Many fan films are incomprehensible unless you’re already familiar with the characters. Fortunately, that’s not the case with Powers, a great little short based on the comic book series of the same name by Michael Avon Oeming and Brian Michael Bendis.
The premise is simple: If other comic-based movies ask “Who watches the Watchmen?” well, it’s these guys—cops whose beat is the superhero angle. When the painfully named Retro Girl winds up dead, Homicide Detectives Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim bring in their prime suspect and interrogate him under a “drainer”—a vent-shaped machine that emits superpower-draining light. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s even green like Kryptonite.
While the main set and Nathaniel Bozen’s Canon XL1 camerawork are nice, what truly sells the flick is the acting, which is excellent, especially for a fan film. The good guys are stern, the bad guy (standout Jesse Schoem) is anxious but dangerous, and the news reporter’s stop-and-go delivery will be familiar to anyone who’s watched a local Cablevision news channel.
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Shot with a budget of $100, Powers is a few years old at this point. Manning the tiller on it was director Mark Townend, a UK ex-pat living in Los Angeles. His website doesn’t give any hint as to whether this film grabbed someone’s attention (clearly it was meant to be a calling-card film), but hopefully it opened a door or two, because it’s very well done.
[Via Paper, Pens, Coffee]
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