Category: movies

Monday Morning Movie Review: Wrong Turn (2021)

The Portly Politico3 Comments

While in the mountains my girl and I managed to watch a few flicks in between all the hiking, eating, and exploring.  I’ve already reviewed one of them, 2010’s exquisite Black Swan.  Our second night we figured out how to hook up my little laptop to the cabin’s television and rented 2021’s Wrong Turn ($4 on Amazon).

The film came up in our conversations while driving throughout the mountains.  I remarked on how anybody could be out in the woods and we’d likely have no idea, and my girlfriend enthusiastically proclaimed, “we have to watch Wrong Turn!”

The film is a reboot of a series of films dating back to 2003.  My girlfriend said she’d recently watched the 2003 original, but that the 2021 version is much better.  I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t comment on that assessment; apparently, it has a very The Hills Have Eyes feel to it, as it’s all about a group of cannibals stalking stranded college students.  However, I can affirm that the 2021 version was a good romp through a strange world of mountain dwellers gone rogue.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Donnie Darko (2001)

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Some films carry with them a certain mystique.  Sometimes that mystique is universal—everyone has a sense that this movie contains something special and timeless within it.  That mystique can be magical and lighthearted; it can also be dark and unsettling.  Either way, these films stick with us, even if we haven’t seen them.  They percolate through the Zeitgeist and wedge themselves into our collective consciousness.

I’d wager that most of the films with this rare mystique are deserving of wedging “themselves into our collective consciousness.”  Donnie Darko (2001) is not one of them.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Black Swan (2010)

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Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in their prime, partying in New York City and breaking their toes dancing ballet.  What’s not to love about Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 masterpiece Black Swan?

Well, there’s probably something wrong with it, but I enjoyed this film immensely.  I remember when Black Swan was in the theaters.  The nation was still in the depths of the Great Recession.  The T.E.A. Party was a valid political movement, and hadn’t yet been co-opted by charlatans.  I weighed 290 pounds and worked a job I hated.

Yet I somehow missed it at the time, although it looked like a flick I wanted to see.  I’m not big on ballet, but who wouldn’t want to gawk at Natalie Portman?  There are many arguments against anti-Semitism, but simply saying, “look at Natalie Portman” is probably the strongest expression of pro-Semitic sentiment.

Lustful digressions aside, my girlfriend and I watched Black Swan on our mountain excursion, and it stuck with me for days.  In quiet moments as we hiked or drove throughout the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, I’d think about scenes and ideas from the film, and we’d inevitably discuss them.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Deadwax (2018)

The Portly Politico3 Comments

I’ve watched some great flicks lately—and some truly terrible ones.  The holidays hit, and I forgot about them!  I guess the “great flicks” weren’t all that great after all.

My plan for 2024 is to move away from just reviewing weird horror movies, and instead getting into some of the timeless classics (some of which, of course, will be weird horror movies).  I’ve been hankering for some high quality viewing.  Just like food, there’s only so much garbage you can absorb before you’re ready to eat a steak.  Just as my body starts craving real food after a week of eating pathetic sandwiches and bachelor chow-tier spaghetti, so does my mind crave excellence after watching the grindhouse trash on Shudder.

But that’s to come.  Although I’ve nearly exhausted Shudder’s extensive library of the good, the bad, and the terrible (pretty much any horror movie made in the last five years, or any horror flick with Canadian actors), I stumbled upon a series—not a movie—called Deadwax (2018).

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Lazy Sunday CXXXIV: Best Ponty Posts of 2023

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After posting my best posts of 2023 last week, it occurred to me that my loyal guest contributors deserved some love.  Ergo, I decided to put together a “Best Guest Posts of 2023” post.

As I began going through the top three most-viewed guest contributions, however, I realized they all belonged to Ponty/Always a Kid for Today, one of the greatest and most stalwart champions of this humble blog.  As such, I’m dedicating this edition of Lazy Sunday to his three best posts of 2023.

Some disclaimers:  “best” is purely quantitative, based on view count.  Of course, Ponty’s work is always qualitatively excellent, too.  Also, the posts had to be published in 2023.  The numbers are based on when I checked them, which was 31 December 2023 (the perfect time to review the last year’s numbers!).

So, without further ado, here are Ponty’s three best posts of 2023:

Happy Sunday—and Happy New Year!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CXXXIII: The Best of 2023

The Portly Politico2 Comments

The old year is waning, with just a few hours left.  What will 2024 hold?  Will yours portly expand to his greatest heights—and girth—yet?  Or will I fly too close to the sun on my beautiful hot dog wings?

The future is full of mystery, but the past is a done deal.  2023 was, like any year, one full of ups and downs.  As the old year passes away, I’d like to focus on the ups—the “best” posts of 2023.

I put “best” in scare quotes because I am basing that assessment purely on quantitative performance, not the relative qualitative merits of the posts.

These three posts had the highest views as of 15 December 2023, when I put this post together.  I also excluded pieces from guest contributors (many of which, notably those from Ponty, had higher views than the second and third pieces here).  Finally, the posts had to be published in 2023.

With those preliminaries out of the way, here are the top three best posts of 2023:

Happy Sunday—and Happy New Year!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Memorable Monday Morning Movie Review: A Very Portly Christmas: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

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With Christmas Break looms large, I’m taking it a bit easier with the old blog.  I’ve seen some great—and not-so-great—movies lately, but they can wait a few weeks for 2024.

Instead, I thought I’d take a look back at a timeless Christmas classic of yesteryear, a film I reviewed along with Audre Myers and Ponty during the 2022 Christmas season.

That film, of course, is 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life.  It’s a film that is somehow more than a mere movie.  It’s a flick that can be judged and appreciated as a movie, of course, but it’s also one that transcends the medium, and is part of the whole Zeitgeist of Christmas.  It’s hard to separate it from the very notion of “Christmas.”

With that, here’s my review from last year:

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