative madness and honey-laced pathos.
