Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #2: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

My Number 2 pick is going to come as a surprise to Ponty, at the very least; it’s certainly a bit of a surprise to me.  It’s not because I don’t love this film—indeed, it may be my favorite film of all time—but because it’s not firmly at Number 1.

My original intent was to place John Carpenter‘s lightning-in-a-bottle classic Big Trouble in Little China (1996) in the top spot, but I realized there is a film that is objectively better (probably many such films exist, but the one I have in mind is, perhaps, the greatest film ever made, and not just because a chubby Internet personality says so).

I’m also thankful that we’ll be both be posting “Hono[u]rable Mention” (HM) pieces before we reveal our Number 1s.  I am realizing that I missed quite a few classics—Ghostbusters (1984) and Blade Runner (1982), for example—and I am increasingly regretting placing Krull (1983) on the list, even at Number 7.  I think it’s a great movie, but in hindsight, it should have been an HM pick.

But enough whinging.  There’ll be plenty of time for that on the HM post.  What about the second greatest film of all time?

Well, as that gigantic balloon reminded us, “China is here, Mr. Burton.”

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SubscribeStar Saturday: John Carpenter

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

The good folks at Shudder made the very wise decision to upload a bunch of John Carpenter films within the past couple of weeks, including Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Prince of Darkness (1987), and They Live (1988), the last of which I reviewed way back in the day, before I was writing movie reviews regularly.  Naturally, that’s meant a John Carpenter film festival at the Casa de Portly.

I’m not sure I have a favorite director—like most people, I just know what movies I like, regardless of who directs them—but if I had to pick, it would probably be John Carpenter.  I haven’t come close to seeing all of his films, but I know I like the ones I’ve seen—a lot.  The Thing might just be the best horror film ever made.  Big Trouble in Little China (1986) might be my favorite movie ever.

As such, I’d like to take this edition of SubscribeStar Saturday to celebrate the music and films and John Carpenter.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.