Good old Ponty sent along this awesome review before I headed out on my honeymoon, which saves me the creative effort of crafting a thoughtful review of some crappy movie after being unplugged for the past week.
Instead, you get this great review of an awesome movie. Anytime Italo Calvino is referenced in a movie review, you know it’s going to be good.
I’m sure I’ve seen The Usual Suspects—or I thought I was sure until I read Ponty’s review. Now… I’m not so sure. Based on his review, I’ll have to head his advice to see it posthaste. Perhaps Dr. Wife and I can enjoy it over Christmas. I’m still planning on showing her Gremlins (1984).
Just a note—several of the links in this review are Amazon Affiliate links. I receive a portion of any purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you. I’ve marked these links with an asterisk (*).
In my never-ending quest for lo-fi, low-effort YouTube (and blog) content, I make the most of whatever limited assets and time I have to churn out highly-compressed but—I hope—charming content for the masses.
Such is the case with today’s post. I made this video with just one picture I took with my iPhone SE’s camera (mainly to show Dr. Fiancée that I was playing as Blackbeard the Pirate in Civilization VII). I recorded the voiceover with the Voice Memo app on my phone, and used iMovie (again, on my phone) to put in the picture (three times) against the voice message.
Apparently, when I send the finished video file to Telegram, it deeply compresses the video quality (although I think it does the same if I save the video to my phone and upload it to YouTube from there). The most it can muster is 360p, which might as well be a VHS recording that I’ve sloppily converted to a digital format.
Whatever the case, the video was a fun experiment. I hope you agree!
Lately yours portly has been losing weight (I’m down about thirty-one pounds since July 2025), so I’ll often search for calorie counts for unusual food items to make sure I’m not going to blow my entire caloric budget for the day with one ill-considered snack. That has sent me down some gut-bustingly hilarious rabbit holes, where I will ask Google’s Gemini AI insane questions like, “how many calories would be in a four-pound baked potato, into which I cut canals and holes to increase fat absorption, and which I soaked overnight in pure goose fat; then, I bore holes into either end and insert luscious Italian sausage in the middle of the potato, after which I wrap it in thick-cut bacon and deep-fry it in beef tallow?”
The AI then usually scolds me for how unhealthy consuming such a sumptuous, greasy feast would be, at which point I try to double-down on the absudity.
Clearly, yours portly has an odd (and probably unhealthy, given my medical history) relationship with food. That strange obsession has manifested itself on my YouTube page.
Don’t worry, dear readers: I’m not a “lolcow,” consuming vast quantities of food for the sick and twisted pleasure of a hate-watching audience. I just like to do what every mother warns against: I play with my food.
Today’s videos are examples of that tendency to elevate food into absurdist humor:
In lieu of my usual Monday Morning Movie Review, I wanted to do something a bit different: what are some of your favorite films to watch during the month of December, in the build-up to Christmas?
I’m thinking of doing the Christmas equivalent of the 31 Days of Halloween series, but probably not for all thirty-one days of December. That said, there are some great Christmas movies out there that would be fun to give the 31 Days treatment.
For those that missed that series, here is the idea: these videos will also be super lo-fi, as a.) I believe in the lo-fi ethic and, more honestly, b.) my video editing skills and capabilities are virtually non-existent. We’re talking one take with minimal in-camera editing—and that’s it. No fancy cutaways to clips from the movies; no wacky angles; no green screens placing me in a haunted castle. At most I’ll hold up a DVD of the flicks if I have one.
My only caveats: no Polar Express (2004) and no Elf (2003). Even I have standards!
Let me know your picks in the comments below, or through the contact form on this site.
Halloween is a week past, but I still have some episodes of 31 Days of Halloween to share! By now, most interested readers have sought these final videos out on their own, but in case you missed any of the later episodes, I wanted to share them today.
On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
Day 23: Nosferatu (1922)
Day 23 is the 1922 German Expressionist silent film classic Nosferatu.
Yours portly has had very little time for watching flicks lately, but I managed to squeeze in the 1988 remake of The Blob. It and the 1958 original are both films I’ve known about my entire life, but I have never seen either of the flicks. I think an episode of Muppet Babies featured clips of the titular creature from the 1988 film, so I had a good image of the pink, oozing goo from my early childhood, but otherwise all I knew about either films was that they involved a gelatinous, amorphous entity absorbing people lethally.
Ponty delivers up some great posts this week, giving yours portly a bit of a break during a particularly busy season. He worked overtime (complete with overtime pay—zero times 1.5 is still zero!) to get this fun review to me in time to run in the vaunted Monday Morning Movie Review slot.
I remember seeing today’s film around the time it came out, when I was in high school (or possibly a few years later, in college; the early 2000s are a distant, warm blur to me now), and it made me really think about death, the way one does when at a funeral. I still think about this flick every time I board a flight, especially in those first few moments after takeoff. I breathe a tiny sigh of relief once the plane has finished its ascent.
I’ll let Ponty explain the rest. With that, here is Ponty’s review of Final Destination(2000):
On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the several days of reviews. If you want to catchup on Days 10-16, check out last week’s YouTube Roundup.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the several days of reviews. If you want to catchup on Days 1-9, check out last week’s YouTube Roundup.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
Ponty is back with another great movie review, this week featuring the claustrophobic thriller of 2005’s The Descent. The film explores the tension of being trapped in the dark with something sinister and lethal—a core human fear.
When I was a kid, we took a big trip to the mountains to visit my great-grandmother in the mountains of western Virginia. On that trip we visited Mammoth Cave, a large cave system in Kentucky, and I believe Bat Cave in North Carolina as well (I could very well be conflating multiple trips into one in my mind). At one point on a guided tour of the caves, deep underground (we took an elevator to descend into the chamber), the tour guide turned off the lights in the cavern. The darkness was so total, so complete, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I think I instinctively moved closer to my family so I at least had some sense of security.
That experience very much captures, albeit in a very safe, tame, and controlled manner, what this flick feels like to watch. We take it for granted that, even in the dead of night, there’s usually some source of light: the moon, a cellphone, an alarm clock, the soft green of a charger indicating it’s doing its job. Total blackness—complete darkness—is something truly unsettling.
Ponder that as you enjoy Ponty’s review of The Descent (2005):
