Tag: movies

Monday Morning Movie Review: Primetime (2026)

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s wild to think how different the world was just twenty years ago. The Internet in the early 2000s was in this weird, fun phase between the DIY ethos of the 1990s and the then-emerging-but-still-scrappy social media juggernauts of today. I first learned about YouTube from a print article in Newsweek, of all places, around that time. Sure, there was content online, but mostly text; slower connections meant that video wasn’t so easily obtained (getting to college in 2003 and experiencing truly high-speed Internet for the first time was life-changing).

In other words, cable television was still king. Indeed, it was something of a golden age—or, perhaps, a dark age—of trashy reality television. Survivor was an international phenomenon. MTV stopped playing music videos and just showed annoying youths screeching at each other in luxury houses. Watching shows about people shopping for houses in those pre-Great Recession days was a national pastime.

In retrospect, reality television was something of a precursor to modern YouTube, in which audiences formed parasocial bonds with television hosts. Sure, the possibility for engagement was far more remote, but people got really into those shows. But the cultural power was far greater, because everything was filtered through the Big Three networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—and a host of related channels. Everyone was talking about, say, Lost or The Office at work; media journalists called these “water cooler shows,” because everyone would discuss them at the water cooler the next day. “Appointment viewing” was another term, because you couldn’t just watch a show whenever you wanted to—you had to watch it live or wait for a rerun. Ergo, if you wanted to be up on things at the water cooler, you had to keep your appointment!

The fewer options combined with rigid airing schedules meant that far more people were watching the same programming. The kind of scattershot fracturing of media we experience now was not really a problem. Sure, there were tons of channels and you could watch one of those instead of whatever the hit show was, and plenty of folks did; but so many people wanted to be in on the conversation. There wasn’t just a parasocial relationship with television hosts or characters; there was a social element to television.

It also meant that shows were competing for eyeballs in the same finite time blocks. TiVo and DVRs alleviated this competition slightly, as you could record one show while watching another in the same block, but it wasn’t like you could hop on YouTube and watch tons of show clips or sports highlight reels or the news.

Little did we realize it at the time, but the era of cable television’s dominance was swiftly ending. For that moment, though, it seemed stronger than ever (perhaps there’s a lesson there), and the competition for the top ratings was fierce.

The king of primetime (or, at least, one of the jester-princes of the era) was investigative journalist Chris Hansen, who’s iconic phrase “why don’t you have a seat” became one of the earliest memes. Those words meant that a degenerate pervert was about to get his comeuppance.

As morally satisfying as the show was, there was always something a bit sleazy about it (and not just because grown men were attempting to engage in illegal acts with minors), and the new A24 film Primetime (2026) explores the darker side of the program.

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TBT: 31 Days of Halloween Starts Today!

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Last year I did a daily film review, which I dubbed 31 Days of Halloween. Back then, YouTube Shorts were only one-minute in length, so I had to get to the point quickly (I did not always succeed).

Here’s the entire playlist from last year:

This year, I’ll be opening The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Halloween Countdown Calendar (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you—TPP) each day in October and making a short YouTube video (or a “Short”) revealing what I uncover. That will be 2026’s version of 31 Days of Halloween (although I’ll try to toss in some short film reviews of flicks I missed last year, too).

I’ll try to open each “day” on the calendar on the actual day, so the videos might not be up at 6 AM EST like last year’s videos. That said, they’ll get up hopefully by lunchtime each day, although Thursdays might see later videos (I’m writing this post a few days early, so check the comments or tomorrow’s post for a link to the video if I haven’t gotten it done by the time you’re reading these words). You can check my YouTube channel, too.

With that, here is 1 October 2025’s “31 Days of Halloween Starts Today!“:

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Introduction to Horror Movies for Dr. Wife

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Last week good old Ponty asked me “Is Dr[.] Wife a horror junkie?” My response was straightforward: “Sadly, horror is a bit too intense for the Good Doctor. I’m going to have to ease her in with some milder stuff.”

It’s interesting, because Dr. Wife has seen actual horrors in the medical field. She’s seen people die—for real, not on a screen. One night in medical school a patient’s foot came off in her hands (it wasn’t Dr. Wife’s fault, to be clear—the patient had been in a terrible car wreck). She’s seen children in deplorable medical shape.

She handles that well, but horror movies are a bit tough for her. She’s not a total chicken, however: she was excited to see this year’s smash horror hit, Obsession, as well as the eerie Backrooms. But Dr. Wife, like most women, is plugged into the pop cultural Zeitgeist to an extent yours portly is not, so part of her eagerness to see Obsession was because it was getting loads of buzz online (and she found the premise fascinating; it is).

That got Ponty and me thinking: how can we “ease” her into horror? What are the classic, must-see films that aren’t excessively gory or creepy?

Dr. Wife might be interested in some “Curious Little Ghosties“

To that end, I’ve put together a list, drawn from Ponty and his lovely fiancée Tina’s recommendations, as well as Backyard Movie Critic‘s recent post “THE GREATEST HALLOWEEN HORROR MOVIE LIST OF ALL TIME” (yes, the title is in ALL CAPS).

Of course, as I’m writing this post, I realized that Dr. Wife has at least read William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, and I think we may have watched the movie together (she confirmed that we did—TPP), and that was once regarded as the scariest movie of all time. So maybe she possesses more of an appetite for horror than I think.

Well, whatever—onto the list (presented in no particular order)!

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

The Portly Politico7 Comments

While visiting my older brother the other weekend, we drove down to the AMC in Savannah, Georgia to catch Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). I’m of the mind that if there is a Spider-Man movie, I must see it.

I’m not a huge comic book nerd (although I like them; I just don’t know all the deep lore and storylines and such), and I haven’t devoured hundreds of issues of Spider-Man comics, but I’ve always appreciated the character. Plus, my generation came of age with the Tobey Maguire flicks (directed by none other than Sam Raimi). I’ve heard it said that each generation has their Spider-Man; mine is Maguire (and my Mary Jane is Kirsten Dunst). Also, where else are you going to see Willem DaFoe lose his mind as a super villain (and not as just every other character he plays)?

That said, I love the character and his backstory. Spider-Man is basically a goofy kid with amazing powers who has to grow up fast and learn some hard lessons. He is duty-bound—“with great power comes great responsibility”—to protect those around him, even at great personal cost. Very often, Spider-Man doesn’t get the girl; sometimes, the girl gets killed!

That theme continues with the current iteration of Spider-Man as portrayed by the eternally boyish Tom Holland, albeit with a twist that I think Spider-Man: Brand New Day essentially nullifies.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Odyssey (2026)

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Well, long after the brouhaha has passed, I’m finally doing it: writing my review of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026). Dr. Wife and I saw it back on Saturday, 25 July 2026, in inglorious 2D (as opposed to glorious 3D or IMAX). Overall, we enjoyed it.

Before diving into the film itself, let me address the meta-narrative/-commentary around the film: the woke casting. Yes, Ellen Page (now going by “Elliott”) appears playing a Greek soldier. If you were going to cast a woman-pretending-she’s-a-man as a male Greek soldier, Ellen Page was about as benign as you could get. The role is a young man who is drafted, essentially, when he’s still a little boy, so he’s kind of gangly and weak, even after ten years at war. Ellen is dispatched in the first few minutes of the film, and only appears again as a shade from the Underworld, her figures so obscured by mud and her voice so obscured by scary audio effects that, at long last, she can actually pass as a man.

It’s the same for the other controversial casting decisions: Lupita Nyong’o as Helen (and Helen’s sister) and Zendaya as Athena. As much as I loved the “Helen of Detroit” memes and thought it was kind of ridiculous to cast the incredibly black (but still beautiful, just not “Helen of Troy” beautiful) Nyong’o as a flaxen-haired Grecian super beauty, she appears only fleetingly in the flick. Zendaya’s casting is, perhaps, the most egregious, primarily because, well, she plays herself the entire time—making one or two facial expressions while wordlessly staring at Odysseus. At least here it makes sense, because (MINOR SPOILER ALERT) she’s basically a representation of his trauma over the atrocities he committed at Troy, so looking like a pouty bullfrog is a bit more excusable.

None of that is to endorse this casting—there were many superior choices to portray “the face that launched a thousand ships”—but to note these roles are fairly minor. Remember, Helen is the catalyst for The Iliad, which details the origins of the Trojan War; The Odyssey focuses on Odysseus’s long voyage home after the war. Matt Damon was convincing as Odysseus, and Anne Hathaway was exquisite as Penelope, Odysseus’s besieged but loyal wife.

One more note on the casting: the one time the diversity casting made me LOL was when the Indian actor portraying Odysseus’s lieutenant exclaimed, proudly, “We are Greeks!” It was so incongruous, it made me laugh. That is, perhaps, a commentary on the pitfalls of “woke” and/or DIE casting: there is a thing that it is to be “Greek”—or “Indian,” or “English,” etc.—and we all know, even if we don’t want to admit it, that a guy from the Indian subcontinent is not Greek (although I’m sure some wags would point to Alexander the Great’s conquests of the far western edges of India, or note the common Indo-European ancestry, etc., but let’s not get carried away with autistry here).

But I digress. What about the actual movie?

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Memorable Monday [Morning] Movie Review: The Empire Strikes Back [(1980)]

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Back in late 2022 and early 2023, Ponty and I did a series of posts about our favorite films. I ranked 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back as my number one pick. If we redid the lists, I doubt it would rank that high, but it would certainly be in the top five.

At the time, I noted that Empire was the first film I ever reviewed for what would become Monday Morning Movie Reviews. At the time, I just called it Monday Movie Review, perhaps knowing there’d be days I’d miss the “morning” deadline. Regardless, the review of that film marked something of a turning point for The Portly Politico, moving away from primarily political topics and moving more decisively towards cultural ones.

With that, here is 28 September 2020’s “Monday Movie Review: The Empire Strikes Back“:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

The Portly Politico4 Comments

One of the flicks on my mental “to view” list for some time now was today’s feature, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971; that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you). It’s been wickedly hard to track down online, although I’ve seen its sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again (same affiliate link as above) available on a number of platforms. For whatever reason, I never cared enough to find the DVD (ibid.)—or to even consider looking for it!

So when the sequel popped up on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, I decided to hunt down the original. Surely YouTube would have it as one of their free (with ads) flicks, yes?

Well, no. But someone—or two someones—had uploaded it to YouTube. I can’t vouch for how legit it is that they’ve done so, but they’ve head the film uploaded for seven years, so I imagine American International Pictures or the copyright holders of the various Great American Songbook tunes in the film don’t care or don’t know about the upload (hopefully I’m not outing them with this review). Regardless, two gentlemen in New Castle, Pennsylvania, have a little horror show called New Castle After Dark (website) in which they dress in the kind of tuxedos nerds wear to the prom. They also smoke lots of cigarettes and drink dark beer while they make some general comments about the flick.

It’s a charming setup, and I appreciated that they didn’t cut into the film too frequently. From what I recall, they do an intro, then host a segment midway through the film, and finally close with some concluding remarks. It’s just the right about of interstitial commentary, and I think it’s super cool that they’re trying to capture the spirit (no pun intended) of late-night horror hosts.

Here’s the flick with their commentary if you want to check it out yourself:

The premise for Dr. Phibes is insanely fun and campy: the titular doctor, who holds dual doctorates in music and theology, seeks revenge on the surgeons who he believes botched his wife’s surgery some years earlier. He methodically murders each doctor according to the Ten Plagues of Egypt from Exodus.

Phibes himself is a gruesome character. While his wife was going into surgery, he attempted to rush back to England from Switzerland. In the process he crashed his car, sustaining injuries that made it impossible for him to talk. To do so, he used his knowledge of music and acoustics to create a voice box (through which he comically drinks some champagne at one point). He also has a full, automaton band that plays jazz and pop standards from the 1920s (the setting of the film) and, anachronistically, the 1930s and 1940s.

Vincent Price portrays the devilishly ingenious doctor, so imagine Price’s stentorian voice filtered through an old landline telephone wire. It’s so goofy and awesome.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Last Man on Earth (1964)

The Portly Politico11 Comments

I started writing this review Sunday evening and decided to spend time with Dr. Wife, who is now done with residency and living here in our South Carolina house permanently! This morning was full of errands, including taking Nugget to the vet for her annual visit and taking care of things around the house. Ergo, I’m finally getting around to finishing up this review. —TPP

Also, this post includes some Amazon Affiliate links (the book and movie titles). I receive a portion of any purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you. —TPP

On Saturday I wrote about Richard Matheson’s novella I Am Legend, which I enjoyed reading over the past week. What prompted me to purchase the book was re-watching its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth. The film stars Vincent Price is the role of Robert Neville, the titular last man on Earth not to succumb to a terrible plague that turns people into vampires.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Cromwell (1970)

The Portly Politico2 Comments

YouTube has a treasure trove of classic films that are free with ads—legally. Indeed, in watching some of these films on my desktop, I’ve had no ads actually pop up (and I’m not using some kind of cheeky ad blocker). YouTube has fed me some great films, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s.

One of the best I’ve seen so far is 1970’s Cromwell, a historical drama based on the life of the the Puritan warrior and later Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell. The film also stars Obi-Wan Kenobi—excuse me, Alec Guinness—as King Charles I in a pitch-perfect performance (Richard Harris also delivers a fiery performance as Cromwell).

Here’s the entire film here; it is well worth investing in the runtime, and I found it gripping for the entire duration:

Now that you’ve spent the morning watching the movie, on to the review!

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Backrooms (2026)

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Dr. Wife and I took in another indie horror-ish flick on Saturday, checking out the Internet sensation Backrooms (2026). The film is based on director Kane Parson‘s YouTube series, Backrooms, which itself is based on a 4Chan thread from 2019. “The Backrooms” are a series of liminal spaces that exist extradimensionally, but are accessible from the real world. They consist of seemingly endless corridors decorated in the drab yellow wallpaper and builder-grade carpet of every 1990s dentist office. Indeed, the original photo that inspired the Backrooms is from a Wisconsin furniture store renovation in 2002.

Neither of us have watched the YouTube series, and I knew very little about the Backrooms extended universe. I wanted to go into the film blind, although I knew a little bit of the plot and characters just from watching reviews. That said, here is a playlist of the original YouTube series:

Having seen the film, you don’t really need to watch the YouTube series to appreciate what the director is doing, and to get some hazy understanding of what the Backrooms are. However, be aware going into the film that you’re going to leave with more questions than answers, and that is the point.

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