Director Patrick Meaney’s chronicle of the group of innovative artists that gave Marvel and DC the collective bird and took control of their own lives is a wonderful insight and word of warning at what happens when there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Surely, no one person is to blame for helping Image nearly drop out of the scope of pop culture and crash, but when you team a group of artists together who could walk the walk and talk the talk, there is bound to be conflict and inevitable resentment. I consider myself lucky enough to have grown up during the Image Revolution, where most of my money was spent on DC and Marvel, and immediately went over to Image. I bought titles like “Prophet,” “Youngblood,” and “WildCATS” religiously, while cutting my teeth in Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld’s art for many years.
Tag Archives: Indie Film
Tom Holland’s Twisted Tales (2014) (DVD)
A two and half hour anthology horror film? Come on, no one has such interesting stories that it needs a two and a half hour run time. The question is would you rather have a few excellent horror stories, or a lot of sub-par ones? If you answered the latter, “Tom Holland’s Twisted Tales” is the movie for you. Seemingly comprised of separate episodes of a series called “Twisted Tales,” they’re pasted together to form an awkward, often boring anthology horror film with no budget and no creativity.
Airplane vs. Volcano (2014)
The Kondelik brothers’ “Airplane vs. Volcano” sadly doesn’t feature a sentient volcano battling an airplane that talks like KIT from “Knight Rider.” It’s instead a movie very much in the vein of the classic 1970’s disaster movies, with classic TV stars and all. When all was said and done, it watches like an extended episode of a daytime soap opera, with a premise that feels suspiciously like a retread of “Airplane!” Also, Robin Givens is still very beautiful.
Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story of the VHS Collector (2013)
Dan M. Kinem and Levi Peretic really manage to pay amazing respect to VHS collectors with “Adjust Your Tracking,” an entertaining and raucous documentary that chronicles the joys and pitfalls of VHS collecting. Kinem and Peretic are the founders of one of my favorite websites “VHShitfest” and put their rabid love for the VHS format to use by profiling some of the most hardcore VHS collectors in America. The interviews and glimpses in to the collecting of the arguably defunct format never lull, and directors Kinem and Peretic manage to really give audiences a look at why this is such an appealing past time.
Shelter 5 (2014)
Director Aaron Longstreth really has an epic story on his hands, and he manages to depict so many themes and expository shots in a short time frame quite brilliantly. I really want a sequel. Or somewhere down the line a feature film continuation, because Longstreth is at the top of his game here and delivers a quality apocalyptic horror film that will appeal to audiences that love fodder like “The Walking Dead” and “28 Days Later.” Speaking as a fan of both, I loved “Shelter 5.” I watched it twice.
Game Companion (2014)
I really like the concept that director Jeff James Monson and writer Brian Morelan go for with what I would describe as “Weird Science” for the gamer audiences. “Game Companion” is a funny and zany short film about two hardcore gamers that happen to master their favorite fighting game. Little do they know that their reward is being able to garner a companion in the beautiful game character Kimiko. But things go awry quickly.
Lucky (2014)
It’s hard to believe this film took eight hours to shoot. Director Jakob Bilinski manages to cut together such a tightly wound and excellent little horror film that it’s impossible to believe it came out so great, let alone coherent. “Lucky” is a fantastic horror film in the tradition of classic comeuppance stories that really do allow the audience to revel in the twist before us.



