Lazy Sunday CLXIV: More Movies, Part XXVIII: Portly’s Worst Films, Part III

The long retrospective of the worst films ever is nearly over, which means after over six months of self-torture, we’ll finally be through rehashing these wretched films.

My , , and picks are particularly accursed, and definitely deserve their spots so close to :

Wow, a depressing mix of bad films this week.  Maybe the worst films of all time—mine and Ponty’s respective picks—next Sunday will ease the pain.  Or just double down on it.

Well, sometimes to escape the crevasse, we must descend deeper into it.  D’oh!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #9: Uncle Buck (1989)

This week’s film is going in my slot, but I think it deserves to be much higher.  I’ve been busy, though, and have not painstakingly plotted out my top ten, as I’m sure Ponty has done.  Instead, I’m going week-by-week with my favorites, including those that are top-of-mind for me.

That said, I love this film, and once this list is finished, I might have to edit the order to the “real” one.

Regardless, it’s my distinct pleasure to review one of the best family comedies ever written, John Hughes’s incomparable Uncle Buck (1989):

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Lazy Sunday CLXIII: More Movies, Part XXVII: Ponty’s Worst Films, Part III

We’re nearing the end of this long retrospective of mine and Ponty’s lists of the ten worst films, and back to Ponty this week.  His excoriation of Elf (2003) nearly landed me in hot water with my girlfriend’s family, who thought I wrote the review!  Here is what I did write about Elf:

Elf is one of those movies I’ve never seen in its entirety, but I know about all-too-well [sic].  It seems that every girl I’ve ever met loves this movie, but not just with some yuletide enthusiasm; they act like it’s the greatest Christmas film ever made.

Well, it turns out I was right; my girlfriend, her sisters, and her mom were none-too-pleased (is “none-too-pleased” another [sic]-able abuse of hyphens?)!  They acted as though I’d blasphemed Jesus (or that Ponty did).

Well, blogging is all about churning up some controversy, right?  I imagine they’d be a bit more amenable to Ponty’s next three picks (although Titanic might bring about more howls of female outrage—I’ll report back in a week, if I’m still alive after they read this preamble!):

We’ll look at my -#2 picks next Sunday, then close out with our picks in the final Lazy Sunday post in the series.

Stay tuned—and Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CLXII: More Movies, Part XXV: Portly’s Worst Films, Part II

As Ponty and I are digging into what we consider to be the best films off all time, I’m continuing looking back at our major blogging project for most of 2022:  our lists of the Top Ten Worst Films.  Here’s are my next three picks from that long list:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CLX: More Movies, Part XXIII: Portly’s Worst Films, Part I

We checked out the #10, #9, and #8 picks from Ponty last Sunday, so here are my same picks from our Top Ten Worst Films countdown, which we’ve been doing since March (and which we finally finished earlier this week).  With the exception of my #8 pick, I actually kind of enjoyed these films, but they were just very poorly executed:

That’s it for this Lazy Sunday!  Stay away from these films (but maybe pick up the soundtrack to Rocktober Blood).

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Midweek Myers Movie Review: King Kong (1933)

Good ol’ Audre keeps delivering the goods with these film reviews.  Of course, all these movie reviews make me wonder if I should just morph The Portly Politico into a film review blog—maybe re-brand as “A Portly Night at the Movies” or something.

But there’s just too much other good stuff to bloviate about.  Still, there’s something magical about a good movie, and few movies are quite as magical as 1933’s King Kong.  There’s something whimsical—completely captivating—about this film:  the stop-motion Kong; the iconic scenes; the mighty ape fighting a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  It’s all so… cool!

So I was thrilled when Audre—quite out of the blue!—contributed this review of the film.  She captures that whimsy and magic and adventure so beautifully here.  And for a woman obsessed with Bigfoot, well, it makes sense she’d like movies about giant apes.

With that, here is Audre Myers’s review of 1933’s King Kong:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Ponty’s Top Ten Worst Films: #2: Love Actually (2003)

When Ponty submitted this week’s review, he made the submission twice, because the first one was apparently so laced with profanity, he believed the delicate sensibilities of my readers might protest.  So he resubmitted this review, which, while lacking the language of the original (besides one well-placed f-bomb), still retains the vitriolic evisceration this film so richly deserves.

I vaguely remember when this flick hit the theaters.  I was in high school, or just starting college, and the assistant pastor at church apparently watched it with his wife—until he turned it off in disgust.  I’ve never watched it, but from Ponty’s review, I’m glad I didn’t.  The pastor was right, though you’d think a man of the cloth would have exercised a bit more discretion and discernment before popping this worldly tripe into his DVD player.

When we look about at the state of the world today, and especially of romantic relationships, it’s pretty clear they’re in a bad way.  Men and women distrust each other.  Everyone is out to get whatever will make them feel good, no matter what the consequences to themselves or others.  Broken hearts litter the dating scene like shattered glass in an alleyway.

And it’s all in the name of “love.”  Actually, it’s all in the name of lust.  Satan is good at taking something beautiful—Biblical love—and turning into a tawdry, disgraceful knock-off.

This film surely is one of myriad examples of Satan disseminating this perverted view of “love” to the masses.  Ponty’s review, while uproariously funny and biting, also picks up on this important insight, albeit in a far more entertaining and far less preachy manner.

With that, here’s Ponty’s pick, 2003’s Love Actually:

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Lazy Sunday CLVI: More Movies, Part XXI: Movie Reviews, Part XXI

We’re back to the movies yet again this Lazy Sunday, though it’s going to be an abbreviated installment.  After the two film reviews here, Ponty and I began trading back and forth our reviews of our Top Ten Worst Films.  That list is nearly complete (with Ponty’s pick popping tomorrow morning), so I’ll soon be going back through that list in future editions of Lazy Sunday.

That also means that, after this Sunday, I’ll be giving retrospectives of film reviews a rest for a few weekends.  What vague theme will I explore instead?  Stay tuned to find out more!

Regardless, here’s a 33% lighter Lazy Sunday than usual:

  • Monday Morning Movie Review: Runaway (1984)” – One reason I like to go back through these movie reviews is because I forget how many movies I’ve reviewed.  I also just straight up forgot watching 1984’s Runaway—starring a mustachioed Tom Selleck as a police officer charged with disabling malfunctioning robots—until going back through these old reviews.  I did enjoy this film, and although it’s not a great movie, it scratched an itch for a robophile such as myself.
  • Monday Morning Movie Review: Deep Water (2022)” – If you like psychological thrillers, Ana de Armas, and snails, you’ll love Deep Water (2022), the story of loveless, dysfunctional couple Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda (de Armas) Van Allen.  A great deal of the appeal of this movie—besides the aforementioned Ana de Armas playing a riotous sexpot—is trying to figure out the nature of the Van Allens’s deeply messed up relationship.  The snails are also kind of weird.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Worst Films: #3: Captain Marvel (2019)

There used to be a time when superhero movies were fun, light-hearted fare for a hot summer’s afternoon.  With a bucket of popcorn and frosty air-conditioning, watching Iron Man quip one-liners while blowing stuff up was a good way to pass the time.

Marvel Studios really upped the ante with superhero flicks, ladling in humor, depth, pathos, rich characterization, interlocking storylines, and all the rest.  For ten years, they pretty much dominated cinemas, with few misfires.  Heck, even the bad Marvel films were merely mediocre or forgettable.  I’ve definitely forgotten a lot of the plot points since the first Iron Man flick came out in 2008 (good grief—has it been that long?!), but the films were largely humorous, action-packed thrill rides at the time.

Then everything started getting hyper-politicized.  Think back to 2008, and how different the world was then.  Yeah, sure, Barack Obama was elected President that year—perhaps an important turning point in the wider culture war—but at the time, that was at least billed as a some kind of magically unifying moment.  Sure, we conservatives didn’t buy it, and he ended up being everything we feared he would:  a race-baiting socialist with delusions of grandeur.  But overall, our culture wasn’t nearly as divided as it is now, and while Hollywood always put out some propaganda, it largely stuck to entertainment.

By the time Captain Marvel (2019) came out eleven years later, it felt like the entire world had been turned upside-down.  Suddenly, everyone was talking about how much “representation matters” and established superheroes and other characters were being gender-swapped willy-nilly.  Rather than, you know, creating compelling female (or [insert identity here]) characters, we were told Batman needed to be gay, trans, Asian, wheelchair-bound, and suffering from a protruding overbite.

It was into this milieu that Captain Marvel was born—and it suffered for it.

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Lazy Sunday CLV: More Movies, Part XX: Movie Reviews, Part XX

This weekend marks the 155th edition of Lazy Sunday and the twentieth of looking back at movie reviews.  What’s also fun is that the first and third reviews this weekend are both from the pen of Ponty, with whom I am currently trading reviews of the worst movies of all time.

That’s it for this Sunday’s Ponty sandwich.  Enjoy!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments: