BRIAN ORNDORF

Author: BO

  • Blu-ray Review – The Deadly Mantis

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    In the giant movie monster craze of the 1950s, "The Deadly Mantis" must win some type of award for longest wait for total destruction. The 1957 production isn't one to swiftly arrange a cinematic war zone with its insect invader, with director Nathan Juran ("Attack of the 50 Foot Woman") tasked with filling 80 minutes of screen time without overdoing interactions with the titular creature. It's a sluggish endeavor, but "The Deadly Mantis" has a curious concentration on military procedure, with Juran perhaps understanding the absurdity of the threat, working to create a cinematic space where mayhem involving a massive praying mantis could look plausible, highlighting the latest in weaponry and surveillance techniques. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – In the Cold of the Night

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    Two months ago, I reviewed "Blind Date," a 1984 thriller from director Nico Mastorakis. The plot concerned a young man who lost his sight, regaining it through help from electronic equipment, but also inheriting an ability to see horrible visions of murder. For 1990's "In the Cold of the Night," Mastorakis returns to a similar plot, exploring the mental breakdown of a man who's cursed with visions of homicide, setting out to decode exactly why he's experiencing such horrors. For the prolific helmer, such recycling is to be expected, but with a return to a familiar premise comes less adventurousness, as Mastorakis is aiming "In the Cold of the Night" in an erotic chiller direction, striving to pack in as much sex and nudity as possible (the picture is rated NC-17), with thrills and spills a lesser priority for the production. Mastorakis isn't a refined cinema architect, leaving polish and dramatic consideration a pipe dream, but for those who prefer plenty of skin to go with mild suspense, this feature delivers, showing more enthusiasm for bedroom antics than anything else it covers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – Deadly Force

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    Hollywood is always on the hunt for new action stars. The industry loves to get in on the ground floor with a fresh hero, presenting the chance to grow with the actor, making a small fortune as popularity blossoms. Such a spotlight was positioned on Wings Hauser for a little while in the 1980s, sending the actor through numerous genres to see what he's capable of, reaching thespian limits quickly. His supercop phase included 1983's "Deadly Force," which puts Hauser behind the wheel of his own starring vehicle, tasked with projecting toughness as an ex-lawman chasing after a serial killer prowling the corners of Los Angeles. Hauser comes ready to play, delivering a performance that's 100% committed to the cause, going all wild-eyed and big-nostriled for the film, which doesn't always reward such impressive concentrated on leading man authority. "Deadly Force" doesn't maintain steady thrills, instead pausing often to deal with a central mystery that's not as profound as the production hopes. Hauser doesn't necessarily deserve better, but this kind of movie is always best with its brake lines cut, and director Paul Aaron doesn't trust the wonders of such cinematic velocity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Stuber

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    “Stuber” is a film stuck between two time periods. It deals with the modern rideshare business, where customers are usually awful human beings and drivers live for 5-star reviews, and the cast is populated with young comedians who’ve been trained to mindlessly riff, not necessarily sell a punchline. The rest of the picture plays like an action comedy movie from the 1980s, with hard violence supporting a buddy cop premise, giving the feature peaks of dangerous encounters. “Stuber” doesn’t have an idea what it ultimately wants to be, instead electing to be everything, which doesn’t inspire a snowballing viewing experience. It’s lively at times, but never sure of itself, while screenwriter Tripper Clancy always turns to formula when he’s backed into a corner, somehow under the impression viewers want to feel for these characters, not simply watch them unearth continuous trouble while crossing Los Angeles. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

  • Film Review – Killers Anonymous

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    There’s a lesson to be learned from “Killers Anonymous.” Its marketing boasts the participation of Gary Oldman and Jessica Alba, pushing the stars up front to secure some attention that wouldn’t be otherwise afforded to the low-budget endeavor. Predictably, Alba’s barely in the effort, while nearly all of Oldman’s screentime finds the Oscar-winner in a seated position, looking through binoculars. It’s a common deception, especially with B-movies, which need something to lure innocent viewers in, especially fans of the actors hoping to keep up with filmographies. It would be grand if there was something more to “Killers Anonymous” that’s worth paying attention to, but director Martin Owen doesn’t have a prize for those willing to sit through the picture. He loads up on colored lighting and scattered violence, but the feature is actually a series of audition pieces, not a cohesive thriller, and it’s an absolute chore to sit through. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Phil

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    After spending the last few decades playing uptight guys in mild comedies, Greg Kinnear has finally decided to become a director, putting himself in charge of “Phil,” also nabbing the lead role. One would think that with such creative authority, Kinnear might be interested in attempting something different, permitting himself to stretch as a performer. That doesn’t happen in the picture, but there is a level of darkness to “Phil” that’s mildly intriguing, as the story deals with the aftermath of a suicide and the plate-spinning panic of deception, only most of the screenplay by Stephen Mazur (“Jingle All the Way 2,” “Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls”) goes for jokes, attempting to whip up silly business to make sure the movie reaches the widest possible audience. It’s not without some charms, but the effort doesn’t ring with invention, as Kinnear plays it all too safe to protect himself. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – The Quiet One

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    It seems like Bill Wyman is ready to speak. For 31 years, Wyman played bass for The Rolling Stones, garnering a reputation for being the “silent Stone,” unable or unwilling to share himself with the press and public, permitting his bandmates to take the spotlight, which they happily did. Now in his eighties, Wyman is in a retrospective mood, giving director Oliver Murray access to his vast archive of personal items, including an enormous year-by-year assembly of Rolling Stones photos, film, and memorabilia. While he was always the guy hanging in the back of the stage helping to keep the rhythm, “The Quiet One” hopes to offer more insight into Wyman as an average man with keen interest in the art of collecting, also tracing his years in one of the biggest bands in the world, doing his best to downplay rock god-ery. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – My Days of Mercy

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    Perhaps hunting for a ripe acting challenge, actresses Kate Mara and Ellen Page co-produce “My Days of Mercy,” helping to bring difficult material to the screen. There so much here for the talent to dig into, with Joe Barton’s screenplay touching on the death penalty, forbidden love, and family ties, giving the leads a chance to feel around for emotional purgings as they strive to stretch as performers. It’s mission accomplished for the most part, as “My Days of Mercy” has a severe tone that welcomes nuanced performances and troubling turns of fate. There’s a message about the reality of the death row experience, and a potent one, but the feature is mostly about watching Page and Mara manage dramatics, trying to make potentially one-dimensional characters into living, breathing human beings. They’re successful, even when the movie isn’t. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Cold Blood

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    25 years ago, Jean Reno starred in “The Professional.” It’s an odd film, but also an excellent one, using the star’s comfort with silent reaction to create a fully European action event that paid close attention to character. Today, Reno participates in “Cold Blood,” a low-budget thriller that’s not all that interested in providing thrills, once again putting the French actor in the role of a muted force of violence, stuck in a dangerous situation with a younger woman. It’s no “Professional” sequel, but writer/director Frederic Petitjean tries to pretend he’s making the new adventures of Leon with the effort, delivering Reno in enforcer mode, only there isn’t a script or a sense of style to back up his wavering commitment to the project. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – Born in East L.A.

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    According to Cheech Marin, "Born in East L.A." was put together in a hurry to complete a 1985 Cheech & Chong album without Tommy Chong. The tune was a hit, thanks to a popular video that visually sold the story of a California man accidentally deported by steely immigration officers. And that MTV-staple video inspired a movie, with Marin breaking away from Chong to mastermind a cinematic elongation of his original idea, creating 1987's "Born in East L.A." That's quite a journey from initial inspiration to multiplexes, but Marin finds plenty of inspiration to fill up the run time, intending to blend commentary on immigration issues with broad bits of slapstick comedy, positioning himself as a Chaplin-type with this border-hopping adventure. Chong isn't missed here, as Marin has something of a vision for his helming debut, trying to find the funny as much as possible without slipping into preachiness or melodrama. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

  • Blu-ray Review – Man’s Best Friend

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    It's not easy to make a movie that involves a killer animal. Certain viewers are quite sensitive to violence committed against creatures, forcing filmmakers to maintain concentration on a proper tone while exposing horrors to helpless animals. For 1993's "Man's Best Friend," writer/director John Lafia ("Child's Play 2") seems well-aware of the problems he's facing with the material, which pits a genetically modified Tibetan Mastiff vs. several people who choose abuse over care, triggering the dog's killer instinct. Instead of crafting a grim survey of pain, Lafia goes bright and somewhat silly with "Man's Best Friend," which emerges as an enjoyable genre exercise in good taste with problematic material. It's not exactly lighthearted, but the picture has a ripping pace and plenty of savage moments, with the helmer largely understanding when to play the severity of the moment or just give in to the absurdity of it all. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – The Earthling

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    "The Earthling" is the penultimate film for actor William Holden, and in many ways, it's perhaps the proper capper on his amazing career. The 1980 picture offers Holden a chance to portray at character at the end of his life, facing his mortality and trying to do so with some dignity and a sense of closure. It's a role that demands introspection and silent reaction, and Holden is more than up for the challenge, paired with young Ricky Schroder for this survival drama, which brings the Americans to Australia, interacting with strange wildlife and challenging surroundings. "The Earthling" is severe at times, but also tries to be tender, with the leads managing surges of emotion as they inhabit opposites trying to conquer a dangerous situation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – The Minion

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    1998's "The Minion" attempts to cash-in on millennium fever, imagining a futureworld of 1999, where global temperatures are rising, unrest is taking over the world, and the countdown to the year 2000 begins. It's a tight timetable for the picture, which hopes to communicate an apocalyptic scenario a year before such an event is about to take place, but thinking ahead is not one of the feature's strengths. In fact, there are no strengths in "The Minion," with pits Dolph Lundgren against Wendigo, an evil force who's been locked up for centuries, itching to be released and bring utter destruction to Earth. While it sounds like a proper DTV romp, director Jean-Marc Piche doesn't have a vision for such low-budget combat, in charge of detailing a laborious script by Matt Roe and Ripley Highsmith, which drags along the ground, carrying heavy amounts of exposition, leaving little time to focus on the most important part of the package: Lundgren fighting monsters with a spiked glove. Such diversions are few and far between in this dud, which promises the end of the world, but doesn't have a plan to get there. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – The Favor

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    "The Favor" endured a rocky road to a theatrical release. It was filmed in 1990, willing to hire a young Brad Pitt for a supporting part as a hunky artist, just before his big break in "Thelma and Louise." However, due to bankruptcy issues with Orion Pictures, the feature actually crawled into theaters in 1994, where nobody made the trip to see it, despite the presence of Pitt, whose marquee value surged during the movie's lengthy time on the shelf. Watching the effort today, and even a 1990 production year seems too modern for the endeavor, as "The Favor" often resembles product from the mid-1980s, providing audiences with a moldy take on marital blues and escalating misunderstandings, with director Donald Petrie (then the helmer of "Mystic Pizza" and "Opportunity Knocks") trying to stitch together a proper farce with lackluster elements of comedy. It's halfhearted work at best, providing a vanilla viewing experience while downplaying edgier viewpoints on domestic satisfaction, secret desires, and an unplanned pregnancy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

  • Film Review – Spider-Man: Far from Home

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    2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” enjoyed the element of surprise. It was a reboot of a reboot, offered to audiences after two dull chapters with a different creative team. Nobody was expecting much from it, but director Jon Watts delivered a joyful, exciting, endearingly adolescent adventure that managed to make the Web-Slinger into a viable screen hero once again. While Peter Parker has been dealing with a few Avengers-related issues recently, he’s back on his own with “Spider-Man: Far from Home,” which has the unfortunate position of being both sequel to “Homecoming” and a continuation of April’s “Avengers: Endgame.” Watts returns to helming duty, and once again he knocks it out of the park, delivering a thrilling installment for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Spider-Man fans, recapturing all the speed, teen anxiety, and comic book atmosphere that was previously established. Watts doesn’t try to top himself, he simply expands and enjoys the world he’s helped to create. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Yesterday

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    Bringing the music of The Beatles to the big screen isn’t a new idea. The band did it themselves on multiple occasions, and in 1978, there was “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which celebrated the amazing career of The Beatles by having George Burns and Steve Martin sing a few songs, while an entire sequence was devoted to the Bee Gees fist-fighting Aerosmith. Perhaps realizing such a sight is impossible to top, helmer Danny Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis head in a much softer direction with “Yesterday,” manufacturing a silly fantasy that’s eventually consumed by romantic comedy intentions. There’s plenty of Beatles in the feature, and some mild wackiness as well, but Boyle and Curtis aren’t in this to make audiences laugh. They want hearts, and the pair get awfully grabby when it comes to the plight of near-miss lovers and their extraordinary test of companionship, which frequently interrupts the potential for a promising farce. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

  • Film Review – Escape Plan: The Extractors

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    The biggest challenge facing the producers of “Escape Plan: The Extractors” is trying to get viewers to recall anything that happened in 2018’s “Escape Plan 2: Hades.” After finding some box office success in China, 2013’s “Escape Plan” was granted a pair of sequels, shot back-to-back. However, budgets were reduced or perhaps all the money was spent on getting Sylvester Stallone to return to the franchise, with his participation in the first sequel limited, keeping his work days short. Stallone has a larger role in the latest chapter, and there’s a new director in John Herzfeld (who previously worked with the actor in “Reach Me”), taking over for DTV machine, Steven C. Miller. While visual limitations remain, Herzfeld does more with the material than his predecessor, giving “Escape Plan: The Extractors” a pleasingly mean energy, stuffing the effort with violence and anger, even managing to pull off something that’s eluded the series up to this point: genuine surprise. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Nightmare Cinema

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    Horror loves the anthology movie. The format offers the genre a rare shot to be explored in short film form, giving writers and directors a chance to shave down superfluous additions meant to beef up run times, creating an opportunity to approach scary stories with the leanest edits and wildest imagination possible. Co-producer Mick Garris has been here before, overseeing the “Masters of Horror” television show from just over ten years ago, and he’s back with “Nightmare Cinema,” which brings together tales of finality from helmers who don’t normally receive a chance to cut loose with big screen frights. There are five chapters of dark comedy and blurred reality, and while every omnibus endeavor has its creative highs and lows, “Nightmare Cinema” is often stuck in neutral, prizing oddity to a point where the effort loses all momentum and mischief. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Midsommar

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    Last year, writer/director Ari Aster impressed horror fans with “Hereditary,” delivering an eerie meditation on loss mixed with demonic cult theatrics. I wasn’t as thrilled with the feature, finding its insistence on shock value more numbing than chilling, but Aster did manage to pull something special out of star Toni Collette, who delivered the best performance of her career. Aster returns a year later with “Midsommar,” and while he doesn’t have Collette by his side again, he does recycle many of his old tricks, heading once again into the deep end of atmosphere and ultraviolence, transferring the relative intimacy of “Hereditary” to the open land of Sweden with this “Wicker Man” riff that’s extremely long and terribly light with crucial psychological details. The gruesomeness returns, but in a more predictable manner, as Aster chooses to repeat himself to secure a burgeoning helming career. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Euphoria

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    What “Euphoria” provides is a new reason to pay attention to the acting talents of Alicia Vikander and Eva Green. While there’s nothing wrong with paychecks roles and interest in the Hollywood star-making machine, it’s been disappointing to watch the pair fight to survive dismal mass entertainment offerings such as “Tomb Raider” and “Dumbo,” with both pictures offering Vikander and Green more of a physical challenge than a dramatic one. “Euphoria” tries to realign some thespian chakras, giving the performers a thorough acting obstacle course as it takes on the messiness of sisterhood and the finality of euthanasia. It’s not the most enticing endeavor in the marketplace, but there’s profound feeling to discover, as writer/director Lisa Langseth doesn’t pull any punches with the material, retaining rawness and confusion as emotional breakthroughs are squeezed out of the characters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com