Tiger Orange (2014)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

As Good As It Gets

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

I was thrilled to see a famous gay male porn star break through to a mainstream gay film. Frankie Valenti/Johnny Hazzard brought more than his killer looks and ink to this film. I think he saved it. His masculine and unshakable character rang truer than most portrayals of sexual gay men in small gay films. He was hot and natural.The other lead character, Chet, played by writer Mark Strano, was well written. I think Strano did his best to translate his script but the character came across as clinically depressed rather than likable and conflicted. Nothing that a little anti-depressant might have cured probably. Not to say that the character was unrepresentative of closeted gay men in the hinterlands. Just that depression isn't that interesting to watch.A good Netflix addition. Not too badly gay-genre typical. Still not "A Single Man" or "Stranger by the Lake".

No one seems to mention this is a play on the Biblical Prodigal Son. As such, it is interesting that the leads are homosexual. Imagine if, in the Bible, that is why the younger son left!I have only seen about 20 minutes and I could already tell, from the body ink of the lost son, that he was a porn star, amateur or otherwise since that is how they look nowadays. It is also interesting that, as in the Bible, the younger son goes off to live a life of total debauchery and comes home because regardless of his "charm and talent", no one wants him for anything but his body either and they get tired of that too - been there, done that, see ya, it's been fun, etc.I can also tell that the Elder Brother is a bit envious of the daring do of his little brother although I do not think he would like it for long.The setup had the father, who by all accounts was a good one, simply admonishing his young sons against sodomy. What is so bad about that? Nowadays, I guess it is child abuse. Sigh.So the younger son resented Daddy; he stole Barbie Dolls from his school friends and of course this was cool because he had already seen Big Brother's Blue Boy mag. Did they fool around ever?And then he went off to seek his fortune or to get out of that stinkin small town where nobody can be gay, yadda yadda yadda. And of course he has that "look" that gets you picked up in 10 seconds because well, you have that "look." Are we supposed to blame all his problems on daddy?I am on a gay film fest this week just to see what the world is propagandizing in that area. Next, some flick about gay boys who like "bears." It's a comedy so should be hilarious, huh?

Tiger Orange is a generally quiet, small town queer drama, much like the film Pit Stop. The film looks good and is adequately acted.The story feels believable even with a sort of gimmick of two gay brothers, one an I'll-do-what-I-want rebel and the other a do-what-needs-done good son.The character of the good son nails the small town gay man who is single and avoids drawing attention to himself. The rebel son is something of a shallow character and though he definitely seems realistic there's little to like about him, the only reason to even care about the character is he's important to the good son.Tiger Orange's greatest shortcoming is it runs a bit long. two thirds into the film I was losing interest and when the film ended I realized I'd only half paid attention to the final scenes. Still, I'd rather have quite believably than melodrama that feels tacked on for the sake of spicing things up.It's worth watching if you're a fan of queer film and it's definitely than a lot of queer film options.

Ugh. There are elements I appreciate in this story, but in general it fails to get airborne. The black sheep brother needed an actor with strong chops - as much as I wanted this role to work for this movie it never comes to life, gains much dimension.In fact none of the acting in the story is very strong. I like the lead character very much and he's fighting to rise to the occasion, but his work feels uneven and never fully engaged. Ugh again! Great story idea, great setting, like the premise of the brothers who have parted ways - but it ultimately doesn't work.(It is almost certainly unfair to push this all off on the actors! The directing seems uneven and unfocused as well.) This is a story I'd love someone to try and do again - with a much stronger cast and better direction.