Good ol’ Ponty is back with another movie review, continuing our mutual countdown of the films we believe to be the Top Ten Worst. You can read his #10 pick here, and my #10 pick here. Ponty continues the fun with Alien: Resurrection (1997). He really rips it a new one. With that, here is Ponty’s review of the 1997 dud Alien: Resurrection:
Ponty and I have decided to run down our lists of Top Ten Worst Films, and this week it’s my turn to kick off my list. The problem is that I often like bad films, so I don’t have a large list conjured up in my head, ready to go.
Nevertheless, I watch some real stinkers. Most of the “bad” films I watch are simply boring—meandering, pointless, tripe.
This week’s selection, however, is not necessarily boring—there’s quite a bit going on in it—but is so ridiculous and poorly structured, I’m filing it under “bad.”
With that, here is my review of 1976’s Eaten Alive.
Good old Ponty is keeping the lights on at this blog with his submissions. They are welcome at a particularly busy season for yours portly, and especially after traveling to Indiana this past weekend for my older brother’s wedding.
Ponty and I share a love of horror movies, but especially a love of bad movies generally. I tend to be much more forgiving of bad movies, as many of them possess entertainment value in their own right (a premise so crazy the film is interesting, even if the parts don’t fit together; or a film that is “so-bad-it’s-good”). I’m also just not that discerning—or, perhaps, I just like trash.
Whatever the case might be, Ponty doesn’t share my ecumenical approach to films. He calls a spade a spade—and a pile of crap a pile of crap.
As such, he’s submitted the first of a list of ten films he regards as the worst films of all time. I’m dubbing this gloriously long miniseries Ponty’s Top Ten Worst Films. The tentative plan is to post these alternating Mondays in lieu of the usual Monday Morning Movie Review from yours portly. The non-Ponty weeks will be my list of the worst films of all time.l
I’ve kept all of Ponty’s colorful commentary intact; I’ve just added in years for the films, and italicized the titles. I’ve also provided some useful hyperlinks for those looking to learn more about the subject of his ire.
With that, here is Ponty’s review of Dead Snow 2 (Død snø 2, 2014). I don’t know if this is his tenth worst film or his first worst film; either way, he makes it sound pretty bad:
Do you like psychological thrillers, Ana de Armas, and snails? If so, you’ll love Deep Water (2022), the story of loveless couple Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda (de Armas) Van Allen.
The Van Allens live in an opulent Louisiana town, one that apparently is constantly hosting parties in a kind of never-ending Great Gatsby cycle of good times. Vic designed the guidance chip in drones, and now lives in comfortable retirement with his insane wife and his precocious daughter, the latter of which sports the unfortunate name “Trixie.”
Melinda constantly and flagrantly carries on flirtations and affairs with younger men, often quite openly during the various high-life soirees the couple attends. Vic begrudgingly allows his wife to carry on in this manner, even as his friends express concern. His philosophy is to let his wife make her own decisions, a philosophy he also extends to his daughter (who opted to attend a—gasp!—public school, rather than a tony private one).
Of course, there’s only so much humiliation one man can take, and despite his Hosea-esque patience with his wife’s adulterous shenanigans, Vic finally—in his own, quiet way—snaps.
In continuing with my movie reviews of requested films (see last week’s review of 1999’s Bicentennial Man, which I reviewed at the request of Audre Myers), I’m reviewing 2021’s The Electrical Life of Louis Wain at the request of my Aunt Marilyn. She recommended the film, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the eccentric title character, enthusiastically.
I love Benedict Cumberbatch—one of my favorite current actors—and just about anything about eccentric creative types in Victorian England; needless to say, I loved this film, which details the quite tumultuous, tortured life and mind of Louis Wain, the man responsible for normalizing the keeping of cats as pets.
Viewing the film was a bit tricky at first. As far as I can tell, it is only on the Amazon Prime Video service. When I would pull up the movie on there, the only option I could see required an Amazon Prime membership, but my aunt assured me I’d be able to rent it (probably all I had to do was click on that subscription button and I’d be given the option to rent).
It occurred to me that I might still have access to Prime Video through my ex-girlfriend’s account on my Roku; sure enough, I was able to watch the movie—for free!—using those surreptitious means.
Logistical nonsense aside, I should probably review the film, rather than talk about how I had to access it. All this blogging is going to my head.
After three poetical Sundays (here, here, and here), it’s time to get back to the schlock and sleaze you’ve come to expect from yours portly. That means more movie reviews!
These three flicks date from late October and early November, the beating heart of the so-called “spooky season.” As such, these films fall nicely into the spooky category. Two of them are masterpieces, while another is a dud.
Well, per Meat Loaf, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad“:
There you have it! Back to the movies this Lazy Sunday.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
I’m finishing out January with one more Shudder-based movie review, then I’m going to knock out the growing list of film review requests. Audre’s been patiently waiting for a review of Bicentennial Man (1999), which is over two hours long (probably why I keep putting it off—ha!); my Aunt Marilyn has requested The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021), which stars Benedict Cumberbatch; and my neighbor Bernard Fife has recommended White Lightning (1973), which he hopes will be part of a “Hick Flick” series of reviews.
I promise to get to all of these films, and as February is the month of love, it seems like as good a time as any to show my readers some love. If you’ve got any recommendations to make, get them in now, while I’m awash in this generous mood. Fortunately for you, dear readers, I also experience a crushing, crippling sense of obligation, so chances are if you ask nicely, I’ll review it. Just leave a comment or e-mail me.
But it’s still January for one more day, so I get to pick the movie. This weekend, I stumbled upon the 2020 Spanish-language film The Last Matinee (or Al morir la matinée). The film is a joint production of Uruguay and Argentina, and takes place in Montevideo in 1993.
That alone made it unique, as most Spanish-language horror films seem to take place in Mexico or Spain (Spain, like Italy, apparently has a thriving horror film industry). What further drew me to the film is that it takes place in a failing movie theater in the heart of the city, and the events unfold during a screening of a cheesy slasher film.
Since the first installment of Midweek Mad Scientist Movie Madness two weeks ago, I’ve watched several more films from Mad Scientist Theatre, a collection of mostly bad, mostly public domain films. As with any such collection, the appeal is in the handful of renowned classics, and some of the hidden gems.
The first three flicks on the very first disc are all silent movie classics. I’ve already reviewed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which both debuted in 1920. I appreciated and enjoyed both films for different reasons, and both were very well done, although quite different, films.
The third film is 1927’s Metropolis, perhaps the greatest silent film of all time. I took a modern German history course in college, and we were supposed to attend a screening of Metropolis for class. For some reason, I did not attend, which was very out of character for me (I only missed class twice in college: a session of Human Geography because my saxophone sextet had its recital that morning, and a rehearsal of the University Band so I could play The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion the night it was released). I guess we were never tested on it, but when I found out there was a robot woman, I was kicking myself for missing the flick.
Now, some twenty years later, I’ve finally watched this classic of Weimar Germany’s wild cinematic scene. I wish I’d gone to see it in college!
As with Jekyll and Caligari, you can watch Metropolis for free on YouTube (although, apparently, the film won’t be back in the public domain in the United States until the end of this year):
As you can see, it is a long film—depending on which cut you see. Apparently, there are dozens of different cuts and restorations, and no one knows for certain which is the “definitive” version. One of my readers asked me which cut I saw, and I have no earthly idea (sorry, cinephiles). It’s whatever version Mill Creek Entertainment decided to put on this collection. I do know the film felt long in parts—although I was glued to the screen for most of it—but it didn’t feel like it was two-and-a-half hours long.
What I can say is that Metropolis is worth seeing, not only because it is an important film in the history of cinema (and the height of German Expressionism), but because it is a good movie with an important message: the head and the hands must work together through the heart.
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It’s another Lazy Sunday and I’m at a loss for a theme, so how about looking back at some more movie reviews?
Even with writing a review a week, I’m beginning to catch up to the present when it comes to these Lazy Sunday retrospectives. As such, the day is coming where I won’t be able to rely on this “out” to avoid a modicum of creative thinking.
But that’s Future Port’s problem. Here are three reviews from October 2021:
Well, that’s it for this Sunday! Enjoy some tasteless viewing of your own this weekend.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
For Christmas I received a couple of box sets, each containing fifty films from their respective genres. The first collection I cracked open, Mad Scientist Theatre, consists of, well, fifty films about science and scientists gone wrong (or mad, I should say).
I’ve decided to write reviews of the films from these collections throughout the course of the year semiregularly. Son of Sonnet is taking a bit of a hiatus from writing for the time being, so these midweek reviews seemed like a good way to fill the void his pen has left. I don’t plan on writing these reviews every Wednesday, but maybe once or twice a month.
Also, I’ll be making the meat of these reviews for subscribers only. That’s not to cut out my lovable band of regular readers, but to further sweeten the pot for existing subscribers. I thought about doing these posts for $5 and up subscribers, but as of this past weekend, I finally have a subscriber at the $3 level. Because I think she will enjoy these oddball film reviews, I’m going to make them available starting at that level.
That said, I will still provide a substantial portion of these reviews for non-paying readers, as their energy and enthusiasm in the comment sections really keep the blog alive and fresh.
So! With that lengthy preamble out of the way, the first two flicks on the first disc of Mad Scientist Theatre are both silent films from 1920: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. You don’t need Mad Scientist Theatre to watch these films, either, as they’re both in the public domain (indeed, they’re both 102-years old, which is wild to contemplate—film is a young medium, but it was around and commercially viable a century ago). You can view both on YouTube:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (with the original color tinting, which is not on the Mad Scientist Theatre collection):
These are quite different films, but each interesting in their own way. The themes and situations explored in each are eerily prescient for those of us living through our own “Roaring Twenties,” with all this decade’s excesses, licentiousness, and absurdity.
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The Portly Politico 