Tag: reviews

Ponty’s Pen: Road Trips in the USA

The Portly Politico20 Comments

Every now and then we get something for Christmas that really sparks our imaginations, allowing them to run—or, in this case, drive—wildly to other lands.  For a young Portly, it was receiving a copy of Sid Meier’s Civilization II from my aunt one Christmas.  That game opened up vast new worlds and incredible historical “what-ifs,” and was partially responsible for my decision to study and teach history for a living.

For Ponty, it’s an annual copy of Fodor’s Best Road Trips in the USA.

Travel guides have always been one of my favorite genres, too.  Sure, travelogues are more engaging and adventurous, but travel guides let us learn about places without a great deal of authorial embellishment.  We get the basics about an area, and then can put ourselves immediately into those places, imagining visiting the great sites and destinations—or the backwater burgs and forgotten byways—of the world.

Ponty captures that spirit of adventure and fun in this touching, personal, and engaging little piece about his imaginary—and, let us hope, someday real!—travels around the United States.

With that, here’s Ponty with some reflections on Christmas and road trips:

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

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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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Lazy Sunday CLXXIX: More Movies XXXII: Portly’s Best Films, Part I

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This cold, wintry season always makes me want to bundle up with a hot pizza and a cool flick.  What better way to kick back after a long day of mind-molding than with a classic gem (or a B-flick schlock-o-rama) and piping hot pie, drizzled in olive oil and dripping with cheese.  Oooooh, baby….

Erhem—but I digress.  That got me thinking that it’s time to start going back through the best films lists that Ponty and I now halfway through compiling.  Since I started off the list, I figured I’d look back at my #10, #9, and #8 picks first, then jump over to Ponty’s next week.

With that, here are the first three from my list:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Myersvision: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

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Audre Myers is offering up an unusual-for-her pick in this week’s edition of Myersvision—a comedy horror flick!  Given the time of year, it’s even more unusual, but who says yuletide can’t become ghoultide? [I originally had this review scheduled for the week leading up to Christmas, but pushed it to January due to the various Christmas movie reviews Audre, Ponty, and I wrote in December.  I liked my “ghoultide” pun too much to revise it, and it is technically still the Christmas season through 6 January 2023, Epiphany (and Audre’s birthday!). —TPP]

Ponty picked Shaun of the Dead (2004) as his Number 9 Best Film, so it’s interesting to compare his review to Audre’s.  Ponty (and myself, I should add) loves this film; Audre’s take is altogether different.

I don’t want to spoil too much of her—let’s call it “scathing”—review, but I’m going to chalk up the difference of opinion to the generation and gender gaps.  While I have known plenty of women who enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, it definitely has more of a “guy” vibe to it.  I find Pegg and Wright’s antics hilarious, and am a big fan of their so-called Cornetto Trilogy, of which Shaun is the first installment.

I also think that the title character does show some growth and transformation, going from being little more than a shuffling zombie himself to rising to the occasion to help save his friends.  The duress of a zombie outbreak forces this loser to change his ways to protect himself and his loved ones, even if he makes mistakes and reverts to old habits along the way.

But I digress.  Audre offers up a good counterbalance to the fanboyish enthusiasm of Ponty and myself.

With that, here is Audre’s review of 2004’s Shaun of the Dead:

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Myersvision: Million Pound Menu

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Readers are getting a double dose of Myersvision this week, because had I stuck to the usual schedule of posting our dear Audre‘s pieces on Wednesdays, this plucky little review would have been left until midway through January 2023, and I can’t keep it from you (or Audre) that long.

Audre possesses a love for shows that require people performing at the height of their abilities in stressful situations, often with hard cash on the line.  This show sounds exactly like that, with an added twist:  the hopes and dreams of the would-be restauranteurs involved are also on the line.

Having money to invest is, surely, a wonderful thing, but it comes with the burden of investing it wisely.  We have all heard stories of friends or distant relations who made a good investment that reaped dividends in the long-run.  We’ve also heard the alternatives, where some poor cousin—usually hoping to get rich quick—has blown his savings on a buddy’s llama farm.

What makes this show sound particularly compelling is that the investors are not mega-wealthy, the types that can afford to lose a cool mill or two and not worry about their Ferrari getting repossessed.  These are people that we might call “country comfortable” that have some quid to toss around, but they can’t afford to see it all lost in a failed specialty grilled cheese restaurant in London.

Well, I’ve said too much, and prattled on too long—I think my introduction is now longer than Audre’s piece.  D’oh!

With that, here is Audre’s review of Million Pound Menu:

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Delayed Monday Morning Movie Review: A Very Portly Christmas: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

The Portly Politico4 Comments

My sincerest apologies again to readers:  I am extremely delayed with this review (as readers will note, this Monday review is going up on a Thursday—d’oh!).  Like a good little port, I re-watched 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life two or three weeks ago, when Audre, Ponty, and I agreed to review it and the 1951 Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol earlier in December.  I was writing and editing like the wind to get most everything done before departing for a pre-Christmas trip to Arizona (more on that in a separate post), but didn’t quite manage to get it all done.

As I’ll detail in another post, I spent the first quarter of Christmas Day driving from western Kentucky down through Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Augusta, before finally reaching my parents’ home in western South Carolina.  I’d managed to get posts done through Christmas, thanks to a delayed connecting flight in Minneapolis, but was unable to get much more writing done beyond that.  Christmas Eve saw me convoying to Kentucky from my older brother’s home in Indianapolis; I spent a frosty Christmas Eve with his in-laws on their farm, before setting out early Christmas morn along the route delineated above.

That’s all to say that, despite my chubbiest efforts, I was not able to get everything done.  Facing the prospect of writing this review late on Christmas night, I put it off, hoping I’d knock it out Monday evening—to no avail.

But I digress—enough excuses.  What about the film?

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Myersvision: A Very Portly Christmas: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

The Portly Politico44 Comments

We’re wrapping up our run of Christmas movie reviews with Audre.  Perhaps I’m saving the best for last; I imagine old Pontifex Maximus would agree.

Audre considers this film a treasure, one that is meant to be admired, not picked over, lest in the picking it lose its luster.  It’s an astute assessment from a very wise woman.

I won’t say more and let Audre do the talking.

With that, here is Audre’s review of 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life:

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Myersvision: A Very Portly Christmas: A Christmas Carol (1951)

The Portly Politico20 Comments

Now it’s Audre’s turn to dive into 1951’s A Christmas Carol.  She does so with her typical childlike wonder, coupled with her deep appreciation for the source material.  I can also relate to fifteen-year old Audre, spending a lazy, hot day reading a book that takes place in cold weather.

From the sounds of the review, it seems Audre might have watched the colorized version, which is on Amazon Prime as Scrooge, its title in England.  Amazon does have the film under its American title (A Christmas Carol) in black and white for you purists out there.  Unlike Audre, I—ever the cheapskate—did manage to find a free version on YouTube, though now I have to wonder if that’s a pirated version—d’oh!  Swashbuckling is cool, but intellectual property theft is not; that said, I imagine any royalties from this film are going to the ungrateful heirs of whoever produced it.  Still, let your conscience be your guide.

With that, here is Audre’s review of A Christmas Carol:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: A Very Portly Christmas: A Christmas Carol (1951)

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Now it’s yours portly’s turn to step up to the plate and take a swing at review a timeless Christmas classic, the 1951 adaptation of A Christmas Carol.  Ponty did the film a great service, and I must confess I read his review before viewing the film, which somehow—shamefully!—had slipped through my viewing until this point in my life.

Such is the peril of editing guest contributions:  I have to read them in order to write a pithy introduction and to get them scheduled.  As such, I’ve read Ponty’s review, which has already been published, and Audre‘s review, which will pop this Wednesday, 21 December 2022.  I’ve tried my best to stick to my own thoughts on the film, but Ponty’s review in particular really enhanced my viewing of the film.  He doesn’t spoil anything, but his analysis of some of the scenes is quite insightful.

A Christmas Carol has been on my mind a good bit lately.  Over Thanksgiving I reconnected with a college classmate from a Fiction Workshop class I took my senior year, herself a self-published author.  She has been brainstorming ideas with me about an alternate telling of A Christmas Carol involving Scrooge and restorative, romantic relationship—a God-centered romance that turns the acquisitive, miserly Scrooge into the generous, giddy soul we see at the end of the film.  I won’t reveal more, but it’s a fun project, and in line with her approach to writing.

All digressions aside, I must echo the sentiments of my contributors:  the 1951 version starring Alistair Sim as the sinister Scrooge is one of the most arresting bits of storytelling I’ve ever seen set to film.

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Delayed SubscribeStar Saturday Delivered!: Christmas Concert 2022 Review

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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.

I never got around to writing about the annual school Christmas Concert last Saturday, so subscribers are getting a double dose of SubscribeStar Saturday today.  Despite this past week being exam week—historically full of free time—I was quite busy with a number of things related to closing out a semester of school.  Some Town Council things came up, too, so it was a fairly productive week.

All excuses aside, I’m finally getting around to it.

The short version is as follows:  it was amazing.  The kids performed extremely well.  Some of them gave what I would consider to be career-best performances.  There’s something magical about the stress and excitement and anticipation that bring out the best in students.

It wasn’t without glitches, but those small bits aside, it was fantastic.

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