BRIAN ORNDORF

Month: April 2025

  • Blu-ray Review – Le Beau Mec

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    1979's "Le Beau Mec" is a film about fantasies. Director Wallace Potts oversees this examination of Karl Forest, a 27-year-old gigolo who spends his days pursuing men or being pursued. He conducts business in Paris, and "Le Beau Mac" tries to pass itself off as a documentary about Forest and his many thoughts and experiences. However, reality isn't really the point of the endeavor, which is reminiscent of an old Playboy video where the subject would spend an hour participating in random sexualized events, creating intimacy without actually exposing real life. "Le Beau Mec" is more adult cinema than journalism, watching Potts go anywhere in the picture if it means extra time with Forest and his many carnal encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – You Are Not Alone

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    1978's "You Are Not Alone" is a coming-of-age story that intends to get up close and personal with its cast of adolescents. The Danish production means to be warm and sensitive to the needs of the characters, approaching juvenile concerns with a certain authenticity, which makes for a few interesting scenes of conflict. Directors Ernst Johansen and Lasse Nielsen aren't too concerned about a plot for the endeavor, which moves leisurely throughout a boarding school for boys, picking up on developing situations and feelings. "You Are Not Alone" is a decidedly European film, making it specialized work for a specific audience, and while it feels a tad meandering at times, it does create some intimate spaces of anxiety and connection to explore. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – Swallowed

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    16 years ago, Carter Smith directed "The Ruins." It was a particularly nasty chiller, and in all the right ways, promising big things from the helmer and his love of genre entertainment. Smith's career path didn't take him to expected places, but he returns to horror events in "Swallowed," a small-scale terror experience involving drug mules, mysterious bowel activity, and a strange imprisonment. Also handling screenplay duties, Smith keeps things manageable with the effort, as it's basically contained to a few rooms and features only a handful of characters, looking to inspire suspense in more intimate ways. He gets halfway there in the picture, which starts out strong, promising ghoulish developments to come. Such extremity doesn't arrive in "Swallowed," but the build-up to agony is compelling enough to pass, with Smith skilled at launching a bizarre endeavor, but less confident when it comes to ending it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – A Minecraft Movie

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    Plans for a film adaptation of the video game “Minecraft” have been in place for quite some time. The 2011 release enjoyed an incredible surge of popularity over the years, but Hollywood was unable to cash-in on its success, leaving the material stuck in development. Now there’s “A Minecraft Movie,” which hits theaters a little behind the gaming trend, but retains enough energy to recapture fan love for the universe that’s been created over the last 14 years. Director Jared Hess is an odd choice to command the offering, but the “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre” helmer adds the right amount of quirk and goofiness to the endeavor, delivering a lively viewing experience that’s very much in the business of trying to make “Minecraft” exciting again. It’s a big feature with waves of characters and threats, providing a sugary distraction for family audiences. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Freaky Tales

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    Filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden once specialized in interesting indie projects, often looking to explore the ways of mental health and battles of impulse control. That journey came to a halt when the pair helmed “Captain Marvel,” going into comic book hero territory with a routine Marvel offering of visual effects and half-baked writing. The career detour resulted in a massive hit, but Fleck and Boden aren’t resting in blockbuster country, returning to more idiosyncratic ways in “Freaky Tales,” which is an anthology film concerning a strange week in Oakland, California in 1987. There are four tales of violence and mystery to enjoy, with some cosmic oddity added to help the viewing experience, and Boden and Fleck remain confident and committed to strange events in the picture. “Freaky Tales” is low budget, but it delivers a few crazy conflicts and moments of surprise, remaining consistent throughout these stories of bizarre events and confrontations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – The Friend

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    Naomi Watts and a Great Dane figuring out their life together in the middle of New York City. It’s the stuff of comedy, but “The Friend” is primarily interested in the inner workings of people and animals trying to get through a difficult time together. It’s a companionship story from filmmaking partners Scott McGehee and David Siegel, who adapt a 2018 book by author Sigrid Nunez, challenged to preserve the novel’s intimate ways with animal care and mental health. “The Friend” isn’t too hard on the senses, maintaining a cozy mood of mild shenanigans involving a large pooch and the puzzle of its behavior. And there’s room for human concerns, as the main character experiences an unexpectedly therapeutic journey with a most unlikely partner. The helmers don’t push down too hard on viewers, and they respect the emotional odyssey of the source material, keeping the picture charming and sincere, also sustaining its appeal for dog lovers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Wake Up

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    RKSS is a Canadian filmmaking duo (comprised of Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell) who made a sharp impression in their debut feature, “Turbo Kid,” which offered sizable retro cinema fun as the helmers attempted to pay tribute to escapism entertainment of the 1980s. RKSS remained in the decade for their follow-up, “Summer of 1984,” exploring a more suspenseful tone in a less sugary movie. Another effort (“We Are Zombies”) came and went without much fanfare, but the team has returned to semi-stable creative ground with “Wake Up,” detailing a war between activists and security inside an IKEA-like store. It’s a B-movie idea played with aggression by RKSS, who look to get fairly violent and somewhat ruthless in the endeavor, and this hostility tends to work for the picture, especially during its most charged moments. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – The Luckiest Man in America

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    “The Luckiest Man in America” dramatizes the story of Michael Larson, who, in 1984, was a contestant on the television game show, “Press Your Luck.” Larson managed to win over $100,000 from the program after recognizing game board patterns, using this knowledge to avoid all the “whammies,” causing a commotion behind-the-scenes of the show as producers faced a tremendous financial loss. Writers Maggie Briggs and Samir Oliveros (who also directs) don’t go to extremes to turn a relatively simple tale into a cinematic event, largely remaining in the studio during the taping of the program to best examine psychological struggles happening in the room. “The Luckiest Man in America” is an interesting look at a fractured human putting himself in an extraordinary situation, and the screenplay manages to get fairly far with various complications and confrontations found during the event, helping to rework a bizarre bit of TV history. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – William Tell

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    For most people, the name William Tell conjures images of a crossbow accuracy contest involving a human target with an apple placed on their head. Perhaps there are even memories of “The Lone Ranger” and its use of Gioachino Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” as its main theme, successfully bending the tone of the original work to fit a wild west setting. Writer/director Nick Hamm is looking to restore the tale’s integrity with “William Tell,” endeavoring to give an 1804 play (by Friedrich Schiller) the “Braveheart” treatment, out to conjure a big screen epic featuring numerous characters and various motivations. It’s a big movie, but only in certain moments, and Hamm isn’t an inspired helmer (“The Hole,” “Godsend,” “Killing Bono”), out to transform European tensions into a Shakespearean viewing experience, creating a sluggish offering of heroism. “William Tell” might be of value to those most patient with historical actioners, but casual viewers probably won’t walk away with any fresh appreciation of the man and his mission. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • 4K UHD Review – Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf

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    While 1981's "The Howling" wasn't a major achievement in genre entertainment, it certainly deserved a better sequel than 1985's "Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf." The sequel makes a vague attempt to connect to the original endeavor before becoming its own thing, and such creative freedom doesn't result in a bolder, darker exploration of the werewolf nation. Instead, director Philippe Mora oversees a low-budget creature feature held together by panicky editing that suggests there wasn't much material to begin with. "Howling II" is sloppy stuff, but it almost, just barely, possibly maybe works for its first hour, focusing on stately actor Christopher Lee trying to sell a story that's not really there, while co-star Sybil Danning puts on a visual show as a werewolf queen who's quite fond of cleavage. Filmmaking trends of the 1980s are certainly helpful, but not enough to support the entire offering, which eventually falls into confusion, buried by low-tech special effects. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com