Ponty Praises: The Descent (2005)

15 October 202514 October 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Ponty is back with another great movie review, this week featuring the claustrophobic thriller of 2005’s The Descent. The film explores the tension of being trapped in the dark with something sinister and lethal—a core human fear.

When I was a kid, we took a big trip to the mountains to visit my great-grandmother in the mountains of western Virginia. On that trip we visited Mammoth Cave, a large cave system in Kentucky, and I believe Bat Cave in North Carolina as well (I could very well be conflating multiple trips into one in my mind). At one point on a guided tour of the caves, deep underground (we took an elevator to descend into the chamber), the tour guide turned off the lights in the cavern. The darkness was so total, so complete, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I think I instinctively moved closer to my family so I at least had some sense of security.

That experience very much captures, albeit in a very safe, tame, and controlled manner, what this flick feels like to watch. We take it for granted that, even in the dead of night, there’s usually some source of light: the moon, a cellphone, an alarm clock, the soft green of a charger indicating it’s doing its job. Total blackness—complete darkness—is something truly unsettling.

Ponder that as you enjoy Ponty’s review of The Descent (2005):

Monday Morning Movie Review: Ponty Praises: Dirty Dancing (1987)

30 December 202418 December 2024 The Portly Politico14 Comments

The Ponty film reviews continue this week, closing out a year of excellent film reviews. We’ve laughed. We’ve cried. We’ve danced.

Today’s review from Ponty features a film that’ll have you doing all three. It’s definitely one of the “modern” classics, even though the flick is nearly forty-years old at this point. It features so many iconic scenes, it makes you wonder why Jennifer Grey ever got that nose job.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of 1987’s Dirty Dancing:

Monday Morning Movie Review: Ponty Praises: The Christmas Candle (2013)

23 December 202418 December 2024 The Portly Politico23 Comments

Good old Ponty is always bailing me out when I need it most. Actually, I now have ample time to loaf about and enjoy the fun of Christmas Break, but that’s precisely the time I don’t want to be dreaming up films to review.

Cue Pontifex Maximus with a chestnut roasting over an open fire. That chestnut is a faith-based film based on a story by Max Lucado that is, apparently, good. Finally, Christians are making some good art!

It sounds like a lovely film, and a good antidote to the endless array of cookie-cutter Hallmark films out there.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of 2013’s The Christmas Candle:

Ponty Praises: Tremors (1990)

30 October 202425 October 2024 The Portly Politico25 Comments

Ponty has been promising me a review of a monster film for a little over a week now, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I should have guessed it would be this absolute gem of a film.

Tremors (1990) came out when I was five. No, I did not see it at that tender age; I think I first saw it when I was about ten-years old at a friend’s house. Every Nineties kid had that friend whose parents didn’t care what their kids did, or even actively encouraged them to be edgy. I had one such heathen friend, and we watched Tremors one day when I was over there playing.

Man, what a flick! The Wild West setting, the salt-of-the-earth characters, and the dread-of-the-earth worms! I had never seen anything like it. I still remember the scene where one of the creatures busts into Reba McIntyre’s basement, and she and her on-screen husband unloaded dozens of rounds into the beast.

It was also scary, but not in the way horror films typically are. It was scary because these were just normal people living in the desert and trying to get by, and suddenly they have to band together to defeat this creature that, while fantastical, could actually exist. There was a plausibility to it—at least to a ten-year old—that made it scary in a visceral way.

I think Ponty captures the film’s charm better than I can. I’ll turn it over to him.

With that, here is Ponty’s glowing review of a timeless classic:

Ponty Praises: Silent Hill 2 (2001)

23 October 202416 October 2024 The Portly Politico47 Comments

As much as yours portly loves Halloween and horror movies, I’ve always been too easily spooked to hang with the real test of horror fandom: survival horror video games. They’re games I love to watch other people play, but I’m too chicken to dive deeply into them myself. Not since the old Alone in the Dark games, which were scary even with (and, perhaps, because of) their blocky, polyhedral graphics, have I braved the hair-and-blood-pressure-raising of this fascinating genre (other than a bit of Alan Wake at my younger brother’s urging; a great game worth raising one’s hackles over).

So it is that I have—shamefully! disgracefully!—missed out on the exquisite Silent Hill franchise. Fortunately, my braver brother-from-another-mother across the pond, good old Ponty, has delivered up the vicarious experience that yours portly craves—and fears.

One other note—this review is riddled with Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase through any of these links, I receive a portion of the proceeds, at no additional cost to you. I’m required by the Amazon apparatchiks to include that little disclaimer.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of the early 2000s classic Silent Hill 2:

Lazy Sunday CCLXXXIII: Spooky Season Prep II

13 October 20247 October 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Spooky Season III is out now on all streaming platforms (including Spotify)! Pick up the digital download at Bandcamp, and take 20% off any Bandcamp purchase with this promo code: spooky (code expires at 11:59 PM UTC on Thursday, 31 October 2024).

With so many good Halloween posts this past week, I figured I’d do another round of Spooky Season Prep posts this weekend. Here are three good ones from this past week to keep the haunted vibes flowing:

“Open Mic Adventures C: ‘Dancing in the Graveyard’” – a glimpse at the first track I wrote for Spooky Season III.
“Ponty’s Top 3 Halloween Picks 2024” – Ponty’s excellent picks for the Top 3 Halloween flicks.
“TBT^16: Things That Go Bump in the Night” (and “TBT^4: Things That Go Bump in the Night“; “TBT^2: Things That Go Bump in the Night“; “TBT: Things That Go Bump in the Night“; and “Things That Go Bump in the Night“) – one of my classic posts about things unseen.

Happy Sunday—and Happy Hauntings!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Ponty’s Top 3 Halloween Picks 2024

9 October 20247 October 2024 The Portly Politico19 Comments

Pickup my newest release: Spooky Season III! Use promo code spooky to take an additional 20% off all purchases on Bandcamp! Code expires at 11:59 PM UTC on Thursday, 31 October 2024.

Last Wednesday I posted “My Neighbor’s Halloween Movie Recommendations” to a great deal of fanfare. It was a solid list, leaning a bit more heavily towards the classics. Naturally, I knew our English correspondent, Pontiac Dream 39, would have some thoughts on the list.

As is often the case, I was right. Ponty offered up his top three picks in the comments section. Always on the lookout for easy—uh, I mean, quality—content, I asked the good bloke from across the pond to consider putting together a more extensive “explainer” of his choices.

Happily, he obliged. Few writers put together a movie review better than good old Ponty, especially when he either loves or hates a film. In this case, his love for these three flicks—and they are all, assuredly, classics—shines through, as does his acumen for writing a crackerjack film review.

With that, here are Ponty’s Top 3 Halloween Picks for 2024 (I’m hoping if I add “for 2024,” it means he’ll do more next year!):

Monday Morning Movie Review: Revisiting Donnie Darko (2001)

24 June 202423 June 2024 The Portly Politico17 Comments

Back on 29 January 2024 I wrote my trenchant, insightful, inventive, nuanced, analytical, and brilliant review of the 2001 cult classic Donnie Darko. My basic argument at the time was that the film was a muddled, confusing mess, full of histrionic characters being romanticized for doing stupid, destructive things. I also made the more difficult-to-prove claim that Donnie Darko contributed to our society’s current glamorization of mental illness, and (less difficult to prove) shaped the lives of countless, uninteresting goth chicks.

My take on the film generated what every blogger wants: outrage. This time, the outrage came from Ponty, a faithful reader and excellent contributor to this blog. Ponty argued that I had completely missed the point of the film (to be fair, that was true—I didn’t see what the point was at all!), and that Donnie Darko is, in many ways, a tribute to the classic John Hughes films of the 1980s, albeit in more gothic dressing. His excellent review also digs into a bit more of the title character’s motivations, making it clear that Donnie isn’t just going on a destructive bender for the fun of it, or even because he has schizophrenia, but because he is growing as a character.

At the time, I was not convinced. I figured that Ponty was still seeing the film through the rose-tinted glasses of his youth (although that’s not fair to Ponty, who is an exquisite and clear-eyed reviewer), and that even if these points were true, the film portrayed them too obtusely. Regardless, readers had two perspectives on the film and could make up their own minds—or, even better, go watch the thing.

I didn’t think about the flick again until last week, when watching The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder. Season 6, Episode 6 featured Donnie Darko, as well as guest Bob Berney, an indie film executive who was involved with the production and distribution of Donnie Darko. At first, I moaned audibly, because I was going to have to sit through this film again (my personal rule is that, if Joe Bob Briggs shows a movie, even if I’ve already seen it, and especially if I disliked it, I have to watch it again, with his commentary segments). As I watched and absorbed Joe Bob’s discussion of the film, however, I came to a new appreciation of it.

Monday Morning Movie Review: Ponty Praises Donnie Darko (2001)

11 March 20246 March 2024 The Portly Politico3 Comments

After much cajoling, dear old Ponty has delivered his magnum opus—the long-anticipated review of 2001’s moody, depression-inducing Donnie Darko.

I’ve gotsta hand it to old Pontifex Maximus: he sure knows how to write a review. Even yours portly—who, as readers know well, is never wrong in his reasoned, intelligent assessments—is regarding his position after reading Ponty’s review. I may even give DD a second (or is it third or fourth, at this point?) chance.

I won’t spoil anything, but Ponty explains filters out the mud and the grey and brings some light to this otherwise dismal film.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of 2001’s Donnie Darko:

Ponty Pontificates: BBC Hails Swift as the Second Coming

21 February 202418 February 2024 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Taylor Swift is, for the current moment, the biggest pop cultural phenomenon of the decade. Her Eras tour has grossed billions, with tickets selling out almost immediately. Indeed, the tour has a lottery-based system that grants the opportunity to purchase tickets—which still sell out instantly. She’s singlehandedly gotten women interested in professional football, not because they care about the games, but because Taylor Swift is dating a player, Travis Kelce.

Swift is the embodiment of what every basic white girl wants to be: famous, admired, talented, wealthy, attractive. Her fans (Swifties) grew up with her, and now have the earning power to spend those aforementioned billions on concert tickets, tour merch, t-shirts, friendship bracelets, and everything else that goes with a major tour.

To say that Swift has a rabidly loyal fanbase is an understatement. Girls get vicious when it comes to talk of Taylor Swift. Believe me, I know—I teach teenage girls everyday, and the ones that love Swift love her. Mention Swift’s string of failed relationships (and the songs that come from them), and they’ll leap to her defense. Suggest she’s dating Kelce for the exposure, and they’ll claim (not incorrectly) that she gave the exposure to him. Believe me, they get very defensive of “Taylor” (to be clear, I don’t go around challenging teenage girls about their interest in pop music, but I hear their conversations with other students all the time).

I have a begrudging respect for Swift’s songwriting prowess—she wrote one song in 5/4 time, which is impressive for pop music—but otherwise I suspect her power over her fans is terrifying. It is an immense source of power. Women are herd-like and aggressively social in their behavior, and are far more likely to follow a directive from Taylor Swift (or Oprah, or Beyoncé), than to think critically about what their queen/goddess/self-insert wish fulfilment diva thinks.

I’ve even conceived of a short story concept in which a Taylor Swift-style pop star suddenly encourages her fans to become traditional wives—and that is what breaks the starlet’s spell over her fans, who no longer worship someone who encourages sacrifice and giving up an empty, solipsistic existence.

The concern—as Ponty touches on here—is that Swift, a vocal Democrat, will start plumping for The Usurper Biden (or whoever the candidate will be). Then, her legions of unthinking fans will vote for the party of excess, debauchery, and death.

It is perhaps a tad unfavorable to Swift’s fans to imagine them as occult worshippers of a tall, skinny babe with a microphone, but the slavish devotion with which they dedicate themselves to their icon is startling. Of course, we’re just living with the consequences of the Nineteenth Amendment.

I’ll let Ponty take it from here. Here is his discussion of the BBC’s obsession with Taylor Swift:

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: Always a Kid for Today