Lazy Sunday CXCIX: Ponty and Portly’s #1 Picks

Between Easter and Spring Break Short Story Recommendations 2023, I never got around to writing a retrospective of the #1 films from the Top Ten Best Film lists Ponty and I put together.

Well, in case you missed them, here they are now:  the “best” films of all time:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Birthday to my mom!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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Lazy Sunday CXCVI: Hono[u]rable Mentions

The long countdown of mine and Ponty’s favorite films ends tomorrow with Ponty’s #1 pick.  What will it be?  Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993)?  Porky’s (1981)?  That video he and Tina made that no one else is supposed to know about?  In twenty-four short hours, we’ll know all.

In the meantime, here are our respective hono[u]rable mentions lists.  I did mine in one succinct, efficient package; Ponty spread his over three massive posts, full of lovingly rendered detail and pathos:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #1: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

As far as I can tell, the very first installment of Monday Morning Movie Review—simply “Monday Movie Review” back then—was a review of The Empire Strikes Back (1980).  I wrote it on 28 September 2020, which seems like just a few days ago.  Pretty crazy to think it’s been almost three years since this blog started running movie reviews on Mondays.

Indeed, in the interest of saving time (today is my school’s big Spring Concert, and I’m chaperoning a trip to Washington, D.C., later in the week, so time is at a premium), I’m quoting extensively from that original review.  Work smarter, not harder, eh?

Growing up as a chubby kid in the 1990s, I was a huge Star Wars fan.  That was long before the new trilogy retconned/soft-rebooted everything and destroyed the legacy of classic Star Wars, and even before the prequels made the flicks even more cartoonishly ridiculous.  I’m not even a huge critic of the prequels—they were never going to live up to the perfection of the original trilogy—and I enjoyed some of the fun world-building and thorny trade blockades of Phantom Menace (1999; although that’s all a bit too technocratic for a space opera).  But the magic of the original trilogy is more than the sum of its parts, and it’s based on rich storytelling and exceptionally strong character development, with nearly every major character growing and evolving over the course of the three films.

So it is that I would argue that The Empire Strikes Back is not just the best Star Wars film, but the best film of all time.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: Honorable Mentions

Before revealing our #1 picks on our respective lists, Ponty and I are offering some honorable mentions.  These are films that, for various reasons, did not make our lists, but could have done so.

I think Ponty largely had his list worked out in advance, with tweaks and revisions along the way.  My approach was far less organized, and other than a few specific films and their slots, I largely came up with my picks week-to-week.  I stand by all of them, but I’d probably have put Krull (1983) in this honorable mentions post, if it showed up at all.  I really like the movie, but there are far better contenders out there.

Inevitably, I simply forgot about films that I sincerely love, but whose existences bafflingly slipped my mind.  I can only chalk it up to my own laziness and a lack of forethought and planning.

Of course, that is the peril of list-making of this sort:  I imagine if Ponty and I made these lists ten different times, we’d come up with wildly different selections and orders each time—at least, I think I would.  Sure, The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986) would still be on the lists, as would some others, but who knows what might be floating through my mind a second, third, fourth, or tenth time around?

Have no fear, though—if the long list-making has been wearying t o you, Ponty and I have no plans to do more for awhile.  He’s hoping to spend some time working on his novel, and there are tons of movies—good, bad, and trashy—that I’ve been sitting on for several months now, and I’m eager to get back to reviewing whatever random garbage I consumed that week.

Perhaps one day we’ll take another stab at it—or maybe Audre Myers will grace us with her Top Ten picks.

But enough of my endless yammering and boring speculations.  On to the movies!

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Lazy Sunday CXC: Portly’s Best Films, Part III

Our lists of the best films are nearly done!  It’s a project months in the making, and Ponty and I both have honorable mention posts to get through before revealing our #1 picks, but we’re tantalizing close!  Indeed, Ponty has promised (or threatened, depending on one’s perspective) two or even three honorable mention posts, so we could be at this list-making business for another month or so.  Gulp!

Regardless, I’ve finished my list through my #2 pick, so here are my higher-ups, filling in slots 4, 3, and 2:

#1 picks are coming soon… ish.  Stay tuned!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #2: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

My Number 2 pick is going to come as a surprise to Ponty, at the very least; it’s certainly a bit of a surprise to me.  It’s not because I don’t love this film—indeed, it may be my favorite film of all time—but because it’s not firmly at Number 1.

My original intent was to place John Carpenter‘s lightning-in-a-bottle classic Big Trouble in Little China (1996) in the top spot, but I realized there is a film that is objectively better (probably many such films exist, but the one I have in mind is, perhaps, the greatest film ever made, and not just because a chubby Internet personality says so).

I’m also thankful that we’ll be both be posting “Hono[u]rable Mention” (HM) pieces before we reveal our Number 1s.  I am realizing that I missed quite a few classics—Ghostbusters (1984) and Blade Runner (1982), for example—and I am increasingly regretting placing Krull (1983) on the list, even at Number 7.  I think it’s a great movie, but in hindsight, it should have been an HM pick.

But enough whinging.  There’ll be plenty of time for that on the HM post.  What about the second greatest film of all time?

Well, as that gigantic balloon reminded us, “China is here, Mr. Burton.”

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #3: The Thing (1982)

As we get into the final three of our picks, I find myself thankful that Ponty and I are doing an “Hono[u]rable Mentions” post, because this point is where it gets hard.  How do you pick the best three films?  Ten is hard enough, but there’s some margin for error.

That said, I know my #2 and #1 picks.  But #3 was giving me a time, until Ponty mentioned this film in one of his comments.

John Carpenter is my favorite director, up there with Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, and similar directors.  These are the guys that have a distinct style, even when making films in vastly different genres.  That uniqueness of directorial tone seems to be fading in Hollywood, in favor of homogenized, corporatized sameness.  That’s not an entirely fair assessment, but I have a sense that the phenomenon of the “director-as-artist” is fading.

What sets Carpenter apart for me is not just his uniqueness; his movies are fun.  They’re not dumb fun, either (for the most part)—his shots are deliberate, and make sense for whatever scene he is shooting.  He is a strong visual storyteller, in addition to being a great composer and musician.  There’s a reason his films will appear twice in my top three.

This picture is arguably his best, but for personal and sentimental reasons I’m putting another of his films higher.  That said, Carpenter’s 1982 remake of The Thing is a masterpiece of tension, horror, and suspense.

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Lazy Sunday CLXXXI: More Movies XXXIV: Portly’s Best Films, Part II

The countdown-cum-retrospective continues with my #7-#5 picks for the best films of all time.  I’m very satisfied with my picks for #6 and #5, although I think I would reconsider #7 and add it to my honorable mentions list.  I do think Krull (1983) is a fun film, but putting it among the best films is, perhaps, giving it too much credit.

Happy Sunday—and Happy Viewing!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #4: The Cable Guy (1996)

The 1990s were the golden age of comedy films, churning out one classic, genre-defining masterpiece after another.  It was also the moment of Jim Carrey’s rise to comedy superstardom.

For a kid in the 1990s, Jim Carrey was a demigod.  His films were hilarious, cartoonish, madcap, irreverent, ribald, raunchy—and all must-sees.  Jim Carrey could do no wrong.

Then, in 1996—when yours portly was at the ripe old age of eleven—Jim Carrey made his first career misstep with The Cable Guy.  It still had all the great Carrey-esque antics we’d come to love, but the film’s dark comedy threw audiences and critics alike a curveball, and they weren’t quite sure what to make of it.  The flick was panned at the time, and the consensus is that it was a potential career-killer for Carrey.  Even The Simpsons decried the film as the one that “nearly ruined Jim Carrey’s career”:

But as is often the case—like with wearing masks in elementary schools and forcing toddlers to take experimental gene therapy injections—the general consensus was deadly wrong.  The Cable Guy (1996) was the best film of Jim Carrey’s 1990s output, and it’s my pick for my #4 best film.

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