Tag: ideas

Monday Morning Movie Review: Wait Until Dark (1967)

The Portly Politico19 Comments

A quick note of apology to Audre Myers, one of my regular readers:  Audre mailed me a DVD of the film Bell, Book, and Candle (1958) at the beginning of October.  I have been waiting for opportunity to watch it with my girlfriend, then was going to review it.

Well, it turns out when you live four hours apart from each other, your weekends get filled up pretty quickly with fun activities and/or family obligations outside of the house—or catching up on a shared television series.  Poor BB&C has fallen by the wayside.

As such, I’ve yet to watch what appears to be a wonderful film, sent by a very wonderful friend.  I do apologize, Audrey, but I will make time this week to hook up the Blu-Ray player and watch the film solo.  Expect a detailed, lovingly handcrafted review in one week!

As I’ve noted many times before, Shudder has some of the best (and so-bad-it’s-the-best) content of any streaming service I’ve ever encountered.  Something I appreciate about the service is that they don’t just stick to slashers, but really take an expansive approach to “horror” as a genre.  They go out of their way to deliver some excellent classics that probably don’t show up anywhere else.

One such film—one that I would not strictly classify as a “horror” film, but which certainly deals with a horrific scenario—is 1967’s Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman living with her photographer husband in a basement apartment in New York City.  Hepburn’s character, Susy Hendrix, has only been blind for a year or so, the result of a tragic accident, so she is still learning how to attend to everyday tasks without sight.

That said, she is fairly capable, and manages well enough, though the film clearly demonstrates that she is vulnerable due to her disability.  The stage is set for conflict when Susy and her husband come into the possession of an old-fashioned doll.  Unbeknownst to them, the doll is filled with heroine smuggled from Montreal, and a trio of crooks are intent on recovering the stash.

Read More »

TBT: The Morning After

The Portly Politico9 Comments

It was one year ago today that The Z Man wrote that “America died” on 3 November 2020.  I don’t think he meant it melodramatically, and it certainly encapsulated what a lot of us were feeling as we watched the fraudulent votes magically appear in the middle of the night.

The 2020 election woke a lot of people up, but even blatant fraud across multiple States has, sadly, gone largely ignored.  The silver lining is that folks seem to have abandoned national politics and are focusing on what’s happening at the local and State levels.  Indeed, there seems to be a general disengagement from politics, something that in the past I would have decried, but that now I think might actually be healthy—provided people are willing to make tough decisions for themselves.

Regardless, it’s hard to think about the 2020 election.  Since then, we’ve been stuck with a old man who is essentially a corpse dangling from the strings of invisible hands.  I thought a year ago that The Usurper Biden would be tossed from office at the first opportunity, but it’s occurred to me that he is too perfect a patsy for the radical elitists performing the marionette.  For one, Kamala Harris somehow manages to be less likeable and more phony than Hillary Clinton, and progressives don’t like her.  For another, it’s better to have a hollow man like Biden than a strident floozy like Harris, who might occasionally make a decision on her own.

Well, this topic is depressing.  You can see why I’ve switched over to writing about music and the weather.

With that, here is 4 November 2020’s “The Morning After“:

Read More »

Monday Morning Movie Review: Halloween Kills (2021)

The Portly Politico7 Comments

Halloween has come and gone, and we’re now entering the season of thankfulness—and then Christmas!  But I figured I’d squeeze in one more movie review related to the holiday, as my girlfriend and I saw—perhaps, it’s better to say, “endured”—2021’s Halloween Kills.

Halloween Kills is the sequel to 2018’s Halloween, itself a sequel to 1978’s Halloween (here’s a handy chart of all twelve Halloween films, and a diagram showing the different continuities within the bloated series).  Like Halloween II (1981), which starts immediately following the events of the original, Halloween Kills takes place on the same night as the events of Halloween (2018).  Confused yet?

Well, none of that much matters, besides the characters repeatedly mentioning the Michael Myers murders “forty years ago.”  Really, most of the movie is a sad attempt at making a statement about a mob mentality, itself muddled by the fact that the mob—which keeps chanting, “Evil dies tonight!”—is actually right about the necessity to annihilate Michael Myers once and for all.

Needless to say, it’s not a very good movie.  The 2018 Halloween was a great follow-up to the original (even taking into account that horror movie sequels are almost never good, or justified), and explored the theme of complacency in the face of a real existential threat.  Lori Strode’s character correctly understand that there is evil in the world, and Michael Myers is the relentless embodiment of it.  She therefore wisely takes major precautions to protect herself against the inevitable return of the man in the mask.

Read More »

The War on Halloween

The Portly Politico9 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

It has long been the position of this blog that Halloween gets a bad rap, especially from the Christian Right. The holiday’s association with deviltry, witchcraft, and the occult is, of course, difficult to deny, but the holiday’s name is an abbreviation of “All Hallow’s Eve”; that is, the evening before All Saints’ Day on 1 November.

Granted, the Internet atheists will claim the roots of Halloween in Samhain, the Gaelic festival of the harvest. They are not wrong, per se—the influx of Irish immigrants into the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought a peculiarly Celtic flavor to the holiday. But the holiday is a Christian, specifically a Catholic, one—the Irishmen bringing tales of Jack O’Lantern and his carved turnip (it would only later become a pumpkin) were not ancient pagans, but among the most devout believers in Europe.

Certainly the medieval Catholic Church had a habit of taking pagan holidays and replacing them with Christian observances. For some reason, Internet atheists always use these replacements as examples of Christianity’s secretly pagan roots. The argument is ludicrous.

When Hernan Cortez destroyed the Aztec temple at Tenochtitlan and built a cathedral in its place, was he honoring the bloodthirsty Aztec gods? Or was he symbolically noting that The Holy Trinity had displaced the false gods and idols of the Aztecs? It is almost certainly the latter. Similarly, when Christians took existing pagan observances and replaced them with Christian ones, they were symbolically and practically demonstrating the victory of Christ and His Church over pagan gods.

Indeed, much of the American Protestant objection to Halloween must have been due to its associations with the Papists, rather than the Devil. The mischievousness of the holiday in the twentieth century, especially the concept of trick-or-treating, probably has more to do with its more sinister modern associations.

But the latest assault on Halloween is coming from a different quarter.  No longer are conservative Christians alone in hedging their bets on the holiday.

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

TBT^2: On Ghost Stories

The Portly Politico10 Comments

It’s that time of year again—the so-called “spooky season,” when Halloween decorations go up, scary stories get told, and overwrought bloggers with delusions of grandeur stage over-the-top concerts from their front porches (well, maybe that last one is just me).  As the weather turns cool and the leaves begin to fall, it’s almost impossible not to settle in with some hot coffee and a good collection of ghost stories.

So, for the second year in a row, I’m looking back this TBT to 2019’s “On Ghost Stories,” a post that now will hold the distinction of being a perennial favorite.

One might think that as scary as the real world is, we’d spend less time reading spooky fiction.  It seems the opposite is the case.  Perhaps the idea that malevolence is not necessarily the result of human frailty, but rather due to wicked supernatural influences, is oddly comforting.  That evil is the result of our fallen nature—and, of course, the malignant supernatural influence up on it—is a bit easier to forget, perhaps, when reading about some ghostly figure wreaking havoc in the English countryside.

More likely, it’s just that we enjoy being scared—when we can easily flip off the television or close the book.  Horror is fun when there are no real consequences attached to it.  Then again, just watching horror movies probably isn’t healthy (I’ll report back if I suddenly get any macabre urges).

Well, whatever the reason, a good ghost story is hard to pass up.  With that, here is “TBT: On Ghost Stories“:

Read More »

Monday Morning Movie Review: In the Earth (2021)

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Well, it’s not quite morning, and I’m still playing catch-up after a weekend of indolence and ice cream, but but I’m eking out this Monday “Morning” Movie Review for your daily delectation.

I often review films that I like, or about which I can say something positive.  This week’s film, In the Earth (2021), is one that I cannot recommend to most viewers, but one I nevertheless enjoyed.

Read More »

National Night Out in Lamar

The Portly Politico88 Comments

Last night the Lamar Neighborhood Watch organized an observation of National Night Out, an evening dedicated to supporting law enforcement and encouraging strong community building.  Most communities observe National Night Out in August, but Texas and other States observe it on the first Tuesday in October, when the weather is a good bit cooler.  August in the South is rarely a good time to host outdoor events.

My walking buddy neighbor helped organize the event, but he took a unique approach to it:  rather than having one person or a committee coordinating all of the participants, he invited residents to host whatever bit of entertainment and fun they could muster.  The result was a small but truly grassroots street festival.

Read More »